So how can you total your Prime without actually damaging any body panels? Simple, hit a 6 inch high piece of iron at 60 MPH. Driving on a freeway in Northern California yesterday, and I'm merging to the right to get onto a freeway off ramp. I look over my shoulder to my right as usual, then look back and see what looks like a triangle of something grey sitting in between lanes and my Prime is lined right up with it. It's about 30 feet away at 60 MPH, so I have about 2 seconds or less to make a decision. Basically, do I swerve to try to avoid it at 60 MPH or not? If I don't clear it, I will take out my front tire at 60 while attempting an emergency avoidance maneuver. Best case scenario I break my front axle and the car comes to a halt. Worse case scenario, I hit the iron, blow out my tire and axle and flip the car at 60 MPH because of the swerving maneuver that I will be attempting. Seeing as I had both my niece and nephew in the car, I kept it straight and prayed it was just a piece of packing foam. This hope was dashed when the car lifted about 4 inches up in the air and slammed down on the suspension. Interestingly enough, I did not see any engine codes get thrown immediately. I switched to EV because I had a sinking feeling I at least took out my oil pan. About 30 seconds later I got an "Oil level low message" and 30 seconds after that I saw a "Hybrid system stopped" error. Fortunately I was able to drive off the freeway on EV and get to a parking lot. I left a long trail of oil from the street through the lot. When I looked under the car, I could see that the oil pan was ruptured and a load of damage from front to back. No visible body panel damage interestingly enough, although my hood was pushed up because the entire motor was shoved upwards by the piece of iron. Long story short, I used Toyota Care to have the car towed to a Toyota dealer then contacted my insurance. Just got a starter quote from Toyota saying that their minimum estimate will be about $16k just from what they see. Basically to replace the bottom oil pan and also possibly the pan above it, also to fix damage to the sub frame, a hole in the floor pan and damage to the main electrical connection from the battery to the engine (and probably a lot of other stuff, but that was the highlights). Probably need to have the engine mounts replaced and possibly the suspension, but that would be extra. If the engine suffered any damage, you would probably add another $10k onto the $16k. Oh, and that does not include any additional bodywork that may need to be done because the hood got pushed up by the engine. I'm thinking if they try to repair the vehicle, it's gonna be real iffy for me to trust it again. Hoping they total it as the estimate from Toyota is more of an open-ended one that can only go up as they discover other damage. Anyone know the threshold for the car to be written off as a total loss? I've been hearing 50% of the car's value. I'm going to probably be closer to 75-80% of the car's value most likely.
Just some math nits, to get folks more realistically calibrated on distance and time: At 60 mph, 30 feet is nowhere near 2 seconds. It is barely 1/3rd of a second, not enough for both a deliberate (non-reflex) decision and a maneuver. At that speed, 2 seconds is 176 feet, a bit far to adequately identify some road debris. Glad no one got hurt. At least the many many undamaged parts should provide some very significant salvage parts value.
Thanks @fuzzy1 Yeah I can't argue with that.I kept rethinking the whole incident and probably managed to convince myself that I could have avoided it in some kind of Matrix-like sequence.Very bummed tbh.
Very sorry to hear about your accident, but glad you and your niece and nephew are all OK. Just curious, did you ever find out what was exactly the 6 inch piece of iron and who dropped it?
Wowsers!! I wish there was some way to trace the origins of stuff like that. Glad you're all OK and managed to keep the runner side down and not involve other vehicles in the adventure. My guess is that they will total it. They'll have to disassemble almost the whole car.
Different states have different laws that mandate when cars are totaled. I don't know what Cali is. (some it's 50%, some it's if it exceeds replacement cost, some have weird formulas). Glad you're all right. That could have been much, much worse, especially if it had hit just inside of the wheels and taken out the tie-rods. You'd have rolled over for sure. PS: I knew someone with similar damage... he was driving in Europe (nice new Mercedes rental car). He was following someone and didn't realize the person went into a restricted area. The person stopped to tell him not to follow him, but at that point the person I knew as stopped over a rising berm... the berm started rising, up and up and up... Front of the car ended up a good 4' off the ground with the engine balancing on the Berm. Needless to say it didn't run much after they got the berm dropped off. It was a good thing they took out the damage waiver on the rental!
In my case, my front side was damaged and all air bags were deployed. Insurance adjuster estimated a repair of $35000, so it was obvious. Insurance estimated that my prime advanced with 10k miles was worth $29000. I think you will get a total loss, because it will cost more to repair it at Toyota's approved facility.
No idea, unfortunately. Thinking about trying to make a claim with state highways division. I've never seen such a large object sitting on a freeway outside the time I avoided someone's spare tire with my Camry. That would have been expensive. The guy behind me was not as lucky. It was a spare tire with a steel rim btw.
BTW, does anyone know if insurance covers things like the $3k extended warranty I paid for my Prime? Also, things like tinting, etc.
I don't do as much highway driving as I use to, but just last weekend, when I was driving I93 outside of Boston, I saw a spare tire with a steel rim on the side of road. I don't know someone put it there, or it came off from a car and ended up there. If that was on the middle of lane, it could have caused a major accident.
The extended warranty could be refunded through Toyota. When we traded in our 2012 we got a partial refund of the extended warranty. Would be worth a call. iPad ?
So sorry you had to endure all that. Please keep us posted as this journey continues. Hope you get a brand new PRIME out of this.
Thanks @huskers . Still waiting to hear back from the adjuster but the Toyota mechanic I spoke to said that car was so messed up he personally wouldn't trust it even if all the repairs were done.
Sorry to hear op. Glad no one was injured. You can try using Waze to learn of future objects in the rise. It’s saved my vehicles for sure.
Wow that’s unfortunate. I know that it’s all user generated data but to me it’s better than going alone. Hope you can get another prime
You would be surprised. If you have most if not all of your airbags deploy. Your insurance will total out your car. I saw a brand new Subaru with at least 8 airbags deployed with moderate body damage after an accident. Tough loss for your Prime but the job of a vehicle is to get you from point A to point B. The prime objective is to keep you alive should your journey on the road go sideways.
This is one reason why I hate pickup trucks. I can almost guarantee it flew off the back of someone's junky pickup. Just because you can load it up with crap, doesn't mean you know how. I've had to swerve to avoid a ladder that flew out of the bed of a pickup over the top of the car infront of me (barely) then pogo stick landed right where my passenger seat would have been without the nice wide shoulder. Always something stupid in the road and you know where it comes from. Last month a whole wheel barrel was sitting in the fast lane (80mph+), dead centre.