Wife hit a deer yesterday with her 2008 Prius causing a lot of damage, radiator pushed into engine. Wife okay, insurance adjuster/body shop trying to determine if repairable. The heads up: the impact of the deer caused the brake lines to pinch and the brake controller became disabled leaving her with no brakes (she didn't think to try the emergency brake). She rolled a very long distance before coming to a stop. Had she been on a steep hill, unless she had remembered to hit the emergency brake, she'd had another crash landing. Just something to think about.
The result would have been no different if a brake line would have been damaged in a conventional vehicle.
Nothing Prius-specific about this. In fact, she had the advantage of not losing steering. Steering is necessary to stay on the road; if the road curves, brakes may not keep you out of the trees. Being able to steer gives one the time to think of using the parking brake to stop. On a conventional car, a ruptured power-steering cooler (bottom of the radiator) would cause immediate loss of power assist. You can steer, but it's so difficult as to be almost impossible. With the Prius' electric power-steering, this didn't happen to her.
anyone have a diagram handy for this one? maybe we should check on the connection method of the braking system. maybe a metal panel in front or on top of the braking assembly is needed to keep cars safe on rural roads. have you ever thought about a strut tower brace? i assume tubular steel can take quite a load before it brakes. (kinda like a bumper) *shrug*
The strut tower brace mounts above and mostly behind the ICE-HSD equipment. It is unlikely that it would protect anything in the engine bay in a head-on accident. There has been discussion on other threads with no clear concensus whether the strut adds any rigidity to the body that would add some protection to occupants.
The strut tower brace -CAN'T- interfere with collision energy. It would be illegal if it did (unless the maker tested it re govt. standards and could show it -improved- the situation). I haven't seen any documentation that requires all systems to function during a collision - only the passenger protection devices must, such as the seatbelts and airbags as well as the energy absorbing crushing. This -is- required in aircraft systems. For example, on landing in heavy rain the brakes must not fail (they did in the first iteration of the A380 - the water destroyed the piping on the front of the landing gear). Now THAT'S a worrisome result - a several hundred tonne aircraft traveling at 100 + MPH with no brakes. If you wanted to add protection in the instance of this topic you'd have to be very careful it didn't cause other problems, such as raise the energy transferred to the cabin occupants. I think a little more "driver training" (use the e-brake if the brakes fail) is the easy and least expensive way to go. It's hard to think straight during an accident though.
:cheer2:Kyak99, Thanks for the heads up. Glad to hear your wife is ok!!!! This is a good reminder to remember the emergency brake, NO MATTER WHAT CAR YOUR DRIVING, I don't think the OP was trying to slam the Prius just provide some good info. Lately it seems people here are jumping on everybody's backs, maybe the specter of the upcoming winter is making people cranky
First of all, I hope your wife is doing ok after the incident. I've had some close encounters with deer, but I am not looking forward to hit them on my Prius and especially while riding my motorcycle. Any mechanical damage could happen on the Prius, since it is a small car and it does not have a lot of protection on the front end in case of a crash. As mentioned earlier, a quick response on the emergency brake would be the next best alternative assuming that the rear end is still intact. I've always practiced in my mind how I would respond in case there is an accident and lost my brakes. Almost always, everything happens in a matter of seconds.
Thanks for the info, glad to hear that your wife was not injured in the accident. The service brake components are mounted to the firewall, so if one or more of those components were damaged my guess is that the force of the impact caused the engine to move backwards and hit the firewall. Sounds like the car will be "totalled" in that event. Along with using the parking brake which has relatively low braking power (try it when you are moving at 50 mph with no one behind you, and see how hard you have to press on the parking brake pedal before any noticeable braking happens), another way to slow down the car is to shift into B.
I wasn't bashing anything so please don't change my heads up into anything other than what it is. Just sharing an experience in case anyone else runs into the same issue. It appears the car will be totaled and according to the agent we may be notified today. The body shop estimated the repairs at $19,700. That in and of itself is amazing because the damage was only in the front end and did not look that severe. (I could post pics later if I knew how). Nothing behind the hood showed any damage but apparently the damage to the electronics is what raised the value. Not even a windshield crack. The "cage" itself held up well and that's a major plus with this car. We'll be out this weekend looking for another new Prius. P.S. Learned another thing about the Prius (and probably many other cars). Since the deer hit the hood and bounced off, not causing a drop in speed of 20 mph or more, the airbags did not deploy. Apparently one must have a more immediate drop in speed for them to deploy. Good thing I think because traveling (roughly 1/20th of a mile) with an airbag in ones face cannot be a plus!
Thanks for the update. If you select "Go Advanced" in the Quick Reply box, then you will see an option to attach files to your message. I am interested in seeing photos of the damage. The SRS front sensors are in the front bumper so if the deer did not hit the bumper sufficiently to significantly deform the bumper, the sensors would not trigger.
when my friends' scion got sideswiped, i spoke to the adjuster/inspector about my prius......he basically just said, great car, just do NOT take a hit to front. we will total these cars if there are too much damage.
You need an impact much more severe than hitting a deer to trigger the airbags - a moose will do it. The airbag would have deflated long before you covered 1/20th of a mile. Even so having one of those go off in your face is a distressing experience on it's own and would not help when trying to control a damaged vehicle. It's surprising how costly what appears to be a small amount of damage can cost. Most jurisdictions have a dollar amount of damage above which you should call the police to the scene of an accident. I think these days that probably includes almost any non-trivial accident.
Umm..on a conventional car the bottom of the radiator is for automatic transmission cooling. Trans fluid is pumped into that reservoir. Have never seen a car with a power steering fluid cooler because that fluid just does not get that hot.
Doh. My mistake; you're right, it's the trans cooler. As for the damage estimate, I presume that has to include all the mechanical components, not just body components.
That sir is not a conventional car. Its a beast with leather seats. I kneel in the long shadow of its excellence..... I miss my Vette.
My 1976 MS85 Toyota Crown Super Saloon also had a power steering fluid cooler. I guess it was the strain of coping with 2.6 litres of turbine smooth power. I have seen some pretty bashed up Prius reported on Prius Chat and I don't recall any of them being written off due to the damage. As the Prius is a pretty expensive car to buy the amount of damage needs to be significant before an assessor will write it off. As cars get older they are written off more easily due to falling values. Because Prius is very reliable salvage values are relatively low too, that means even more damage required before write off. You can pick up a Prius engine for $500 which is very cheap.
