My wife blew up my car...

Nathans_Dad · Nathans_Dad's Garage

My wife took our 99 Accord today on a 3 hour trip to a weekend with the girls. She calls me an hour after leaving in tears and says she is stuck on the side of the road. She says that she had a "blowout". So I pile the kids in the Tahoe and proceed to rescue her. We get there about 45 minutes later and holy *****...

The tire completely shredded, blew the front bumper loose, it was hanging at a 45 degree angle, also did significant body damage to the driver's front fender and blew off the wheelwell skirt and the mud guard. I also noticed some electrical issues on the way home, the right turn signal doesn't work, neither do the hazards. Also the dashboard lights are out. Must have cut a wire when the tire blew or something. We put the spare on and drove it back to San Antonio, I stopped by an NTB on the way home and got a new tire put on, luckily the rim was ok.

Now I gotta figure out if I should fix it with my insurance or just sell the thing as is. We've been planning to sell it in about 9 months anyhow. Wonder how much Carmax will give me for it? Pics below:

The bumper with my Macgyver duct tape job to get it home:

Views of the fender damage:

The culprit:

The wife is a bit shaken but unharmed, thank God. How much will this cost me to fix??

competentone · 06:03 PM

She was probably driving on an improperly inflated tire -- which subsequently caused the blowout.

Now exactly who in your relationship is responsible for assuring things are properly inflated?

Glad to hear no one was hurt. If she had panicked and slammed on the brakes, you might not be posting here, but would instead be keeping a vigil in a hospital room.

bryanthompson · bryanthompson's Garage

same thing happened to my girlfriend's grand am last week. We were on the interstate and all of a sudden, the back end got loose and there was a sickening rumbling noise. She (being the smart girl she is) didn't panic, just gently put the brakes on and got over to the side. I wish I had taken some pics... the tire was totally shredded and the tread was wrapped around the spindle. 15 minutes later, I had the tire changed & we were off the interstate. Scary as hell.

competentone · 08-25-2006, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bryanthompson
same thing happened to my girlfriend's grand am last week.

'Tis the season -- the hottest month of the year for most of North America, makes it the most common time for blowouts.

Nathans_Dad · Nathans_Dad's Garage

Actually I checked the tires last week. All were 36 psi as per the specs thank you very much

Porsche-O-Phile · Porsche-O-Phile's Garage

"You see honey, if it had been a quality, German-engineered vehicle, the tire failure would have been better contained and not caused any supplemental damage. It likely would have been a lot easier to control as well due to enhanced handling characteristics and proper balance and weight distribution. How about we all have a nice dinner tonight and relax and be thankful nothing ended up worse, and tomorrow we go down to our local car dealership to look at vehicles that will keep our family safer. . . "

Or something like that.

Glad everyone's okay, but there's a golden opportunity here.

Nathans_Dad · Nathans_Dad's Garage

No joke...I've already got her looking at an 01 Boxster S with 31k miles on it near here for $26,000 asking price. Seems like a decent deal to me.

911boost · 911boost's Garage

We had a 95 Accord that sustained some minor front end damage (not that much worse than yours) and the electrical got SERIOUSLY jacked up.

I consider myself somewhat handy, but man, it was totally confusing me, take in to get fixed, don't try yourself.

Bill

dtw · 08-25-2006, 08:30 PM

My wife has done untold damage to our cars. Don't want to razz her too bad while she's not here to defend herself, but she's done more than her fair share. On the flipside, she lets me spend $!@,#$% restoring my 911. All is forgiven!

So does she primarily drive that car? Does she check her tire pressure? Aside from all the scuffed bumpers and surfed alloys that seem to occur while my wife is driving, what really scares me is her utter failure to check her tire pressure. I try to check it regularly, but I'm afraid something's going to get by me one day while she and my daughter are in the car.

stevepaa · 08-25-2006, 08:40 PM

Rick, I'm glad she is okay. That is really the only thing that matters.

Fix the car and sell it.

dtw · 08-25-2006, 08:44 PM

PS, Glad everyone's OK.

Bill Douglas · 08-25-2006, 11:57 PM

Could have been worse, she could have been driving a Ford Explorer.

livi · 08-26-2006, 02:10 AM

Thats real bad ! Glad no one was hurt physically.

Whats the typical cause for a blowout tire ? Does it have to be worn down much or can it happen with a new tire as well ?

Scary !!

Big Ed · 08-26-2006, 03:53 AM

Glad she's OK.

I would think that you would be much better off fixing that mess before you try and sell it.

Nathans_Dad · Nathans_Dad's Garage

I'm gonna take it over to CarMax today and see what they say. I think my deductible on the insurance is $500, so if they quote me more than $500 less than what it would be worth fixed then I will fix it and then decide what to do.

I don't think she will be wanting to drive that car very much from here on out though, lol.

Livi: The tire that blew had about 54,000 miles on it. The tread was good and there were no worn spots (I check the tires each time I wash the car). The guy at NTB said that she probably hit a nail or something that punctured the tire and caused a rapid deflation. I guess when that happens at high speed the tire begins to distort on the wheel and can just shred like that. My wife swears she doesn't remember hitting anything, but it could have been something small. Who knows, at least she's ok. I told her I was pretty impressed that she got the car over to the side without incident considering that her tire shredded at 70 mph...

livi · 08-26-2006, 05:04 AM

Very well composed under pressure, your wife.

I guess, its like the 'old' guys preach - before us young guns set out to spend our money on other fancy performance upgrades - be sure to have good tires. Four small patches of rubber between you and that hard concrete.

Rikao4 · 08-26-2006, 06:25 AM

Agree with Livi, she did well in handling the incident..give her kudos for that,
all to often it's starts out like this, the driver panics ..and bingo. She did real good.
Rika

Nathans_Dad · Nathans_Dad's Garage

Well, I'm shocked. Carmax offered me $4000 for it as is. The KBB on the car in "good" condition (i.e. damage fixed) is $4950. My deductible is $500 with my insurance so if I fixed it, I might make $300-400 on the trade in value. To me, I don't think $400 is worth the hassle of having it in a body shop for 2 weeks, getting a loaner or rental car, etc. Plus, I'm not sure if it would affect my insurance rates or not.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion I should sell the car to Carmax and get something else.

I'm gonna start another thread on new (used) car advice.

scottmandue · 08-26-2006, 09:00 AM

Thank God she is okay Rick.... and she did a good job of driving, many times this sort of thing ends up with the car upside down

I know it was probably road debris that caused the failure but what brand of tire were you running?

Nathans_Dad · Nathans_Dad's Garage

Tires were Sumitomos which I bought from NTB about 4 years ago. They had them on sale at the time and the salesman said they were just as good as goodyear or michelin, etc. Out of the 4 tires, one was replaced a year ago due to a persistent leak they couldn't patch and another one met its demise yesterday. I think I'll stick with the higher dollar tires from now on...