Well, I've just had the car 3 months and someone rear-ended me on the way home tonight. I'm so sick.

They hit the driver side rear panel and wheel. Damaged the wheel and flattened the tire, messed up the paint on the rear quarter panel. It was dark so I don't know if any other damage was done. I guess I'll find out tomorrow when the body shop people take a look at it.

Good news - I'm OK and it wasn't my fault.

Bad news - Mazda Roadside Assistance was of no help. They don't help you if you were in an accident, only breakdowns. I guess I should've known that, but didn't. The police called a tow truck.

Currently, I'm waiting for a ride home while my baby is towed away..... :(

sorry man

many accidents to the rx8 have been people hitting the back

Now I'm nervous

I'm sure it will work out for you

Thanks Mike.

The accident was caused by everyone slamming on their brakes suddenly just before an exit onto the interstate. The 8 has awesome brakes. I stopped with no problem. Wish all cars on the road had brakes like the RX-8.

Originally posted by loco4rx8
Thanks Mike.

Wish all cars on the road had brakes like the RX-8.

totally,
good luck
and keep us posted

Man, hearing this way too often....it stinks and I am worried about getting dinks in the car!!! Good luck with the reapirs...speedy recovery!

Originally posted by loco4rx8
Currently, I'm waiting for a ride home while my baby is towed away..... :(

:eek: wow, i'm glad that you're fine, and that the extent of damage to the car wasn't insanely irreparable, but how the heck are you posting on the internet when you're standing on an onramp somewhere?? ...i know i'm ignorant next to techie-neophiles, but just fill me in. :)

Originally posted by wakeech
:eek: wow, i'm glad that you're fine, and that the extent of damage to the car wasn't insanely irreparable, but how the heck are you posting on the internet when you're standing on an onramp somewhere?? ...i know i'm ignorant next to techie-neophiles, but just fill me in. :)


Yeah, it's that new wireless Internet body suit I'm wearing. Haven't you heard of it? I guess they don't have those in Canada yet. LOL!

The tow truck guy gave me a ride to my office before he dropped the car off at the body shop.

Sorry loco! :(

Go hard on the repairs, loan car, cost of imposition and other out of pockets, tow, etc.

Damaging an 8 should be a criminal case!

Kev.

so is the retard that hit ur baby gonna pay for all of the damage or wat? some people are just so dumb, makes u wanna hit them

Remember......When the INS co cuts you a check. Make sure you order your new wheel from Trussville. The quote for a new wheel locally will be much more. Put a couple bucks in your pocket...;)

Thanks for being so cool, folks. And for the advice. I'll let you know how it turns out as far as damage goes.

And, yes, someone else is paying for the damage. Actually, the person behind me was hit by the person behind them, which then pushed her into me. So, the person in the very back has to pay for two cars' damage, plus her own....

chain reaction. well you weren't hurt unless you get a stiff neck tomorrow ;) glad your ok. i'd be sick too. your car can be fixed so don't worry too much. i've been hit on the driver side and wasnt wearing my seat belt and got 6 stitches for my stupidity but the person that hit me ran a stop sign. i also hit a deer at 3AM in an MR2 going 60 (slammed the brakes on) and lived to tell about it. so i know it sucks but at least your ok and the other people involved. take care.

Sorry to hear about your accident. Why won't the roadside assitance help you? Is that just mazda? On my old car when i got into an accident the roadside assistance comes. I thought all these car manufacturers use the same roadside assistance.

Originally posted by meeh
Sorry to hear about your accident. Why won't the roadside assitance help you? Is that just mazda? On my old car when i got into an accident the roadside assistance comes. I thought all these car manufacturers use the same roadside assistance.

Thanks.

I don't know if it's just Mazda or not, but they refused to come out. They specifically stated that they only come out in case of a breakdown or flat tire, NOT if there's been an accident.


By the way, I know a lot of people have been dissing the tire pressure monitoring system, but it came in handy last night.

It was dark, and I didn't closely inspect the rear wheel/tire. I was only looking for damage to the body of the car. So, I thought I was going to be able to drive the car away. Then, when I got in and started it up, the TPMS was beeping and the light came on. If not for that, I would've driven the car a 1/2 mile down the road and then had to pull over and get help all over again.

And these tires are hard as a rock. The police officer directed me to back up to the wrecker and the car actually felt fairly normal at such low speeds, even with a busted wheel and flattened tire.

F$%^*(&%(%^*) igonorant people on the road, they all just need to be shot on sight.

This has almost happened to me several times.

Just some advice (might not have helped).
When I see people braking hard in front of me. First I start braking, then once I am sure that I can stop in time and am in control (pretty quick to determine in the RX with the great brakes), I check the guys behind me. If I think they can't stop in time (big land yacht cruising hiway speeds), I try to dive to either side (ussually shoulder of the road) while I still have some speed.

This has worked well for me, I have seen guys behind me lock up their tires, and I would have been toast if I stayed still. Usually you can judge if the guy behind you is aware, and can stop in time, very quickly.

I even had one time where I could tell the guy behind me was not paying attention (I think he was looking to change lanes). Anyway I dived out of the way, but he creamed the car in front of me. Better him then me I guess.

That's great advice Reeko. It's good to get in a habit of that. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to dive out of the way as there was some pretty hard braking going on to keep from hitting the person in front of me. But I have used your strategy in the past. It's rough when you're just sitting there listening to the squealing tires and helplessly preparing yourself for the crunch. :o

I'm going to try to get some pics of the car this afternoon if I can get away from work for a half hour or so before it gets dark. If I do, I'll post 'em later on.

Good luck in getting your car fixed in a timely fashion.

I had my car rear-ended 5 weeks ago, simple front and rear bumper damage and minor rear body panel damage. Took 5 weeks with a lot of phone calls and harrassment just to get the parts. Most of the parts were not even in the computer system when my accident happened.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I had my car for 4 weeks, now I've been without it for 5 weeks. (They are currently working on it, should have it back by tomorrow)

Call customer service ASAP to speed up the process

Thanks wankel. That's scary, hope you get your car back tomorrow as planned!

Tell me, was your body panel damage merely paint, or was there denting or tearing of plastic/metal? I ask because I just took a look at the car, and there doesn't appear to be any bad damage to the rear lower body panel, but the paint is scraped up. I'm hoping they will just replace the whole panel and not try to paint it, as I'm afraid the paint repair would end up peeling in 6 months or a year....

I got a couple pics, will post tonight. The damage really doesn't look too bad. Of course, I don't know what happened under the car. Definitely need a new wheel/tire and probably brakes on that side. Plus there's the scratching to the lower rear plastic panel/bumper behind the wheel.

loco, don't wan't to sound too morbid, but you got any pics.

Originally posted by mikeb
sorry man

many accidents to the rx8 have been people hitting the back

Now I'm nervous

I'm sure it will work out for you

when i drive my 8, i'm always checking how close the person behind me is. my toyota truck doesn't stop so well so i always used to worry about room in front of me and never really paid attention to how close folks were following me since 99% of the cars out there can stop better than i could. now the roles are reversed and i can stop faster ... significantly faster, than a good majority of the cars on the road. so it goes i guess.

someone mentioned also diving to a shoulder to avoid being hit too. i've done this several times... and i wish more people were aware enough to do it...but in a case of 10/10ths braking, you're more likely to work on instinct/reflex than remember some post on the rx8forum on how to brake =(

By popular demand, the next few posts will be some pics of the damage. It does not look too bad, but if anyone has any opinions on what they see, as far as severity of damage, especially the paint damage and the last picture of underneath the car, please let me know. I know nothing about this stuff!

Thanks.

PS - check out how it cleanly took out one "section" of the wheel and nothing else. Weird. Wonder if this is a weakness in the design?

another...

me again...

under car...

Originally posted by wankel
Good luck in getting your car fixed in a timely fashion.

I had my car rear-ended 5 weeks ago, simple front and rear bumper damage and minor rear body panel damage. Took 5 weeks with a lot of phone calls and harrassment just to get the parts. Most of the parts were not even in the computer system when my accident happened.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I had my car for 4 weeks, now I've been without it for 5 weeks. (They are currently working on it, should have it back by tomorrow)

Call customer service ASAP to speed up the process

when I got in an accident I needed a new front fender. They ordered it on a tuesday morning and had it in their shop wed afternoon - and this wasn't even a mazda dealership. i wouldn't trust a mazda dealership to do paint work.

rims took 4-5 days.

there is no wait for simple parts for this car.

Originally posted by loco4rx8
It does not look too bad, but if anyone has any opinions on what they see, as far as severity of damage, especially the paint damage and the last picture of underneath the car, please let me know. I know nothing about this stuff!


Loco, that is not bad at all. Make sure the replace the entire rear bumber, or at least get a quote for it. You're lucky its only cosmetic damage.

from the looks of your pictures my guess is they will just repaint the piece and replace the rim. I doubt there will be any frame or other mechanical damage from looking at the pictures. assuming insurance isn't a hassle, it looks like a 3 day job in the shop

Originally posted by desmo996
Loco, that is not bad at all. Make sure the replace the entire rear bumber, or at least get a quote for it. You're lucky its only cosmetic damage.


Yes, desmo. That's what I want. If they don't want to replace the entire bumper, but just want to do a paint repair, do I have any rights to demand a new rear bumper?

And thanks for the input.

Originally posted by Jhouse
F$%^*(&%(%^*) igonorant people on the road, they all just need to be shot on sight.

Nice! Hope you're joking.

I got rear-ended two weeks ago by a drunk college kid. There wasn't a thing that I could do. I stopped on the highway to avoid an accident in front of me (couldn't lane change due to traffic), and the putz behind me had a full 1 1/2 seconds before he hit me. That should have been all the space in the world at 50 MPH, but I guess that he was pretty drunk.

However, my mechanic tells me that one of the valances on the rear is back ordered, and he has no idea how long it will take to get.

I was particularly annoyed when one of these kids said to me that my car is really nice and wanted to know about how I liked the rotary engine. I told him that I liked it alot better before he staved in the rear end.

Above I noticed the photoes of the broken wheel. That's a little disturbing because it looks as if the wheel is subject to catastrophic blow out if there is a hard enough impact on the wheel . . . like smacking a large pot hole. Does that hole expose the interior of the tire to release air? It looks like a bad thing.

All in all, I very much feel your pain. I feel pretty deflated by the entire thing. I hope that both of our cars get fixed soon.

All the best - Haze

Thanks Haze. I'm sorry to hear about your experience. It's seems somehow even more disturbing to find out the person who hit you was drunk.

I do think the wheel thing is weird. I wish I could picture how that happened. Did her wheel come into contact with mine and clip it somehow?

Well, here's to getting our cars back soon as possible AND as good as new!

My car has been in the shop since 9-30-03. Still waiting for an oil cooler, air intake tube and fuse box. Almost 7 weeks.

Originally posted by brownchiro
My car has been in the shop since 9-30-03. Still waiting for an oil cooler, air intake tube and fuse box. Almost 7 weeks.

holy balls...this was covered under warranty right? and if so, did you get any compensation?

Originally posted by Winning_BlueRX8
holy balls...this was covered under warranty right? and if so, did you get any compensation?

Car was wrecked on 9-30-03. Still waiting on the parts to finish fixing it. $10,000 damage to front. No warranty work is involved.

Originally posted by loco4rx8

Well, here's to getting our cars back soon as possible AND as good as new!

HEAR! HEAR!

Originally posted by brownchiro
Car was wrecked on 9-30-03. Still waiting on the parts to finish fixing it. $10,000 damage to front. No warranty work is involved.


ooooh, a wreck. I thought you were talking about engine failure or something. now it makes sense.

How about we just sentence them to 10 consecutive sessions of defensive driving... a fate worse than death!

BTW, when I drive, I follow the 2-second rule for the guy in front of me. IF I have a tailgater behind me (and I often do - they can't stand it if there's daylight between me and the car in front of me), I make it about a 3-4 second rule. I'm always looking in my rear-view when I brake to see if the person behind me is awake. This should keep you out of trouble in any situation.

...:o