hush777 Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 Last nite on of the boys was out driving his crx and with a bad battery it gave up. (Driving on the private road where we live) so he came back to the house and borrowed our 97 impreza outback sport to go jump it. He says he was only doing 25-30 and it was slick and the car wouldn't steer so he ran into a bolder at the end of the road. (pics included). Having driven in the snow for a long time, knowing the road he was on and the car, I am having a hard time believing his story. I would like so other opinions about all this is anyone cares to pipe in. The road is flat, gravel (more dirt than gravel) it was snowing lightly (managed to get our 77 chevy truck out of the driveway in 2 wheel drive and that is up a 12% or better rutted grade) but I don't think it was that slick out. The car is AWD and was in AWD (ie. The FWD fuse was not in). Have checked the antilock brakes on this just last friday so I'm pretty sure that they were in working order. The only thing that I question about the whole situation is the facts that the damage is more consistant with a greater display of speed than he says, BUT the airbag did not deploy. Has anyone had experience with this type/extent of damage and did the airbag deploy?? Anyone know exactly where the front sensor is located at, and at what speed the bags will deploy? Hush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hush777 Posted January 6, 2005 Author Share Posted January 6, 2005 Sorry about that I didn't check which forum I was in when I posted this. Could one of you guys move this to the new gen forum please. Hush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSubaruJunkie Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 25-30mph would have no problem causing that much damage. Expecially if he hit a boulder. -Brian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorganM Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 Jeez thats rough man 30 MPH is pretty fast for nailing a completly stationary, solid object like that. I'm supprised the bags didnt come out. Hopefully the driver had their seat belt on! Maybe it didnt go down exactly how it was explained but in situations of panic (read: OMG I CANT STEER OR STOP) details are lost, emotions are high, and we dont always react properly :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlierh2 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 i think airbags go off around 40 or so but not sure for this exact car. (btw anyone know how exaclty the car desides to use them or not, is it speed based) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bajavwnsoobnut Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 it's usualy speed and inertial based and man you are having bad luck all around with your subies and with the auto I would understand how it would do that considering I had the same issues with a Forester we used to have and just going 10 mph in light snow and luckily for me for ground clearance and luck I cleared the obstical that I ran over sideways Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lepetitprince Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Just looking at the pictures, I assume the car hit the bolder from driver side only? If that is true, then I say the air bag only deploys when majority of the impact was done to the center of the front end?? My 98 outback ran into a back of a semi (the bar) with passenger side on a highway (probably I was going about 60-65 mph) and air bag didn't deploy. Well but than again, the momentum of the truck and my car was the same direction, just that I was going about 10 mph faster than the truck. Hope this helps Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Setright Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Okay, an impact speed of 25mph sounds plausible, but what speed did he lose control at? Some excess speed may have been shaved off in the skid. Airbag deployment is triggered by the rate of deceleration. Hitting a solid, fixed object at 10mph can trigger the bags. I would expect that the collision with the boulder was "relatively" soft. The boulder probably moved. Therefore the bags stayed in, since the rate of change of speed was deemed to low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejlain Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 Yeah, sorry to hear about the damage. Luckily, no one was injured. 25-30 mph can cause a lot of damage apparently. Looking at the damage all the way over on the passenger side of the bumper, looks like maybe he hit and slid along it. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. As most of us can attest, sliding or slipping on ice or snow and losing control can be quite scary. Everyone reacts (or doesn't react) differently. It all depends on experience and reflexes I guess. I'd just chalk it up to bad luck and let the ins. co. fix it for you. - Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT95 Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 Hard luck on that crash. It's one thing to have your car banged up--it's doubly bad when someone else was driving it. How trustworthy is this guy from past experience? I'd hate to accuse a fiend of something and the person actually be innocent. Have you ridden with him much? How does he handle his own car in the snow? Was this his first time driving your Sube on a backroad? Maybe he wanted to see just what it would do compared to his FWD car and tried a little too much. And what do you mean by "the end of the road"? Was this where the road dead ended? I'd be suspicious, but I'm not sure how far I'd press the issue. All I know is when I have borrowed a friend's ride I have been overly cautious--probably too cautious. Sometimes freaky things happen in the snow. And you can lose control at 35mph and hitting a solid thing like a rock at 25-35 can whap some heavy damage depending on how it was hit. Now, that pre-Christmas snow was the first time I have driven my 95 wagon (or any AWD car) in the snow. A lot of the roads were a hard packed snow with a layer of ice on top. It could get squirrely at 35-40 sometimes. We were in a grocery parking lot that had been somewhat plowed and had a solid covering of a good 3" of hard packed snow. I wanted to test my anti-lock brakes out while my wife was shopping and the parking lot was mostly deserted, so I drove to an empty end, went to about 20mph, and stomped the brake pedal. I thought the Sube did a great job of stopping fairly efficiently and staying in a straight line. As far as not steering, at 25-30mph you shouldn't have much trouble in AWD to maneuver a reasonable turn. 25-30 may not be a fast speed, but maybe it was way too fast for the curve he was taking. (If the crash happened at a curve.) Unless the road was hard packed and slick to walk on, my verdict is that he was playing around and goofed. The average person typically is going 10-20 mph faster in a crash than what they tell the cops anyway. As far as air bags--I have no idea how the Subie system works. I bought my Legacy wagon wrecked. The whole front bumper assembly was missing, so I didn't see what it looked like as far as specific damage. The driver's fender and that side of the hood were bent in, and the upper radiator support was bent in on that side. I don't know anything about the wreck the car was in, but both of my airbags were not deployed. (Which was great because that's the most expensive part of a repair sometimes.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
friendly_jacek Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 It is not his fault! It is your fault having the mediocre potenza RE910 tires on your car ;-) But seriously, the young man was trying the limits and found some, brobably hit brakes on a curve or so. BTW, if you have ABS, it is next to impossible to stop the car in snow, even worse on an ice patch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparklemotion Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 I had similar damage to the right front of my 99 OBW - it was caused by a 4 Runner hitting me at approx. 25 mph. I was almost stopped by the time of impact. Airbag did not deploy (thank god). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hush777 Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 Just an update on the impreza. Posting two pics one of the damage from the boulder and then of when the repairs are done. New seals in the engine and new body parts. bumper, radiator, some timing covers, new head light and front fender and a bunch of fix the frame stuff. Hush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brus brother Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 "airbags were not deployed. (Which was great because that's the most expensive part of a repair sometimes.)" True, true. Some insurance companies will total the car based on the cost of repairing/replacing sensors and bags. I didn't read about insurance or the like but hope you got your car road ready without too much pain. The fellow at least took responsibility and didn't claim that the boulder hit him. Take it from someone who has lost friends in auto accidents, thankfully only feelings and fenders were hurt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuBrat84 Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Okay here's my story. I have a 98 Legacy 2.5 4AT.. Now, I've been told that the AT's have an 80 (front) / 20 (rear) power transfer in 3rd and 4th gear. <--- Dont know if this is true or not. Anyway.. I DO know that not down shifting to keep your rpm's up makes it a lot easier to slide on dirt and snow. So I was going up to the mountain in the snow (which doesn't happen around Tucson very often..) But it was actively snowing... enough that they had a sheriff checking people for chains/4wd .. We had our 4 year old nephew with us.. so I wasn't "Seeing" what my car could do in the snow.. Just leisurly driving about 25-30 mph.. We crested a small hill with a slight turn to the right.. and as soon as we were aimed down hill the car just started sliding... at 25 you have a lot of time to call yourself an idiot as you're slowly sliding towards that guard rail. It did do a good amount of damage... busted a head light.. the grill.. cracked the bumper.. pushed the radiator back.. bent the hood up.. etc... I would believe that if I had put it onto a boulder that the damage would have been about what that outback looked like.. tell your boy to learn to downshift the automatic to keep the rpms up in the snow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuBrat84 Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Oh yeah.. airbags did not deploy.. I've seen the sensors.. they are inside the front fender areas... I don't know if they are inertia based or crush based.. (if a part of the car touches the sensor?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meeky Moose Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 i hit a 85 pontiac bonneville with my 85' toyota celica once.. hit the lady at about 25-30mph totaled her car, pushed the pass front tire up against the engine.. anyways, i'd say he was prolly going 25-30 but that was too fast on that snowy corner with abs.. anyways, glad ya got it fixed.. onn i also had a 94 tracer wagon that slamed into a van doing about 25 mph, it didn't set the airbag off either.. it just crashed the drivers side headlight, grill, radiator, etc.. the airbag sensor on it were in the middle of the radiator support and were not even touched.. they prolly need to be crushed for the airbag to go off.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet82 Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 Wow! I hurts just to look at that poor car I think its gonna be tweeked more than what meets the eye... Were seeing pics of the Subaru...but...how bad was the bolder hurt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hush777 Posted May 23, 2005 Author Share Posted May 23, 2005 Wow! I hurts just to look at that poor car I think its gonna be tweeked more than what meets the eye... Were seeing pics of the Subaru...but...how bad was the bolder hurt? The boulder walked away...... Hush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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