Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[white exec]

You have a really good case against the council/highways authority.
As well as your dashcam footage, try to get several photos (day and night) of that island too, a.s.a.p.
Apart from a warning bollard (arguably illuminated on something like the A74 in a lit area), the island's kerbing should have had some white paint on it.
I would be claiming on insurance, and also submitting a claim on the authority.

[Mandrake]

It's a real pain to get back there to take photos as it's a long way out of my way, however I have plenty of footage from my Dashcam from earlier in the day which I've saved that I can capture pictures that show they are missing before I got there, such as:

Hurrah for Dashcams!

I've reported the location on fixmystreet.com which publicly reports the problem on the site and also sends the details directly to the council. My public posting is anonymous but the council get my name email address and phone number so let's see if they reply...

By the way fixmystreet.com is a cracking website for reporting problems, you can also look up a location and see everything other people have reported - it's amazing how many reports of problems you can find in your own area!

[Skull]

Bummer

Certainly worth a try claiming but you'll need to pursue it to death ...short term answer fingers crossed for the garage and hope for minimal costs / delay

Good Luck

[NewcastleFalcon]

I ran over one of those traffic calming things unlit, and a filthy night, jutting out into a road I was unfamiliar with, right over two kerbs.

Ripped both nearside tyres to shreds, and damaged the nearside steering tie rod. That caused my steering wheel misalignment and the heavy but still drivable steering.

If its just that hopefully not too expensive/difficult to fix.

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

Daughter #2 did that in Newcastle with one of those that sneakily curves out from the side of the road, no chance of avoiding it, smashed the wheel on he new Punto.

The rest of it fell to bits soon after

I did too on the A1 near Kettering. Also ruined a wheel and the airbag warning beeps up now and again - not the airbag light though so it has passed the last three MOTs like it.

[RichardW]

That's a bugger, Simon! You've probably just bent the track rod and / or the lower arm. It takes some force the bend the sub which usually renders it undriveable. Add up the costs of claiming on the insurance carefully - the loss of NCD and loaded premium will have an effect for a few years, and could well far outweigh the cost of repairs. Sad, but true these days....

[Mandrake]

That's a bugger, Simon! You've probably just bent the track rod and / or the lower arm. It takes some force the bend the sub which usually renders it undriveable.

Normally I'd agree with a wheel impact against the curb, but it's actually the front cross bar of the suspension sub-chassis that runs under the radiator that has smacked directly into the curb before the car bounced up and over the island. The towing eye which is welded onto the middle front of this cross bar is completely mashed flat, (although on the plus side maybe that absorbed some energy!) and on the left hand side of the cross bar the front/bottom side of the bar has had a hard impact as well. I'm worried that the front to rear lower bar on the sub-chassis has bent a little. I'll try to get a picture of the damage to the crossbar tomorrow before I take it to the garage.

I couldn't see any obvious bend in the lower wishbone, but I'd overlooked the possibility of a bent track rod, so maybe that could be an issue.

Add up the costs of claiming on the insurance carefully - the loss of NCD and loaded premium will have an effect for a few years, and could well far outweigh the cost of repairs. Sad, but true these days....

Yes, claiming unnecessarily and ruining no claims etc is certainly something I've thought about. I dithered about reporting it to insurance today but decided to see what the verdict was on tomorrow's inspection first.

While I'm no doubt required to report any incident involving other people or damage to other cars/property, I don't think that I'd be required to report something relatively minor like running into the curb all on my own at 10mph, when that sort of incident would typically just cause the wheel alignment to go out a bit.

Immediately after the incident I pulled over and inspected under the car as well as I could and made a judgement call that the car was still OK to drive home, and it wasn't until I'd driven a few blocks that I realised the steering centring was a bit out. I didn't notice at first because the steering centring was already out a little on the car since I've had it for as yet undetermined reasons, so it was just out by more than it was before...

[RichardW]

Fingers crossed...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mitsubishi-I ... rk:27:pf:0 might yield some bits if required.... I'll help you change the front sub if needs be!!

[Mandrake]

Left the car at the garage this morning and have just heard back from them - they say the lower wishbone arm is bent and needs replacing, which I guess is the outcome most of us probably expected and probably hoped for to be honest as it's a lot better than a bent subframe!

They say after checking, the wishbone is only available through Peugeot which sounds about right as there are no pattern parts suppliers for many key parts on this car...(Mr Auto doesn't even list the car at all for example! ) and are quoting £248 all up for the job, which is only a little above my excess.

Given I already looked up the wishbone on Peugeot service box and know its a hefty £136, I think the difference in labour is reasonable for the inspection and measurement time, replacing the wishbone and then having to do a full wheel alignment and check afterwards, and I trust them to do a good job so I told them to go ahead and I should have the car back on Saturday as all going well they said it should be ready tomorrow but I won't be able to get home from work in time to pick it up, especially given I have to catch a bus from the house to get there to pick it up as a certain someone isn't a driver.

As the MOT is due and was about to be booked in anyway I asked them to do that at the same time as well. So that's a fair chunk of money at a difficult time of month but it's just one of those things that has to be done and it could have been so much worse!

Now I think about it as the steering was slightly off centre before and the edge of the left tyre is worn more than the right one I think the car may have already had a curb or pothole impact on the left hand side previously either before I got it or some time during... and the tracking was already out a bit...so it will be good to have the tracking correct.

I took some pictures of the impact damage underneath before I took the car to the garage, while the cross bar has had a good smack from the curb it looks like that has only caused cosmetic damage and the real damage was the wheel impact bending the lower wishbone...

Looks like the wee car is tougher than I gave it credit for.

[Hell Razor5543]

Quite often little cars are FAR stronger than we would expect. I remember Fifth Gear, several years ago, crash testing Smart cars. The last one was the most spectacular. This was when, at 70MPH, it was slammed into a concrete barrier at 45 degrees. While the G forces would have killed or severely injured any occupants, there actually was no intrusion into the cabin space.

[Mandrake]

Quite often little cars are FAR stronger than we would expect. I remember Fifth Gear, several years ago, crash testing Smart cars. The last one was the most spectacular. This was when, at 70MPH, it was slammed into a concrete barrier at 45 degrees. While the G forces would have killed or severely injured any occupants, there actually was no intrusion into the cabin space.

Despite looking somewhat flimsy (especially the doors) it does actually get a 4 star NCAP crash rating vs the 1.5 stars of the Xantia. Which is not bad for such a small car from 2011 based on a car (Mitsubishi i-car) which came out in 2006. It also has side air bags and curtain rail airbags which the Xantia doesn't have, as well as electronic stability control.

Like a lot of modern cars it uses a lot of HSS grade steel in the passenger cell and pillars. The forked A-pillars are bloody massive compared to the Xantia and don't fold up in a frontal impact like they do on a Xantia - ironically the massive A-pillars are part of the reason I didn't see the concrete island as they do affect visibility quite a lot, so that backfired a bit....

There's also no motor in the front just ancillaries and quite a bit of free space so although it has a short snout it still works as an effective crumple zone with no large motor to be forced through the firewall into the driver.



Compare that to the horrific result of the Xantia:



Quite scary that actually... I love driving my Xantia but I sure wouldn't want to have a serious crash in one!

[Zelandeth]

Don't be surprised if you find yourself doing that wheel bearing in the near future, if that much force has been transmitted through it, it could well have pitted the surface of the race slightly, obviously only time will tell.

Crash test results I always take with a pinch of salt - the real world often sees things behave very differently (for better or worse!) than in the tests. A Skoda Estelle probably would have scored about 0.1 stars, yet having slammed into a lorry that failed to stop at a junction at somewhere between 50 and 60mph, I can say that it held up very well. Only injuries I had were grazed knuckles from where I smacked my hands on the wiper/indicator stalks and a fantastic bruise from the seatbelt. I think a lot of people would have expected the car to fold up like a paper bag in those circumstances.

Purely based on looking at the car, I imagine the biggest liability in the Xantia is the engine being set so far back in the engine bay, wouldn't take much to shove that back into the bulkhead I'd think.

[Mandrake]

Got a call not long after to say the part wouldn't actually be in until Monday as Peugeot has had to order it from head office.

I'm not surprised - every time I try to order parts for this car from Peugeot it's always at least a 2 day back order from head office to get them, so I thought their initial estimate of the part coming on Friday was over optimistic!

I guess I get to drive the Xantia a few extra days.

[Mandrake]

Got talking about the interesting history of my Xantia to someone today and thought to try looking up the previous (and only) owner again to find he'd passed away in 2016 a couple of years after I bought the car:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitua ... tuary.html

Those who were reading this blog from the beginning will know that the car had a magnetic bomb detector system installed in it because he was an IRA target in the 90's... that lasted for about a year before I cut the wires to it as its constant beeping and bleating when I opened the doors was extremely annoying...

[white exec]

The car deserves a Blue Plaque, Simon.
He must have been someone who appreciated something a bit special when it came to personal transport.