Car was hit today :(

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Jubei

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After only 3 weeks of ownership, someone backed into my Clarity today. The damage is pretty extensive since the other driver didn’t initially stop. My wife and I just heard crunching. I am bummed.

The bumper and passenger side taillight will need to be replaced. The passenger side rear quarter panel looks to have taken the brunt of the damage. This is a big concern for me since the quarter panel looks to be one solid piece with the roof. I fear that if the entire roof needs to be cut and the side piece replaced, the car will never be the same.

According to this Honda bulletin, the roof is welded to the side panels and will never be factory perfect after replacement.

https://rts.i-car.com/images/pdf/oem-info/honda/body-repair-news/30630.pdf

I figured I would post here to see if anyone else had any rear quarter panel replacements done. I have already opened a claim with my insurance and they recommended a local Honda dealer’s body shop which gets good reviews. I’m hoping that I’m wrong and that they’re able to repair this without much trouble but I don’t see how it can be done.
 
A good body shop can work miracles. The concerns I would have are if there are any aluminum parts, and if the unibody was damaged sufficiently to cause misalignment.
 
According to page 5 of that PDF I posted above, the rear quarter panels don’t appear to be aluminum.
 
Sorry to hear about that. Same thing happened to us at less than a month (our front end though). The last time I had accident before that was when I was a grad student over 30 years ago. The way I look at it is that you got it out of the way and your Clarity will be accident free for years to come. Good luck with the repair.
 
Oh man! Sorry to hear this. My last car was rear ended 6 months into ownership and it never drove the same again.

If the same thing happened to my clarity I would be devastated. Hope they have insurance. The guy who hit me didn’t. Ugh.
 
They did have insurance though I opened a claim with my insurance to speed the process along. Luckily, this accident took place at maybe 3 mph. The truck just backed right into our car as we were driving away. The other driver didnt even see us, said we were in her blind spot.

I don’t think there would be any structural damage to the frame since it was so low speed, it looks like the body took the hit, but I wont know for sure until I get the estimate.
 
Sorry to hear about your mishap. I heard that hybrid cars often get "salvage" title after they've been involved in accidents. Hopefully, it's not true with our Clarity's.
 
Jubei said:
The passenger side rear quarter panel looks to have taken the brunt of the damage. This is a big concern for me since the quarter panel looks to be one solid piece with the roof. I fear that if the entire roof needs to be cut and the side piece replaced, the car will never be the same.
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Wow, it sucks that your car was hit. I'm sorry to hear that!
Fwiw, there's nothing special about the Clarity rear quarter panels. I don't know of any vehicle that doesn't have the "rear quarters welded to the roof". All cars are built that way.

Side collisions are some of the most common. Rear quarter panels get replaced all the time. I replaced the rear quarter panels on my Cutlass (many years ago - "when I wore a younger man's clothes" :)).

I strongly suggest that you get the repair done at an experienced Honda dealership.


I did read the thread where people suggested any place other than the Honda dealership.
I do not know where these people live, or the, imho, sub-standard dealerships in their area.

In NY and New England, I say get it repaired at the Dealership.
I know, and have known, a number of body shop professionals and mechanics.
I can't even imagine taking a car that is less than 4 years old to anywhere other than a dealership!
Then again, I do not know every dealership in America. And, I'm sure there are some that have bad body shops or mechanics.
I've happened to live in areas (New England) where we have some very good dealerships in terms of mechanical and body repair.

Imho, you could always ship the car to NYC. :)
Imho, you'll find some of the best dealership mechanics and body shop people there.
For me, the Boston area is more than good enough. :)
Another nice thing about New England - get from most places "from here to there" in ~1-4 hours (non rush hour). :)


Good luck with your car repair. Again, sorry that it happened. But, don't stress over rear quarter panel replacements done by good dealerships.
 
Thanks GrayRed for the encouragement! I’ll admit that while I’ve always done my own brake jobs, and have occasionally changed my own spark plugs, I am not familiar enough with body work to know what’s what. You’ve given me some hope that it should be a more routine fix than I was imagining.

I actually live in the tri-state area and will be going to a large, well-known Honda dealer for the body work. From the reviews I’ve read online, they seem to do good work. They were also on my insurance company’s list of approved body shops.
 
Sorry to hear about your baby.
All exterior body panels are aluminum except for the roof which also wraps around down to the upper rear quarter panels. You can verify this with a magnet.
Of course the bumper which wraps around to the lower quarter panel is some kind of plastic or composite.
Somebody else also had a low speed impact and posted that it was several thousand $ due I suspect to all the light weight engineering behind the scenes that necessitated replacing a lot of parts.

When my son’s Tacoma was hit, he found out he could apply for reimbursement for the loss of value of his truck due to it now showing up as repaired on sites like CarFax. He found that there is a standard formula to determine this which the insurance companies don’t offer unless you ask. So he got his truck repaired with no deductible and got a check for the loss of value. I don’t know how expensive the repair has to be to be able to claim this. Hope that helps.
 
KentuckyKen said:
Sorry to hear about your baby.
All exterior body panels are aluminum except for the roof which also wraps around down to the upper rear quarter panels. You can verify this with a magnet.
Of course the bumper which wraps around to the lower quarter panel is some kind of plastic or composite.
Somebody else also had a low speed impact and posted that it was several thousand $ due I suspect to all the light weight engineering behind the scenes that necessitated replacing a lot of parts.

When my son’s Tacoma was hit, he found out he could apply for reimbursement for the loss of value of his truck due to it now showing up as repaired on sites like CarFax. He found that there is a standard formula to determine this which the insurance companies don’t offer unless you ask. So he got his truck repaired with no deductible and got a check for the loss of value. I don’t know how expensive the repair has to be to be able to claim this. Hope that helps.
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That is call a diminished value claim.... You may have to fight for it or hire a lawyer tho
 
Yep. My son had to push it through with the other guy’s insurance co. but got $1,000 offer right off the bat. But being the frugal guy he is, he is fighting for more. May or may not get more, and it not worth hiring a lawyer for this small an amount.
 
Fwiw, IMHO:
"imho" meant for every sentence and statement that follows:


If you live in the Tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut - for those not on the East coast), then you should have similar dealerships near you.

I can understand that if someone lives in "nowhere-ville", that their local dealership might not be that great.
But, here, in the denser Northern East Coast, we have some great places.

Still, in Mass, there's are "North Adams and the Berkshires" areas. What, 5 people live in that area that's bigger than Conn? ;-) So, yea, I could see dealerships/etc not being of the same grade as the more dense areas.

Btw, other than the "non perfect body work lines" :-), the rear quarter panel repair that I did on my Cutlass lasted 10+ years without any problems. For other reasons, the car itself eventually had to go to the great salvage yard in the sky. :-( :-(


Also, imho, a Dealership would be more likely to identify and flag any structural damage. That's the main thing to worry about. Dealership body shops often have a big backlog. If they identify a frame/structural problem, then the employee and manager don't car about the loss of work on that car. Plus, especially as a dealership, they could get sued big time if there was a frame/structural problem, and they didn't identify or fix it.

Imho, a non-dealership body shop cares more about the profit and work.
Also, they know that they will likely never ever ever see that vehicle or person again. So, *imho*, it's "patch it up, and get it out of here!"


Btw, I do have respect and understanding for the independent garages and body shops.
Imho, it's a brutal environment for them to stay profitable and in business!

Imho, people often go to independents to save money.
People go to dealerships to have their cars looked over, and to have the dealership to find/suggest every stupid little thing there is (that the dealership then often makes $$$ on).

For the German luxury cars (MB, BMW), some people are looking at $200-$250/hr for a mechanic at a dealership.
People will go to the German specialty shops for $150++/hr.
People will go to the local mechanic for $90-$100/hr (if the local mechanic will do that work - often limited to oil, exhaust, brakes).

So again, imho, people go to different places for different reasons.

Just my two cents. :)
 
I chose a dealer body shop because I wanted it look like it never happened. I assume that the dealer will have better access to OEM parts than a local body shop would.
 
Jubei said:
I chose a dealer body shop because I wanted it look like it never happened. I assume that the dealer will have better access to OEM parts than a local body shop would.
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I agree that this is big problem for high volume cars but the Clarity is too new and produced in too limited numbers for anyone to produce parts on the secondary market, especially in aluminum. You should feel comfortable that the parts will be genuine using the best body shop you can find.
 
Jubei said:
After only 3 weeks of ownership, someone backed into my Clarity today. The damage is pretty extensive since the other driver didn’t initially stop. My wife and I just heard crunching. I am bummed.

The bumper and passenger side taillight will need to be replaced. The passenger side rear quarter panel looks to have taken the brunt of the damage. This is a big concern for me since the quarter panel looks to be one solid piece with the roof. I fear that if the entire roof needs to be cut and the side piece replaced, the car will never be the same.

According to this Honda bulletin, the roof is welded to the side panels and will never be factory perfect after replacement.

https://rts.i-car.com/images/pdf/oem-info/honda/body-repair-news/30630.pdf

I figured I would post here to see if anyone else had any rear quarter panel replacements done. I have already opened a claim with my insurance and they recommended a local Honda dealer’s body shop which gets good reviews. I’m hoping that I’m wrong and that they’re able to repair this without much trouble but I don’t see how it can be done.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about the accident. I hope the repairs go well and it will look as good as new again!


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
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