I Had An Accident Last Night

Prince

Torque King
Points
242
Location
Northampton, England
Car
BMW E36 318is Coupe
The Civic is currently off road and awaiting repairs after an accident late last night. I was driving from Flitwick to Northampton and took the turn from the A507 towards Woburn Safari Park. Some of you may know that it's a huge turn with plenty of space. I slowed to 30 applied the brakes and turned in. However, the rear brakes locked up causing the backend to kick out. I managed to get the car straight but could not stop it in time before it smashed into a kerb and bollard. After inspecting the damage I then had to call the police and get roadside recovery. £250 to get back to friend's house in Flitwick!!! :mad: This was all at about 2am. The good news is that I'm perfectly ok (apart from the gutted feeling and the repair bill), and the damage isn't quite as bad I first suspected. Time for pictures:

Here you can see how badly damaged the panel above the wheel is:


Here you can see the brake disc snapped in half:


This is how badly my rim was damaged:


A better look at the brakes:


A nice big chunk of my brakes:


The car should be back on the road in the next 2 weeks. I've got new discs and pads being fitted and a new wishbone to be fitted as mine has been bent. I suppose this is a good reason to get a new set of rims and have a respray done.
 
Really bad news. Glad you're ok. Were the roads wet or slippery? What did the police say?
 
Thanks everybody!

Really bad news. Glad you're ok. Were the roads wet or slippery? What did the police say?

The roads were dry. The police just stayed around until roadside recovery got there. They didn't say much other than the usual routine stuff.

so on a more positive - what colour ? :lol:

When I can afford to, I'm gonna go for something like a pearl white. I really have a thing about white cars at the moment. :lol:

glad to hear you're ok mate. the car's not looking good, and how come the rear brakes got locked up?

The only explanation I can really think of is that they may have been cold still. Other than 10 year old drums usually aren't fantastic.

I do have some good news though...I should be picking it up on friday, then hopefully next week I can get the wing replaced. After that I'll get some new rims, then saving up for the respray.
 
Perhaps that's a fragility with drum brakes that needs consideration in future, namely that they're very uneven in their application and can cause stability problems such as seems to have occured here. The other issue is that the leading shoe can 'bind' on, which is possibly what happened to you here.

I'm glad that neither you nor anyone else was injured.

The only thing I will add is this, and I don't want to be seen to preach. Try to separate your braking inputs from your steering inputs. Braking hard into the apex is fine on a track, or on the road if you've made a mistake with your observation and view through a bend and have no choice but to maintain brake pressure. We all do it, we're all human.

But if you can finish your braking completely before commiting to the bend you will have much less chance of something similar occuring again.
 
not good prince, you havnt had the work done 'that' long, and were they new rims when you had it lowered?


all in all, it could be down to two things, you broke more than you thought or mechanical problems, as the disc broke in two, i would think its mechanical.

have you got a price on the work? or you going down the insurance route? [fully comp]
 
Nothing more annoying than having a tip in the car, but at least you're ok lad!!

Don't know alot about Civics but could you convert it to discs at the back aswell?
I'm planning to do it to my e30 316, just change over the parts from a 318is or 325 abit of work but can't beat discs all round!!
 
not good prince, you havnt had the work done 'that' long, and were they new rims when you had it lowered?

all in all, it could be down to two things, you broke more than you thought or mechanical problems, as the disc broke in two, i would think its mechanical.

have you got a price on the work? or you going down the insurance route? [fully comp]

I was also thinking that the discs couldn't have been that great if they snapped in half! The rims have been on there since about September. I've only got tpf&t insurance cover so I'll be paying for all of this myself.

Nothing more annoying than having a tip in the car, but at least you're ok lad!!

Don't know alot about Civics but could you convert it to discs at the back aswell?

Thanks mate! That was the plan. I was actually in the process of saving up to get the suspension finished and a big brake conversion done. I've never liked drums and this incident doesn't help my opinion of them.

now that the pads are broken, do you think you'll put something more special?

When I can afford it, I'm going for a big brake conversion. Unfortunately I'm gonna have to turn my attention to the body work as I can't stand the way it looks at the moment.

This is the price list I have:
Roadside Recovery: £250 :mad:

New Brake Discs: £33.40
New Brake Pads: £40.95
New Drop Link: £11.85
New Wishbone: £79.63
Fitting For The Above: £100
New Front Wing (painted as well): £290
New Lenso RS5: Estimated £200

Total: £755.83
Total (Including Roadside Recovery): £1005.83 :(
 
Bad news! (Are you going to get the back brakes looked at? You don't want this to happen again?)

I bet it makes you drive paranoidly slow for a while.;)
 
Bad news! (Are you going to get the back brakes looked at? You don't want this to happen again?)

I bet it makes you drive paranoidly slow for a while.;)

I'm planning to get the brake conversion done as soon as possible now, but due to the crash I might still have to wait until after the suspension is finished. I actually drove past where I had the crash earlier today and I slowed right down to 10mph. Everytime I used the brakes on the way home I was extra careful.

***UPDATE***
I have the car back and it handles fairly well considering. The steelie on the back is causing the car to feel heavy on the rear driver's side and because of the steelie the tracking is slightly off so the car does want to pull to one side. Once I get a new rim this problem should be solved atfer the tracking is re-done again. One slight problem with the area that was damaged... the wheel looks like it is pointing outwards and up. This could be a few things, but I think either the camber is damaged as well or it just looks that way because of the dented arch. I'm going to keep an eye on the wear of the tire. The new brakes work perfectly ok as well. Acceleration seems to be affected slightly...this could be down to the steelie, or the fact I don't want to push the car at the moment (or a combination of the two).

I would also like to take this chance to say thanks to everybody who expressed concern and offered comments of gratitude at the fact I'm ok.
 
lol that was my excuse for buyin my rims :p i decked in the standard ones so needed new ones :D, glad your fine, cant you just get a new wing from scrappers? see if there are and in decentish nick
 

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