The blessing of having a towbar fitted

[Oilburner26]

My tourer just received its first crunch caused by some muppet who obviously does not believe in stopping when vehicles are stopped in front of him , my wife had been waiting to over take a parked delivery vehicle and had been stationary for several minutes due to oncoming traffic,whilst unfortunately she has suffered a whiplash injury, both police and ambulance crew commented on relatively light damage to rear of my car which is still drivable compared the Toyota 4x4 which was totally a tow away job and who said justice was sweet , I think what saved the Accord Tourer from more serious damage was the fact I had a Honda fit a towbar from new.

Accord damage is digs and cuts to rear bumper and popped its fixings slightly on n/s, digs and cuts to lower panel below bumper, cracked n/s rear light, digs and cuts to lower tailgate panel, tailgate may also be slightly twisted,towbar ball cover plastic chrome, the only thing that may be damaged but I wont know until it goes in for repair is the towbar fixing points and adjacent area, I just hope they get a good colour match when its all done .

 

[Dan Robinson]

Sorry to hear this dude....hope the missus is ok!

 

[demon-knight]

Similar thing happened to me some years ago, hope your wife is ok....and the car.

 

[TheHole]

i would make sure the chassis of the car is ok! having a massive shunt on the tow bar may reduce visible body work damage, but can increase chassis damage.

that toyota's energy had to go somewhere!

 

[vile]

yep i agree with Adam this is the risk with tow bars.

 

[Oilburner26]

Had a letter yesterday from my insurers regarding my wifes whiplash injury and they have passed on with my permission to a specialist people that deal with personal injury's and organising treatment so hopefully all will be well once she has been ***essed and had any necessary follow up physiotherapy treatmement or whatever.

After checking the tow bar out today I have found the detachable swan neck was very hard to remove and now its been removed it refuses to click back in place, after inspecting the swan neck two locating pins are bent downwards also the locating end of the tow bar is slightly twisted, without any further dismantling, the spare wheel well appears uncrumpled as do the first fixing points, so I'm hoping that is all the damage found now, one hopefully good thing I have since found out from Lings the externals panels that are damaged are all plastic and come already prepainted from Honda, and I have now got a date which the insurers repairers are picking car up 16th August they would have picked it up sooner but it was not convenient for me.

 

[vile]

Dave i hope the wife is OK and gets sorted.Hopefully the car will be OK and no long term damage.

 

[Dan Robinson]

A big phew all round then - thankfully rear end shunts are pretty clear cut for insurance claims - stand by for a barrage of texts and phone calls from ambulance chasers .

 

[edgeoftime]

Also make sure the "repairers" have a jig, and know how to use it!!