second gen legacy did fine being rear ended

[weelliott]

My 98 legacy (non outback model) got rear ended this morning. I'm
fine. The car is more fine than I thought it would be before I looked
at it. The other driver was fine, His car is not fine. Fluids leaking
out all over the place, front bumper, frame support, both fenders,
both headlights, very crumpled hood. It had been an 05 or so Chrysler
Sebring.

The subaru on the other hand suffered much less visible damage. I'm
sure the crash structure under the bumper cover is mangled, and the
cover itself is pretty crumpled and cut up. The rear hatch is bent a
little at the bottom, but it still opens and closes. So I'm thinking
it didn't do too much to the unibody. The muffler was bent downward
and sitting at a 30° or so angle. I had to bend it back up with a
strong heave in order to avoid dragging it, so now the exhaust leaks.
But it still drives! I'm impressed by how much abuse it took without
damaging the passenger compartment. Watching him skid at me in the
rear view mirro, I'd guesstimate he was doing about 30 when he hit me.
Maybe slower, but had to be over 20. It was enough to knock my cell
phone charger out of the outlet, and pop the ashtray all the way open
and leave coins strewn about the front seats.

Go subaru!

 

[1 Lucky Texan]

My 98 legacy (non outback model) got rear ended this morning. I'm
fine. The car is more fine than I thought it would be before I looked
at it. The other driver was fine, His car is not fine. Fluids leaking
out all over the place, front bumper, frame support, both fenders,
both headlights, very crumpled hood. It had been an 05 or so Chrysler
Sebring.

The subaru on the other hand suffered much less visible damage. I'm
sure the crash structure under the bumper cover is mangled, and the
cover itself is pretty crumpled and cut up. The rear hatch is bent a
little at the bottom, but it still opens and closes. So I'm thinking
it didn't do too much to the unibody. The muffler was bent downward
and sitting at a 30° or so angle. I had to bend it back up with a
strong heave in order to avoid dragging it, so now the exhaust leaks.
But it still drives! I'm impressed by how much abuse it took without
damaging the passenger compartment. Watching him skid at me in the
rear view mirro, I'd guesstimate he was doing about 30 when he hit me.
Maybe slower, but had to be over 20. It was enough to knock my cell
phone charger out of the outlet, and pop the ashtray all the way open
and leave coins strewn about the front seats.

Go subaru!

Glad to hear everyone is OK.

Hope your car can be repaired satisfactorily.

I had a one car accident on ice and had to take the car back 6 times
before things (fingers crossed) got squared away.

 

[John]

Watching him skid at me in the
rear view mirro, I'd guesstimate he was doing about 30 when he hit me.
Maybe slower, but had to be over 20. It was enough to knock my cell
phone charger out of the outlet, and pop the ashtray all the way open
and leave coins strewn about the front seats.

Go subaru!

That is a weird feeling watching that in the mirror. I had the same
thing happen in my older Accord. Guy in a pickup saw me stopped and
slammed on his brakes. Luckily because he hit the brakes so hard the
pick up nose dived so the bumpers met when he hit. Otherwise I'd guess
that his license plate would have been my backseat headrest.

Glad no one was hurt

 

[Nobody > (Revisited)]

My 98 legacy (non outback model) got rear ended this morning. I'm
fine. The car is more fine than I thought it would be before I looked
at it. The other driver was fine, His car is not fine. Fluids leaking
out all over the place, front bumper, frame support, both fenders,
both headlights, very crumpled hood. It had been an 05 or so Chrysler
Sebring.

The subaru on the other hand suffered much less visible damage. I'm
sure the crash structure under the bumper cover is mangled, and the
cover itself is pretty crumpled and cut up. The rear hatch is bent a
little at the bottom, but it still opens and closes. So I'm thinking
it didn't do too much to the unibody. The muffler was bent downward
and sitting at a 30° or so angle. I had to bend it back up with a
strong heave in order to avoid dragging it, so now the exhaust leaks.
But it still drives! I'm impressed by how much abuse it took without
damaging the passenger compartment. Watching him skid at me in the
rear view mirro, I'd guesstimate he was doing about 30 when he hit me.
Maybe slower, but had to be over 20. It was enough to knock my cell
phone charger out of the outlet, and pop the ashtray all the way open
and leave coins strewn about the front seats.

Go subaru!

Same here.

I got rear-ended by a big Dodge p/u about 5 years ago (2001 OBW).
Rough guess, about 5-8 MPH. I was sitting in it, reading a book at the
park, key off; so no airbag hit. It did me enough whiplash for about $2K
medical tho.

It was the usual "wannabe redneck" truck. ( I *AM* a real born-on-the
ranch-with-a-transfer-case-stick-in-my-hand redneck if you really wanna
know). If it wasn't for the worthless mess of chrome phony
grillguard/bullbar sticking out front (that did ding the tailgagte), all
that would have been hurt was the usual bumperskin and the absorbers.
IIRC, bill was ~$900.

My wife (1997 OBS/Impreza) got T-boned a few years back by a old (as in
senile?) fart who hit the gas instead of the brake in an Applebee's
parking lot. The police investigation figured he hit her at about 30
MPH. It spun her sideways, and oldfarte kept going and rammed that Crown
Vic bass-ackwards thru the wall of the Applebee's, creaming out a whole
booth (thankfully unoccupied).

Yep, there was the usual whiplash stuff, but the Impreza/OBS came back
to normal with only ~$3200 bodyshop bills.

As an aside, a good S00bie-aware body shop in the Seattle area is
Fleury's Body Shop.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/fleurys-body-shop-seattle

They've handle both the above, as well as other for me.
Not the cheapest, but reasonable. They have a reputation for fighting
bad (as in scammy) insurance adjusters, just mentioning their name is an
attitude altercation for those clowns.

Yes, I like Soobs.






--
"Shit this is it, all the pieces do fit.
We're like that crazy old man jumping
out of the alleyway with a baseball bat,
saying, "Remember me motherfucker?"
Jim “Dandy” Mangrum

 

[John McGaw]

My 98 legacy (non outback model) got rear ended this morning. I'm
fine. The car is more fine than I thought it would be before I looked
at it. The other driver was fine, His car is not fine. Fluids leaking
out all over the place, front bumper, frame support, both fenders,
both headlights, very crumpled hood. It had been an 05 or so Chrysler
Sebring.

The subaru on the other hand suffered much less visible damage. I'm
sure the crash structure under the bumper cover is mangled, and the
cover itself is pretty crumpled and cut up. The rear hatch is bent a
little at the bottom, but it still opens and closes. So I'm thinking
it didn't do too much to the unibody. The muffler was bent downward
and sitting at a 30° or so angle. I had to bend it back up with a
strong heave in order to avoid dragging it, so now the exhaust leaks.
But it still drives! I'm impressed by how much abuse it took without
damaging the passenger compartment. Watching him skid at me in the
rear view mirro, I'd guesstimate he was doing about 30 when he hit me.
Maybe slower, but had to be over 20. It was enough to knock my cell
phone charger out of the outlet, and pop the ashtray all the way open
and leave coins strewn about the front seats.

Go subaru!

Good to hear. I did some damage to the front-left of my 2008 Outback last
winter in the hinterlands of West Virginia after an ice storm. I hit a
roadside post after a skid and bashed in the bulgy plastic parts, destroyed
a tire and ever-so-slightly bent a wheel rim. Of course I had to replace
all four tires and obtaining them in that area was an epic quest involving
driving 100 miles on a donut spare. The expense was painful (I didn't
report this to my insurance, stupid me) but I was going to need to do it
anyway this summer so that it was probably a wash.

That left me with the plastic bits which were bashed in so badly that the
formerly very convex parts were now very concave. It was so bad that the
(unbroken and working!) fog light was now pointed straight down at the
pavement. I eventually fixed the majority of the problem by myself with, of
all things, a heat gun which I had around for stripping paint. Gentle
applications of heat to the outside along with gentle pushing from the
inside with a gloved hand did the job leaving me with just scuffed
clearcoat which I'm going to try to rub out. The body repair cost me $20
for replacement snap connectors, a lot of lying on the concrete trying to
figure out how the fender liner and pan parts needed to go back in, and a
week-long stiff neck brought on by the lying. Oh, and months of angst about
my stupidity in allowing it to happen, failure to report it to my
insurance, and constant thought about how the repair might be completed by
an inept mechanic (me).

 

[AD]

Good to hear. I did some damage to the front-left of my 2008 Outback last
winter in the hinterlands of West Virginia after an ice storm. I hit a
roadside post after a skid and bashed in the bulgy plastic parts, destroyed
a tire and ever-so-slightly bent a wheel rim. Of course I had to replace
all four tires and obtaining them in that area was an epic quest involving
driving 100 miles on a donut spare. The expense was painful (I didn't

Imho the donuts must be banished on awd cars.
Doesn't 100 miles exceed the 50miles per donut max subaru specifies
the owners manual?

Am I correct in my assumption that you skid on "all seasons"
and have replaced them with another set of all seasons?

 

[John McGaw]

snip...

Imho the donuts must be banished on awd cars.
Doesn't 100 miles exceed the 50miles per donut max subaru specifies
the owners manual?

Am I correct in my assumption that you skid on "all seasons"
and have replaced them with another set of all seasons?

I don't have the information right here but I believe that the limit on the
donuts is speed, not distance. In any case, given the boondocks location I
was in there was no way I could obtain the proper size tires any closer. As
for the replacements, the original tires were the OEMs and I can't even
recall what they were. The replacements are all-season but have more
aggressive tread than the others. In any case there is no way that I will
be switching to winter and summer sets given my location. What I will do is
be careful no to do stupid things like driving on untended back roads in
the mountains. If that ever becomes a necessity then I'll reconsider winter
tires (and a full-sized spare even if it takes up a lot of cargo space).

 

[Zeppo]

My 98 legacy (non outback model) got rear ended this morning. I'm
fine. The car is more fine than I thought it would be before I looked
at it. The other driver was fine, His car is not fine. Fluids leaking
out all over the place, front bumper, frame support, both fenders,
both headlights, very crumpled hood. It had been an 05 or so Chrysler
Sebring.

The subaru on the other hand suffered much less visible damage. I'm
sure the crash structure under the bumper cover is mangled, and the
cover itself is pretty crumpled and cut up. The rear hatch is bent a
little at the bottom, but it still opens and closes. So I'm thinking
it didn't do too much to the unibody. The muffler was bent downward
and sitting at a 30° or so angle. I had to bend it back up with a
strong heave in order to avoid dragging it, so now the exhaust leaks.
But it still drives! I'm impressed by how much abuse it took without
damaging the passenger compartment. Watching him skid at me in the
rear view mirro, I'd guesstimate he was doing about 30 when he hit me.
Maybe slower, but had to be over 20. It was enough to knock my cell
phone charger out of the outlet, and pop the ashtray all the way open
and leave coins strewn about the front seats.

Go subaru!

My step-daughter was rear ended while stopped at a traffic signal in her 97
Legacy sedan by an 18 wheeler about 3 years ago. It pushed her car into a
step van stopped in front of her. The rear of her car was crumpled by about
60% and the front end about half that. The cabin was untouched and she was
unhurt (except for some minor whiplash). It certainly saved her life. Tough
little cars.

Jon