Drove into a frozen mound of snow

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BuffaloBillsfan

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 16, 2018
Messages
67
Location
Buffalo, NY
So, I'm leaving a mcdonald's parking lot this morning before the sun came up and while making my way around in there, I drove into frozen ice, cracking my front bumper cover , and demolishing my front plate gap thingy that is between the front bumper and the plate. Everything seems to still be fine driving wise. Pro-pilot still works and the leaf still charges. Only way to charge it now is to pop the hood because the port door won't open up otherwise.

Can your average body shop fix this or do I just take it to the dealership and claim the $500 deductible? First accident with liberty so shouldn't see an increase, right? Took me 7,008 (roughly) miles to screw my leaf up.
 
BuffaloBillsfan said:
I drove into frozen ice, cracking my front bumper cover , and demolishing my front plate gap thingy that is between the front bumper and the plate.

Well that’s the problem right there, only drive into thawed ice :lol:

On a serious note, unless the dealership has its own body shop, very likely they’re going to either tell you to go to one, or at best will just send the car off to a body shop where they have their own repairs done (used cars, and new cars with delivery damage).

The fact that the charging port door interferes with a closed hood indicates some supporting structure beneath the plastic bumper cover is tweaked. Plus the bumper cover will have to be repainted even if it can be repaired; a new replacement will come from Nissan unpainted. That’s more than a dealer can typically fix.
 
Sorry to hear of the damage. I think the damage / repainting process will cost minimum $1,500 as the bumper is a totally different material (plastic composite) from the rest of the panels, and additional minor front frame damage is likely.
 
I repaired my front number twice on a 16 Leaf.
Fist time was cement pillar in parking garage deep dent and paint scrape. Took it to three places got three quotes. $2,000 $1200 or $600. I have a $500 deductible so went with the cheap quote and paid out of pocket. The difference in the cheap one was that they removed the front bumper heated it up and popped it back into shape, buffed out the scratches and re-painted it. Then they replaced the bumper. I could not tell the difference. It is a piece of plastic. It was worth shopping around.

Second time was versus a deer that failed to see or hear a black silent vehicle on a river of black asphalt. That broke the supports and the windshield washer reservoir. It cost more than 2K and I paid the deductible.
 
I'm aware of the stupidity of typing out frozen ice lol. Too late now I guess. I'll go to my guy tomorrow and see what he says. With it being an EV he might not want to touch it. My dilemma is this : do I wait for the tax return and pay for the repair in full, or go through liberty and pay the $500 and make a claim? If I make a claim I think the first one is forgiven as far as them raising my rate. If I pay out of pocket in full then there's no insurance involved. The other thing is, I have insurance and this is what it's for, right?
 
Everyone here seems to be thinking that you need to handle the Leaf with white gloves.....

The Leaf is just a regular car... So he cracked his bumper. Take it to any body shop.. Or find a bumper cover on ebay or a junk yard.

Unless you were doing more than 20 mph, there will be no "frame damage" Treat this like any other fender bender.
 
powersurge said:
Everyone here seems to be thinking that you need to handle the Leaf with white gloves.....

The Leaf is just a regular car... So he cracked his bumper. Take it to any body shop.. Or find a bumper cover on ebay or a junk yard.

Unless you were doing more than 20 mph, there will be no "frame damage" Treat this like any other fender bender.
Besides, EVs aren't brand new any more. I'd be really surprised if a competent body shop hadn't done a few by now.
 
BuffaloBillsfan said:
I'm aware of the stupidity of typing out frozen ice lol. Too late now I guess. I'll go to my guy tomorrow and see what he says. With it being an EV he might not want to touch it. My dilemma is this : do I wait for the tax return and pay for the repair in full, or go through liberty and pay the $500 and make a claim? If I make a claim I think the first one is forgiven as far as them raising my rate. If I pay out of pocket in full then there's no insurance involved.

Get an estimate first, you may be surprised and it's not that expensive. Or you might look at the bill and say "OMG!"

The other thing is, I have insurance and this is what it's for, right?

Insurance should be for things you can't afford to repair/replace yourself. The problem with insurance is that they do all they can to get your business (and thus your money), but you don't know how they'll react when you do finally make a claim. Even with "Accident Forgiveness" they could still raise your rate come renewal time and claim that it wasn't due to the accident, but some other factor.

Also keep in mind that there is the possibility of another, and more serious, accident happening, where you will need that "Get out of jail card" from your insurance company. So if you can afford to fix this and it doesn't cause you significant financial harm in doing so (such as using the tax refund check), then consider doing it that way.
 
If I had the tax return in hand right now, I'd pay for it probably out of pocket. The return could take a while to get to me and I would like my vehicle fixed asap. For me it's a piece of mind thing. I'm going out for an operation in a week and won't be able to drive for 6 weeks and I'm thinking about things getting worse with it sitting outside waiting to get it fixed. I'm worried about water freezing in somewhere where it shouldn't be, or some unforseen problem that could've been avoided if I fixed it asap.
 
BuffaloBillsfan said:
If I had the tax return in hand right now, I'd pay for it probably out of pocket. The return could take a while to get to me and I would like my vehicle fixed asap. For me it's a piece of mind thing. I'm going out for an operation in a week and won't be able to drive for 6 weeks and I'm thinking about things getting worse with it sitting outside waiting to get it fixed. I'm worried about water freezing in somewhere where it shouldn't be, or some unforseen problem that could've been avoided if I fixed it asap.
You have to get estimates whether you pay out of pocket or go with insurance, so go ahead and do that. Then you'll have more facts. If it's really expensive, then you can just have insurance do it, if it's cheaper, but not urgent, you can wait and pay for it later, and if it's REALLY cheap you can just go ahead.
 
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