dko

iTrader: (7)

Last night I'm coming back from the beach with two people in my car. Driving down a small two lane local road. not speeding, just chillin in the right lane. there's a car in the left lane going about as fast as me. out of nowhere I see somtething on the road and since it's fairly small I get it between my wheels and just keep driving, even though I heard a thump. What it was on the road was one of those temporary steel plates that is put down when there is construction on the road. Except this one has two raised brackets for a forklift. the brackets are 6" wide, 6" long and 3" tall.


I've had sprints and AGX for almost a year with no problems at all and now it looks like the ****ING PIECE OF **** on the road ripped up my valvebody pan.


any ideas how ****ed I am? there were no emergency lights, cones or sawhorses in front of it... i also filled a police report and my car is leaking trans fluid. i left it at a friend's house because it no longer shifts at all.

you can see the trail of you look closely... that went on for about 6 blocks.

dko

iTrader: (7)

tell me about it. i already filed a police report, including the witness tesstimony as well as getting a cop to go down there and follow the trail of trans fluid all the way to where my cart is parked 6 blocks away. i'm going to talk to the construction company and the homeowner as well as the city.

dko

iTrader: (7)

how did he get money from the city, what did he do? thanks in advance!

clee130

You might want to resize those pictures just a little bit.

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

Or .... A LOT.

dko

iTrader: (7)

alright, calvin. i edited my org. post. hey, any ideas?

vsamoylov

Just replace the trans oil pan and you are cool. The trans casing is very hard so nothing will happen to that. If you need a trans oil pan, i sell it to you. It is slightly used because the car was totaled and I stripped it

maximum810

The city won't do anything except tell you to drive slower next time so you can stop.

vsamoylov

you need the pan?

dko

iTrader: (7)

i was traveling the speed limit and i have two witnesses with sworn confessions on file. besides, there aren't any streetlights (a village responsibility) near where this plate (a construction copmpany responsibility) is, therefore you can only see it when you are 15 feet away. no car in the world can go 35-0 in 15 feet. also, if I slammed on the brakes the car would pitch down, further lowering the oil pan and causing even more damage.

the repair will likely be $200. that's a lot to me because i'm a poor college kid and I make $800 a month working part time. that's enough to cover my expenses, barely. $200 to the village or a construction company is peanuts. they spend more than that on toilet paper!

i just called a local dealer and it's $36 for a new one and $18 for the gasket. i'll just get it from them, but thanks anyway.

KWheelzSB

iTrader: (1)

Ditto this! You should have a very strong case against whoever was responsible for leaving a hazard like that in the road.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't the only one who had serious damage done to their vehicle on account of that thing.

Consider putting an ad in the classified section of your local paper to get in touch with others who suffered damages. Identify the date, location & road hazard involved with a number to contact you. You'll be surprised how responsive the party responsible may become if there are several of you.

Also, you boost your own credibility by going through the trouble to place an ad like this. (Who whould bother if it was a BS claim?)

A friend of mine in CA successfully settled a claim with the CA D.O.T. for a road-hazard incident, so, with persistence, you CAN win.

Good luck!

dko

iTrader: (7)

thanks. I'm almost positive the repair will be inexpensive, so it may be easier to just talk to the construction company in person and just appeal to them--they drive too, and it could have been their car or the car of a loved one. maybe some people aren't as lucky as me. if you hit that thing with your tires you'll lose control for sure and there are plenty of trees in the immediate area that you can wrap your car around.

i can get the name of the construction company from the village hall, i have the address and i've talked to several people at the roads and alleys dept.

i don't care how much this costs me, i am not paying it out of pocket. that's ridiculous. i pay plenty in taxes and i've been plenty upset with the village before for ****ty service, but this is something else.

dko

iTrader: (7)

here are some more pictures so you can tell what i'm talking about. up close it's obvious what it is. the second picture is from 10 feet away. you can tell how hard it is to see those things and that's during broad daylight. imagine what it's like at night with no streetlights around.




after i filed the police report they put up the emergency lights and horses and ****. you can see the trail of trans fluid start and continue in both pictures.

Scruit

I'd say you have a good case - but fix your car ahead of time and present them with the bill. Don't be holding your breath waiting for them to crack out the checkbook.

Flava_24/7

iTrader: (46)

Those are pretty good pics, you shouldnt have too hard of a time proving your case I would think. Good luck!

LastBoyScout

That is some BS you are trying to feed him. No sign = their fault. Even if someone moved the sign, it is still their fault for not having secondary measures or correcting the situation so that it was not dangerous.

Definately talk to the construction people first. Present them with a bill, and tell them that you want this rectified in 3 days or you will be forced to contact the local papers with their obvious disreguard for local citezen's automotive safety, and if they are that disconcerened for our auto's, imagine how **** poor their safety standards are for their construction work. Tell them you have pictures, and a cop of the police report that you will gladly send the papers.

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

Yeah. One word ... OSHA. Tell them to chew on that for a bit. I'm sure they broke/are breaking some OSHA regulation with that thing.

maximum810

Yeah, that's my purpose....(sarcasm)

I'm not saying that you're SOL, but if the city had to pay everyone for everything they hit....you get the idea here. Like insurance companies, cops, whatever....the city will try to find some way weasel themselves out of it.

philly96maxima

What the hell oakie town did this happen in?? Skokie...no wonder.. they wouldnt put stupid plates like that down in Chicago!

njmaxseltd

iTrader: (19)

The moral of this thread is.......

Sprint springs sit to low.

Ute

I work for a local city government, as a project manager to city construction projects. If the construction was being paid for and done by the city, contact the public works department. They have insurance clauses in all contracts to cover claims like that. (Provided by the contractor.) If the construction was being done privately, they still should have filed a permit with the city. I'm positive that the work zone did not meet the standards required by the permit, thus if the construction company refuses to pay for damages, a quick mention of legal action should produce results. I don't believe using the local press would be an asset. Your photos and police report are enough evidence. Good luck, here in my city you'd be getting a check. (I deal with it myself a couple times a year.)

Flava_24/7

iTrader: (46)

Here we go with the Sprint Spring preachings, I think the last thing he wants to hear are I told ya so's. If Sprints are too low, What about coilovers?????

njmaxseltd

iTrader: (19)

Slam the car with them and the results are the same.
Pretty simple conclusion, don't ya think?

You can't expect to drive around with only of few inches of ground clearance and expect everything to be fine. Reality check please....

I'm sorry for the guys misfortune, but it'll happen again if he doesn't keep his eye out that much more for bumps and road hazards when your down that low.

It takes the fun out of driving.

dko

iTrader: (7)

i've had sprints for a year now and i've had no problems. keep in mind I drive on some of the worst roads in the US to the tune of about 60-80 miles a day. the reason this happened is because it is a ROAD HAZZARD, if it were a speedbump or something within the city code i would not have damaged my car. if the bump were across the entire lane and my wheels made contact with it there would not have been any problem. if there is a pole sticking 4" out of the ground in the middle of the road very few stock passenger cars would escape unscathed because it is off-center. the suspension cannot lift the car over the obstacle and the underbody suffers.

you've been on the .org for a while, as have I, and i respect you and your opinions -- you're always knowledgeable and willing to help. but I think you are succumbing to your environment and have picked up a nasty habit a lot of people here have: NOT READING. if you look at my second post and the pictures I refer to it's obvious that simply keeping an eye out isn't the issue here. here's a direct quote from one of my posts above:

"...Driving down a small two lane local road. not speeding, just chillin in the right lane. there's a car in the left lane going about as fast as me..."
"There aren't any streetlights (a village responsibility) near where this plate (a construction copmpany responsibility) is, therefore you can only see it when you are 15 feet away. no car in the world can go 35-0 in 15 feet. also, if I slammed on the brakes the car would pitch down, further lowering the oil pan and causing even more damage."

Maybe that clears up what happened. it's not a simple case of "dumbass kid was driving too fast and isn't a good enough driver to avoid something in the road." I had nowhere to go and I did the most sensible thing.


Like I said, you've always been knowledgable and very helpfull, but I still can't stand your terrible aversion toward sprint springs. but i'm not going go into that and just counter with something that is on topic: aren't cars that are as low as mine? Like stock corvettes, S2000, G35's, mustang cobras? That's just the more popular ones, there are hundreds more but I'm just naming cars I see on the road everyday.

Dave B

The C5 has about 5" of clearance, the S2000 6", Cobra ~8", and G35 ~6". Why do these car have so much clearance for being so low? Because they were designed to be low therefore the mechanicals are tucked up into the chassis. A Maxima on Sprints is very low. I can't imagine it has anymore that 4-4.5" in the front (lowest point is Y-pipe or tranny, autos are lower). That's pretty low. My H&R setup has about 5" of underbody clearance at the y-pipe, but only 4" at the Stage II portion of my SFCs I've watched a Sprint equipped auto 4th gen bottom out his SFCs going up a very low grade ramp at the dyno shop. He dumped the Sprints and installed H&Rs, gave up some drop, and gained a ton of ride quality and about 1" of front wheel travel.


Dave

ManualMaxima

iTrader: (10)

dude, this not about *****en at him cause of his springs. It is about how he got bent over and screwed. I feel sorry for ya man.

dko

iTrader: (7)

that's the clearance at the lowest point of the underbody? where are you getting your numbers? i looked underneath my neighbor's C5 and both he and I agreed his car would've been toast in the same situation as mine.