ill come back to this later picture should say enough right now

Edit: Well the story just left the gas station not even a mile from here. While this bus was stopping to turn hit my brake felt it stopping at first but once the brake hit the floor my brakes gave out a second later . Then the airbags deploy and explode and the car fills with smoke/fumes. Now comes the part were my girlfriend and I could have died the cars filling with smoke but none of my doors would open i unlocked my door wouldnt open jumped over my passenger her door wouldnt open so reached to the back and tried the door to the right unlocked it still was not opening. While i was in the back started hitting the trunk latches to get out the trunk. By this time i thank god someone pried my drivers side door opened. I helped her out first then got my self out. Once i started breathing regular started noticing that the car literally became a death trap if my ecu shutdown and locked all the doors shut. We got out and thats all im happy about at the moment will work everything else out after christmas since the insurance taken care of for now if they offer me a new car I will be honest im trading it for something else as much as i love the Maximas as far as safety at least this 09 damn sure did not do its best at letting you get out the car after the airbags deploy.

Guess my Last question for a while I noticed this was a slight problem when I got the car never thought it would lead to this when i told my service center about it 2 times already, have there been any post regarding brakes failing like this? cause I cant find any post using the search that support any of this for insurance purposes

and i am happy to be alive like my momma said that is the greatest christmas gift you can ask for ...



and a few more pics:

 

OMG what happened? Are you alright?

 

Damnnnnn...Glad your ok.

 

Wow glad you are alive to tell the story good luck

 

That's no good. I'm glad you weren't injured. I wouldn't fear the airbag; the propellant isn't toxic. It's surprising that the doors jammed. The car's black box may validate a possible brake problem. I do hope you'll use periods in future posts.

 

^ x2

also glad everyone is ok...


now dont follow so closely

 

dang dude glad yall are ok. i'm curious though...it took them a whole day/night to remove the car from the scene? there are day and night pics?

 

dam bro im glad you and your girl is ok. what is the insurance gonna do?.


and i always feel like my brakes are failing if i really step on it

 

i could not read your post about what happened...that made my head hurt...glad yall are ok though

 

I'm glad your ok and everyone else in the car but brakes failing? Wish Paul Harvey was still around so we could hear the "rest of the story"

 

No disrespect, but in an accident like that, you should NOT be getting out of the car and moving around until evaluated by paramedics.

The "smoke" you saw was probably a combo of the letoff gasses from the airbag, talcum powder and possibly antifreeze. Modern cars don't catch fire often, don't "explode" etc.

Um, I do have to ask tho, you can manually flip the lock to unlock the door. If you did that and still couldn't open it, then the frame was crushed wedging it shut meaning that it's NOT the car's fault.

NEVER assume your battery will survive any collision.

 

Same here took me a while to get my nerves together to tell the story



thanks for the helpful incite and i just finished re editing the story wrote it previously in one go really fast


i am going to have a mental note of this forever.

well the accident happened around 4:00 PM and around my area it gets dark around 5:00 PM lately but yes it did take til about 6:00 PM for a tow truck to come.

Well right now im working on getting my service record from nissan without telling them what happened because personally they do some shady work at least from our service center. Then after i pull my records since i know on my records it should state i told them about my brakes at least 3 times. can remember the first one being when i first purchased the car. After that find a independent mechanic to check out the brakes. then let the service center for Geico check it out and thats all i have thought up to for now will go on from there

Thanks

and i understand the first part but not really a choice when have some one with you going into a panic attack so just got trying to get her some air and yes i flipped all the switches manually didn't touch my keys during all this

 

Don't quote me on this since my memory is fuzzy, but when i hit the deer in my Max i could swear that i didn't have to unlock the doors to get out. And my driver side front fender and door were pretty much one piece of metal at that point. Then again i may have unlocked the door manually on pure "wtflolbbq" instinct.

Either way the doors unlocked so i know it's not something they overlooked in the design. I'd have to agree with Compusmurf's thoughts on it. Either you had some major frame damage all the way up to the doors which doesn't sound like the sole reason if you couldn't open ANY of the 4 doors, or you were trying to use the electronic unlock from shock.

It's good to hear that you're both ok.

EDIT: I know of myself and at least 1 other person on the boards had to have their brake booster replaced. I'm sure you're fuzzy on it, but if the brakes suddenly went "limp" on you it could be possible you had a bad brake booster. If that's the case you should not have had to tell your dealership about it 3 times. When i took my car in they knew what it was after driving it for 5 minutes.

 

I'm guessing there aren't any current TSB's or recalls on the brakes for 2009? I have an 09 and wasn't exactly impressed with the stopping distance, but they definitely seem to work normally. I don't want to find out the hard way though... anyone else had any brake problems they were able to get Nissan to fix, and what did you tell them?

Also, really glad you're okay man. I totaled my old car a few months ago, which is why I have a Max now. I slammed on my brakes and my bumper didn't meet his bumper, my hood/grill/radiator met his bumper and crumpled. Since the bus was so much higher than you it hit your car where it wasn't designed to absorb it...sucks that things like this can turn what might have been a new bumper and minor frame damage into a total wreck.

 

Glad to hear you are ok, rear-ending someone sucks!

 

Wow! Crazy!

As I was reading the first thing that went through my head was "Final Destination" haha...I don't understand why the doors wouldn't open, weird...

It's good to see you guys are ok though. Makes me worry about my car and others.

 

First, thank God you both are okay. Last time I had a major wreck it made me re-evaluate life quite a bit.

Second, if in fact those brakes failed this should be escalated to Nissan (or someone independent) to determine why. I can only imagine this is how the Toyota issues surfaced. My wife drives one of these everyday. I can't risk her being in a death trap. Although I understand that there is no pattern established yet please keep us up to date on your follow-up with Nissan.

 

I wouldn't actually call that a major wreck. The closing speed looks to have been 30 MPH or less. The bodywork is impressively crumpled, but the heavy parts haven't much moved and the passenger cabin is untouched. With a car this modern, a lasting injury of any sort would be very surprising.

I've also noticed lackluster braking in quick stops. The pedal is mushy at the bottom of the travel, brake assist seems to have no effect, and the brakes never get anywhere near locking the tires. If they can't do it with the factory all-seasons, I can't imagine sticky tires would do much better. Ordinary braking is fine.

 

^^^^^^

this.


i was involved in a head-on accident in my old ES300 lexus and i could'nt get out of the car.
i had to shift my position in the driver seat to kick the driver door open. the front end collision was violent enough to wedge the door shut.
OP there is no need to come on the .org trying to scare people thinking they have a bad car.
im gratefull that you made it out alive and everything is ok, but no need to spread unnessary claims that your car turned into some sort of death trap because in reality, EVERY car is a death trap.
...ive been in enough crashes to know...

 

Maybe "momma" should of said never follow school buses so close that you won't have time to be able to stop.

Let me close the file on this case: teenager who thinks he knows it all, following too closely to the car in front of him, speeding, and not paying enough attention while driving to stop in time.

I SINCERELY hope there were no kids on that school bus when you rear-ended it. It would be a damn shame for someone's innocent child to be injured as a result of your negligence.

When you rear-end someone, you're automatically at fault for good reason with VERY few exceptions. Your signature tells me all I need to know to determine what happened.

 

Painting with a bit of a broad brush, aren't we?

 

^ This pretty much covers it ^

Original poster later confirmed he manually unlocked the doors, and they still would not open. That tells us the front-to-rear force of the accident jammed the doors. There was no ulterior 'death trap' motive on the part of the car's ECU, and the ECU did not disable the operation of the manual door lock levers.

Air bags always create quite a bit of noise, smoke, etc when they deploy, and wrecks in general generate much dust and debris. The fact nobody even had a scratch in this accident simply indicates the car properly protected its occupants.

The outcome of this wreck only reinforces my feeling the 7th generation Maxima is a safe car. We have had two other posters here total their 7th gen Maximas, and neither suffered as much as a scratch.

The deadliest thing about this 7th gen Maxima is that its very aggressive styling encourages us to sometimes 'show our stuff.' With no discernable tranny shifts, this is a sneaky fast car, and someone who has driven typical shifting cars of the past may be moving faster than he realizes.

There are, of course, terrible wrecks in which no amount of protection can save the occupants. But I feel my Maxima gives me the best protection modern safety features can give.

 

Vehicle #1 was stopped when vehicle #2 struck vehicle #1. Vehicle #1 states it was stopped. Vehicle #2 states he could not stop. NOTE: Vehicle #2 is under vehicle #1 which indicates vehicles braking system was active at full capacity. *Brake failure ruled out based on accident pictures which indicate vehicle number was traveling at a higher rate of speed and to close to properly control the vehicle. Vehicle #1 suffered minor damage as impact was below impact protector. Vehicle #2 suffered extensive damage due to its lower chassis during braking and striking vehicle #1 at high rate of speed. This is just a blurb but if I was arrived on this scene or only had these pictures to work with that will be my OFFICIAL report. Word to the wise original poster you may want to take these pictures down for now because you have already faulted yourself by leaving out the pictures that could help you prove your point concern for faulty brakes.

I had to add this "the bus driver stopped short" this is usually the statement drivers make when they rear end someone else. If the driver in front stops suddenly and you rear end them you were to close end of story.

 

driver error at its finest.


glad you are okay.

 

One other thing to add. EVERY driver, everywhere, should own a safety glass breaker and keep it in the center console within reach. Quick pop and the glass is gone providing you a quick and easy escape route. For anyone that lives surrounded by water (like me in Florida) where an off the road "trip" will submerge your vehicle, it's a MUST HAVE item. Folks, a few bucks is worth your life, I assure you. Personally, I feel every manufacturer should include one with each car sold.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's an example of one.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.30983

and another type:

http://www.bladehq.com/item--Life-Hammer-Safety--6714

 

+1

The damage looks exactly like what happened to me in my Sentra a few months ago, my tires were bald and I was following too close in the rain at too fast and the guy ahead stopped and I went flying into the back of him. Because I was breaking so hard the front of the car went under his bumper and my car impacted at a spot it was not designed to take impact at. $5500 worth of damage hitting a guy at 30-35 mph... You can see here the height of the bus had everything to do with the amount of damage + that he was most likely braking hard tilting the front bumper even lower.

I agree that this doesn't look like a "death trap" or a malfunction of the ECU or brakes, but simply you were going pretty dang fast when you hit the guy. I know it is deceiving because when you are hauling *** in this car you barely feel it, the night I bought mine I was pulled over going 95 and had no freaking idea I was going that fast. Cop let me go because he could see it was a new purchase and I was excited, but lesson is this car can be going deceptively faster than you think.

+1 to the post about getting a safety glass breaker, great idea for anyone who owns a car especially around bodies of water. From what I've seen of accident pictures this car does exactly what it should - crumple and save the occupants from harm. While it is really unfortunate that you crashed the car, it is a blessing that you are okay and walked away from all of this. Please drive more carefully in the future, your life is always worth more than racing some guy next to you who you'll never see again.

 

im glad to hear your girl & u r ok. if ur pedal went to floor then u lost breaks. seems to me your mastercylnder or lost fluid. if ur booster went pedal wouldve got hard.

 

Woh, glad you are ok. I have not had any problems with my brakes. But my barber did say that her brake light came on prematurely and she had to gt them replaced at the dealer.