Discovery 3 vs Pajero Sport

[SaltyNalty]

On our recent family holiday to Shark Bay we were involved in a head on collision with a Pajero Sport.

We were heading to Big Lagoon Camp Area in Francois Peron NP, WA.

We came across a Pajero Sport moving very quickly. The Pajero had highway tyres at road pressures. Witnesses said they had seen the Pajero driving very slowly and then accelerating to dangerous speeds. The Pajero was a hire car and the occupants were on holidays from overseas. They had no idea how to drive off-road let alone on the sand. Anyway, we collected them on a blind corner.


My car had it's right wheels in the left-most tyre track and the left side of the car off the track when we collided. The Pajero swerved into my car, probably a reflex as the Chinese drive on the right side of the road. There were no injuries.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611661092_9a6190e4a3_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4DteN)

The Pajero Sport. After the accident, one of the cars helping us out dragged it off the track with a snatch strap. A tow truck was called as it couldn't be driven anywhere.


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611149253_53737ff188_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4AR5Z)

After I assessed the damage I moved my car back off the Pajero as it was leaking fluid into the front of the Discovery. The ARB steel bar had done an awesome job. The damage to my car was no where near as bad as I thought it would be.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611505956_d2b8804768_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4CF83)

While the lens was broken all globes were still functional.


At the crash site we used my winch connected to a snatch block on another car and back to my bull bar to pull it forward off the front tyre. We had to connect it to different places to get the bar to bend back, all the while being careful not to break the bull bar mounts.
When the car was running you could hear leaking air. We traced it to a crushed airline between the control module and the right front suspension bag. One of the guys helping out had some self amalgamating tape so wrapped some around the damage to make it air tight again.
With those repairs we were able to drive again. It was only a couple of km to get to camp and about 17km to the nearest town, Denham. It was coming up to dinner time so we made the call to continue to camp and sort out the damage in the morning.

On the drive to camp the air line repair was whistling. At first the compressor could keep the air up but gradually we lowered to the bump stops. This threw an error and all programs were disabled. We hit a spot of soft sand and bogged down. The combination of soft sand and the 2t camper trailer on the back proved too much for the car without any programs. A nice bloke named John who helped out at the accident offered to tow us in to camp. So we connected my snatch strap and with a little encouragement through the soft sections we limped in to camp on the bump stops.

The next morning I used the high lift jack to force the bull bar further forward off the tyre. I also used a hack saw to trim the damaged wheel arch lining which was destroyed and rubbing on the tyre. The bracket that the air suspension control module counts to was destroyed as was the ARB wings for the bar.

I attempted to shore up the air line repair by placing back to back cable ties along the self amalgamating tape. This almost worked but no matter what I did it still leaked a little. It was also delicate. If you knocked it, it would leak more. I had a good think about the problem and came up with a new solution. It would mean cutting the line, so if it didn't work there would be no repairing it.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611505336_55d10e1943_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4CEWm)

I cut the damaged section out. I then cut a piece of my Thumper air compressor line. Using two hose clamps off a dual inflation rig I had made up. I grafted the new section in. If was tricky as the damaged section was hard to get to.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611148603_a3318364ea_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4AQTM)

I started up the car and jacked it up to off-road height and it held. I trimmed as much of the damaged panels in the wheel arch as I could and we were back in business.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611660367_7dce1079f0_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4Dt2i)

A few more cable ties and we were able to continue our holiday. Many thanks to the ARB bar!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611660537_1b44a9d255_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4Dt5e)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48611660662_50c58ec816_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2h4Dt7o)

https://youtu.be/_eo7rtJe3Dw Video here.

Cheers,

Salty

[W&KO]

Good to see your back on the road.....

Amazing the slo-mo of the air bag going off.

[cripesamighty]

Holy crap. That's not what you want on a family holiday. Glad you are all ok and the car is mobile. Nice bit of McGuyvering. So what's the next move?

[trout1105]

It just goes to show how important fitting a GOOD bull bar to you 4WD is[thumbsupbig]
How did you go with your insurance claim?

[SaltyNalty]

I picked up the car Friday from the smash repair. It took a long while to complete as the ARB bar was not available. The insurance was going to settle on the bar and return the car without one.
Knowing the bar was still in the ARB catalogue, I gave ARB a call. They were out of stock but had a build run commencing in another week. I called the insurance company and let them know the bar would be available and I was happy to wait.
After seeing how well it can stand up to punishment, I couldn't put anything else on the front.

I'm glad to have it back. I didn't realise how often I tinker with the car until I was without it.

Cheers,

Saltyhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190825/bae12225ce18ee9f05271e10035566f6.jpg

[SaltyNalty]

The insurance side of the story is an interesting one with some lessons learnt for me.
I had not put enoughthought in to 'what if?' scenarios while we were off road.

The Discovery is our second car and I commute by motorbike daily. So primarily the Discovery is used for longer trips and holidays. When shopping for insurance I was price driven and wasn't looking at additional features noting how little k's the car is driven. For example I wasn't looking for glass, car rental, roadside assistance.
I settled with Bingle a budget insurer. The price was very cheap.

Once we had our accident and I established everyone was okay (it was also the first trip with the youngest forward facing). I began to think what the hell do I do now. I was helped a lot by John, the chap that gave us the snatch tow to camp. While I was still gathering my thoughts, he was prompting what needed to be done to get us off the roadside and into camp (while his wife got chairs and snacks to keep the girls happy. I was travelling with wife and 3 (1, 5, 7) girls). I realised pretty quickly that our insurance was not geared for this kind of event. An accident in town close to home, sure, but not a remote incident. I knew the trailer insurance, CIL, would sort out getting the trailer home should it be involved. Bingle would also sort out the car, not doubt with recovery expenses coming my way. But Bingle would not sort me and the family out more than 1,000km from home.

This is where I waslucky to get the car drivable again. No recovery nightmare for me (this was left to chance which I'm not comfortable with for our next trip). The next problem was that for Bingle you must lodge your claim online. My phone had no reception. Wife's phone had one bar with data so I was able to, over a very long time, lodge a claim. Bingle encourages you to make all non fault claims through the third parties insurer. This is how they save costs.

This is where I realised I should have gathered more information at the scene. Once we had collided I cut the ignition as I had no idea what carnage had occurred up front. This cut the dash cam footage. When I restarted the car to remove it from the Pajero, the dash cam recorded but as a new file. That evening when I pulled the dash footage to my computer I only grabbed the one video. The one I used in the YouTube video. For reasons unknown to anyone I didn't get the subsequent clips and by the time I realised they had been over written. Mistake one.

At the scene I took photos of the Pajero showing the damage. I took a photo of my damage. I also took a photo of the back of the Pajero showing license plate and make/model details. I then got a photo of the other driver's license and passport (both Chinese). At the time I wasn't thinking so much of the liability claim as getting off the track and getting everyone home.

What would have been good to have for the claim was a photo of where the cars were on the track. The dash cam doesn't show this clearly. My car was almost entirely off the left side of the track. A photo depicting this would have been helpful. I didn't get a photo of the other driver (this didn't matter, but if he had denied he was the driver, would be helpful). I also could have got a photo of the wheel tracks showing the other car swerved right and where my car swerved left to come off the track.

The final piece of information I didn't grab was the other parties insurance details as I thought my insurer would be able to get this from the license plate. The other car was a hire car, but it had no markings to indicate which company (again, I thought the license plate would give this away). In WA the Department of Transport will not give out information from the license plate. So my insurer had trouble establishing who to send the claim to.

When we exchanged details the other driver called my phone so we had each other's numbers. Though later he did not answer his phone. He may have already returned home. There are not many rental companies that allow you to take their cars off road and the companies that do have advertising on their cars. He may have gone to ground. I did have the details of the mechanic that was called to tow the Pajero out. I gave these to my insurer and hopefully the bloke was able to share some information. Most people up there were not too happy with the other driver for being a nuisance most of the day on the tracks and then finally this incident.

Bingle will not start any work on a claim until the excess is paid. They treat the information as notification only and expect you to chase up the repair through the third partie's insurance. I don't have the insurance experience, phone reception or time to coordinate a claim so I paid the excess to get the ball rolling. If liability can be passed to the third party then the excess will be refunded. At this time the liability is disputed and I'm not holding my breath for the refund. As the track was a single lane (though it was three wheel tracks with a shared one in the centre) it is near impossible to pass liability. This is were the extra evidence would have been helpful. At this time the claim is marked as 'third party failed right of way'. The evidence I did get has been packaged into this case but more would have been desirable.

So some key lessons I've taken away is to review my insurance and roadside assistance to satisfy a worst case scenario 'what if'. While the wife and I had talked about getting something like the Optus Sat Sleeve and agreed it would be a good idea, we never actioned it. Though the experience has been trying we have a lot of lessons taken on board that will see us much better prepared for out future trips.

Cheers,

Salty

[Tombie]

Ouch!

[roverrescue]

I know the D3 is tough
But has your vehicle been measured by someone who knows what they are doing
Looking at that damage, there was a lot of energy being dissipated
Although the mounts of the ARB bar were intact was there any bending of the “chassis”
The bar bolts too?

If not that is awesome advertising for ARB advertising

Also a great example of where not only just a bar
But a full steel bar kept you moving

If that was a Comp bar / alloy bar / plastic bar you would have been on a tow truck

S

[twr7cx]

That sucks. Glad your ok. It’s the problem with the crush cans that the bull bars push back causing issues driving afterwards - a necessary thing though for the safety of the modern vehicles.

[SaltyNalty]

I think most of the energy from the collision was dissipated by the Pajero's crumple zones as it was a fairly soft stop in the Disco.

Cheers,

Salty

[cjc_td5]

Not good mate. I'm glad you and family are ok.

Your video seems to fairly clearly show you on the far left of the track and the other vehicle veering right. It also shows them approaching the blind corner at speed. Hope you get it sorted satisfactorily.
Chris.

[Corgie Carrier]

Glad you and the family are OK. Must have scared the crap out of you worrying about the little ones.

If you watch the video carefully you will see that the Paj did not swerve but skidded into you.

As soon as you see the Paj you can see dust coming from the drivers side wheel, indicating that he locked the brakes and continued straight across the corner into your path. His abs obviously wasn't set for off road, as you said hire cars are not permitted off road.

They say ARB bars are expensive for what they are, I bet you are saying they are cheap insurance.

Once again glad you and the family are OK

[LROCV309]

That sucks. Glad your ok. It’s the problem with the crush cans that the bull bars push back causing issues driving afterwards - a necessary thing though for the safety of the modern vehicles.

Also glad to hear you're all OK - the safety of your family is always the first priority.

What surprises me, and you are probably grateful for, is that the airbags didn't deploy. That would pretty much lead to a write-off. I wonder how much Bingle would have thought was the market value?

[SaltyNalty]

Just to close the loop on this story. A little while ago my insurance company found that I was not at fault and refunded my excess. I'm very happy with that.
The other driver left the country before my insurer could contact him. Turns out the other car was rented from Thrifty and no doubt shouldn't have been there at all. My insurer was having trouble getting Thrifty to accept liability as they claim the accident was not on a gazetted track. The track to Big Lagoon Camping Area is on all maps issued by DPAW and my insurer was satisfied it is gazetted.
Any how, that's where we're at.

Cheers,

Salty.