Some of you may have seen my post in the Xmas Wish List thread in the Clubhouse where I half-jokingly said that I was wishing for good trade-in value for my X. Truth of the matter is that I have been very close to trading it in for something new and more economical. Well, you could say that that just came back to bite me in the butt.

I was coming home from work this morning around 6am on southbound 280 near Page Mill Rd in Palo Alto, when a deer decided to prance across my lane. Needless to say I didn't see it until it was literally right in front of me and I made dead-center (pardon the pun) impact with it at just a hair above 65mph. I wasn't even able to touch the brake.

Both airbags deployed and I lost total road visibility as my hood flipped completely open, not to mention all that smoke from the airbag charges - btw, it's 5 hours later and I still haven't gotten that stink out of my nose.

First and foremost, I guess I should be thankful I'm okay. Due to the "give" in the deer, I wasn't forced forward enough to touch the airbag or even get a bruise from the seatbelt. Obviously, the deer didn't survive. It flew or slid, I couldn't see of course, across 3 lanes and settled in the center divide area.

Thankfully, there wasn't a car anywhere around on my side, so after a few seconds of taking personal inventory and noting the engine was actually still running, I was able to limp the car to the emergency lane while sticking my head out the window in order to see where I was going. Though I had my cell phone, I was just as happy to see one of those highway call boxes about 50 feet away, so I was able to use that.

CHP came by to take a report and the truck is now sitting in a tow yard somewhere in Palo Alto. I've already called my insurance company and have a body shop lined up to pick up the truck on Monday morning and assess the damage.

Considering this was my first accident, I guess I was a bit shocked, so I didn't really look closely at the damage. I can tell you that the bumper, grille, radiator, hood, driver's side lights and fender, will all definitely need replacing. As for other stuff in the engine bay, I'll know more on Monday. It didn't look like there was any frame or suspension damage, but it was damn dark, too.

So, I guess I'll be motoring around in a Nissan Sentra from Enterprise for awhile. One thing's for sure, I won't have to fill up the Sentra's gas tank after only 2 days of commuting. Oh, and here's the ultimate ironic note. Just yesterday, I ordered a replacement bulb for one of my PIAA foglights. Wouldn't you know it's for the passenger side light which is still intact, while the one that had the good bulb is probably in a million pieces. Hahaha!

I'm finally going to sleep now, so maybe when I wake up, I'll realize it was a nightmare and my X will be in the garage. Yah-right...

Holy crap, Jeff!! Glad you're okay.

I find it odd that the airbags went off. If there wasn't enough force to throw you forward against the bag, it seems like it was almost "set" on "way-too-sensitive".

Anyway, bummer... Throw the meat in your freezer?

Wow, glad you're OK, and that you didn't lose control, even after losing sight of the road.

Airbag replacement will be expensive, in addition to the damaged front end. Maybe you can finally upgrade to an ARB, huh?

sorry to hear about your accident! were the damages bad enough to total it (in the insurance companies eyes)? may we see a new 05 x in your driveway if so???

Anyway, bummer... Throw the meat in your freezer?

I guess it would've been already tenderized, eh? Because it was dark, I had no idea where the deer had ended up initially. I didn't even locate it when I pulled out my D-cell Maglite and was checking the lanes for any debris - I did kick some large pieces of antler out of some of the lanes. It wasn't until the CHP officer showed up and used his spotlight that we saw it in the center divide. Some of the first cars that went by just after my collision obviously were running over some stuff judging by the noises, but it sounded mostly like remnants of my grille and little pieces of the bumper that fell off.

Wow, glad you're OK, and that you didn't lose control, even after losing sight of the road.

The CHP officer told me that it was actually a blessing that I didn't have time to react because he's been to so many accidents where people swerve and end up in rollovers. I was also fortunate that I had just come to the relatively short stretch of straight road between the Page Mill Rd offramp and onramp. If it had happened on either of those curves, well, I'd rather not think about that.

were the damages bad enough to total it (in the insurance companies eyes)? may we see a new 05 x in your driveway if so???

I won't really know that until I get it to the body shop tomorrow (Monday) morning. It didn't *look* like it had enough damage for it to be deemed a total loss, but I'm no expert. Hopefully, I'll remember to take my digital camera for some snapshots.

If they decide to repair it, I won't look to upgrade the bumper or anything else if for no other reason than even if I keep the truck, my work schedule keeps me from being able to attend the offroad trips, so it would be rather wasteful.

If it's written off and I get a check, I guess that'd fully make up my mind about getting a new car. Though I have to admit that what the tow truck driver said made me wonder about getting a smaller car, at least for a couple moments. He had recovered a Volvo a few months ago around the same area that had also struck a deer. However, in that case, after the impact, the deer slid up the hood, through the windshield, and killed the driver. Ugh.

Anyhow, I'll post again tomorrow after I find out what they're going to do. At least I finally got that crappy smoke smell out of my nose.

EDITED TO ADD: Oh, one other thing. I opted to take 101 home this morning instead of 280 - MUCH less chance of running across any deer going that way.

Sorry to hear about your accident, Jeff... Whatever you'll decide/have to do w/ your Xterra, I hope things will be done smoothly...

The first billing cycle on my new picture phone finally started, so I was able to download this one picture I took after the truck was loaded on the wrecker. I realize it's blurry and would've been better if taken from the other side of the truck to illustrate more of the damage, but I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. The hood had already been pulled back down by the tow truck driver for transport.



Edited to add: I neglected to mention in the first post that my hood deflector was destroyed, but I guess that's pretty obvious here.

Thats not bad at all.. I figured it would be worse.. grill, fender, hood, bumper (all 19 parts ) left side headlight & signal, radiator / ac condensor.. my bet is 6k..

FWIW
Four of us were headed to Oregon fishing when a nice three point jumped out on the freeway. True to form it saw headlights and froze, thankfully it froze to the right of dead center...bad pun...impact was his right rear and my front right on the ARB. Damage was the yellow lens on the ARB bumper. They were made for fending off 'Roos and worked well in this case. Sorry to hear about your incident.

Hey olebiker,
If you still need those ARB yellow lenses give me a call with your address. CharlieX gave me 2 of them to see if anyone could use them. I will mail them to you ASAP.


Casper

Well, it's official - my insurance company has decided NOT to repair my truck. With his guess of $6K, Xtopher was quite close to the amount of damage - for parts alone that is. While I have a copy of the actual estimate, I won't bore you with details and just say that the parts cost was slightly over $6100, but sales tax, body labor, paint labor, paint supplies, and "Sublet/Misc" costs, brought it up to over $11K. I should be hearing from the "Total Loss" department of the insurance company sometime next week to find out how much I'm getting for it. After that, it looks like I'm going to have to find a new car rather quickly.

I was able to go the body shop earlier today to get the rest of my personal stuff out of the truck. I also removed the Wet Okole seatcovers, the cargo area protector, and swapped out the Sony deck I installed just last month with the factory system I held onto (thank God). Oh, and Huey, I also took my OEM air deflector, so they let me swap it for the Thor-mod'd one. If you still want it, it's yours.

I guess I'll have some other stuff to get rid of like the factory step rails and rear sway bar, plus I still have my "SWXC" sliders. Obviously, the locals get first dibs since I don't really want to have to ship anything. I'll take inventory later. I'm too tired right now and I still have to check with my credit union about a possible (probable) new car loan, etc.

The body shop was nice enough to email me the pictures they took before the teardown which were also sent to the insurance company. I took some of them and made up a simple webpage. At least you'll get a better idea of the overall damage than what was shown in my blurry camera phone photo.

http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/accident.htm

yikes!! im surprised 1 frickin deer could cause that much damage!! im just glad you're ok. well good luck in the car hunt! pick something cool!

Wow, that was a lot of damage. So, I guess this misfortune is a blessing in disguise, eh? It would have sucked to have the truck repaired, and then get reduced trade-in value because of the accident...

What models of replacement transportation have you been considering? Goin' hybrid?

Ya, all I was guessing was parts.. at $85 or more per hour.. no way was i going to touch labor...
xterraparts got me pretty close tho on parts..

There was a momentary conflict of emtions, yes. The practical side of me was happy since it wanted to trade it in anyhow, while the sentimental side wanted it back. Hehe. As for replacements, I'm officially out of the truck/SUV market. I'd been researching the Mazda3 5-dr, Altima 2.5S, and even the Scion tC, though I hadn't gotten to the actual test drive stage. I guess I'll have to do that soon - like next week. Initially, I was also looking at your TSX, but I remembered it takes premium unleaded and that sort of squashed the idea.

My main problem is probably going to be finding the model with the exact options AND color I want. Of course, that's true at anytime, but now I'll be in a hurry and I can already see myself settling for something I didn't intially want. Not that I should be surprised since I can honestly say that Solar Yellow wasn't my first choice in colors when I bought my Xterra. Hehe. Shhh! The color did grow on me, though.

As you can tell, I'm not looking at hybrids. If I had a really short commute or one that was all stop-and-go, I might think about it, but since almost all of my 80 miles per day are at or around freeway speeds, I'm less inclined. The only one I was even remotely looking at was the Prius and I've seen numbers from people who do highway driving similar to me that are almost down the upper end of the what the Mazda3 5-dr can get.

I got another touch of irony yesterday when I came home from the body shop after cleaning out my truck. What should be waiting in the mailbox? None other than the renewal notice for my vehicle registration. I'm wondering now that since I grabbed my personalized plates from the Xterra if I'm going to have to pay to keep them active even if I don't currently have a car to put them on, though obviously I should have a new one before the actual renewal date in January. Maybe I wasn't supposed to grab the plates in the first place. Hehe. Oh well.

The M3 5-door looks pretty cool, although slightly on the small side. You might also look at the M6 5-door. When I bought the TSX it was a toss-up between a fully loaded M6 and the TSX, which were about the same price. What finally pushed me towards the TSX was the interior fit and finish; the TSX is just a bit more plush. I don't think I would have been sorry with the M6, though.

In the TSX, I'm averaging about 25mpg real-world city/highway mix. I drive 80 miles/day also on I-280. It's rated to get 23/32, so I'm not sure why my mileage is so low. It could be because I bought a demo which may not have been ideally broken in, combined with my lead foot.

With today's gas prices, premium fuel doesn't cost that much more than regular. I usually get about 400 miles per "tank", and I filled up 16 gal for about $41 the other night. With regular unleaded it would have cost $38. At 1600 miles per month, I can handle spending an extra $3/week.

So you are saying I should stop swinging by and syphoning gas at 3 in the morning during the week??