Car accident - tire damage?

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Joezeppy

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 16, 2009
Posts
3,054
Location
Upstate NY - Kuyahoora Valley
A friend of mine got in an accident where someone turned left into him. It's a 2012 Explorer with 9,000 miles on it - bummer! She hit him in the driver's side rear door/wheel area. How you turn "into" someone I don't know, but stuff happens. Both sides of the rear suspension as well as both rims sustained damage - $5k total. The other driver admitted responsibility and her insurance company is paying 100%. They will not replace the tires, however. The tires stayed fully inflated but I have to wonder what type of damage occurs to a tire with an impact like this.

I'm thinking he should push the issue with the insurance or at the very least get a actual tire shop to look at them to either confirm or dispute their stance.

Any opinions or experiences? Maybe this type of impact is no different than hitting a nasty pot hole but I figured I'd ask to see what everyone thinks.

Thanks!
 
Why do you think the tires are damaged? They came to a rather sudden stop, but the brakes may not even have been applied (no skidding). If they were not hit by metal or glass during the accident, I would expect they are fine.

Both the repair shop and the insurance adjuster have already performed their own "inspection" and concluded no damage.  The owner can have them inspected by a third party for signs of external and internal damage, but he will probably have to pay for the inspection himself if no evidence of damage is found.
 
I just went through this when an uninsured driver hit my car.  The body shop inspected the rim and the tire and found a small scratch on the rim so they replaced that.  They felt there was no damage to the tire so didn't do that.  They also decided to align it "just in case".  My feeling after being through that was that from their inspection they knew what would need to be replaced and did everything that was necessary.  I am confidant that the accident (similar to the one your describe) did no damage to the tires.  There would have been no reason for the body shop to pass up an opportunity to make more money by replacing something else, if it needed it.
 
I agree with other 2 posters on this.

If there is no Visible damage, drive on.  IF the accident did do damage it should show up in short order of being put back on the road.  If so, Claim it then.
 
Thanks all. This is exactly what I was looking for. I know by their very nature, tires are manufactured to take abuse so I wanted to see if I was over-thinking the situation.
 
How do you turn into somebody... Simple, distracted driving, Mind elsewhere, Just flat did not look,  ASSUMED clear road,  I have had it happen to me at least twice and my daughter had it happen where an idiot in the LEFT lane decided to turn RIGHT .. He turned RIGHT into her.. He told a real good story.. The story my daughter told fit the observed physical evidence including skid marks and damage to the cars 100% (His did not).  This is in both my opinion (I responded, made minor emergency repairs so she could continue to drive) and the police officer who wrote it up,, , Just the way my daughter told it.  The mag-alum rims on her car.. You don't want to know the price tag for the one that was damaged!!!!
 
Yup, distracted is the exact word. Here is the email from my friend's wife:

"She SAID that some guy had just cut her off and was acting weird following her real close so she wasn't paying attention, was looking at him in the rearview mirror when she took a left into the side of our car. She said she never saw our car at all. Just plain not paying attention. It wasn't even at an intersection - she was turning into Walmart! Figures!!"
 
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