So me being 18 and thinking im a hot shot i tend to speed and tailgate people often, well today my luck happen to run out. I was following my dad home while he was drivin his brand new 2006 Toyota Tundra.Me being the teenager i am thought it would be cool to look at my text message from a girl rather than keep my eyes on the road. Well i was behind my dad and the light turned red, well me bein the stupid idiot i am wasnt paying attention. So at the last second i look up and notice he has stopped, with no time to react the only thing i could do was try to stop. I ended up slamming on my brakes and plowing into the back of his new truck. Well he happened to have a hitch and his truck being so high and mine being so low, my bumper was crushed.Only damage he had was the plastic cover for the hitch. My ranger wasnt so lucky the grille, bumper and the whole front in was pushed in..ill let the pics tell the story..but so much for my graduation present, now its going to be repairing my truck..i was tryign to see wut kind of estimate yall would give as in cost to repair everything i have to re-imburst my dad.

http://w19.photobucket.com/widgets/d...angersurfer06/

(click on pics to make them bigger)

 

Luck had nothing to do with it...
Dave

 

stupidity and carelessness

 

This is your lesson, put the phone away, and watch the road, not text messages.

 

yea..so back to the estiamted cost of the whole repair?

 

I posted in your other topic... The abbreviated version:

I hit a brick mailbox last summer when I was 16. Granted I have a '94, so my parts may be more widespread than yours. I also bought a few aftermarket accessories (like headlights and clear corners) that added to the cost. But altogether including full body repaint mine and front end alignment came out to around $1200 I think.

RP
Zach

 

Don't be to hard on yourself, just learn from your mistakes, and thank God it wasn't worse. I take it your not turning it in on the insurance to keep your rates from going up, good choice for the amount of damage that was done, and it was you dad that you hit. You could go get yourself 3, or 4 estimates, or you could replace the parts yourself from the boneyards, ford, ect, and just have it painted, and alligned. It's hard to give you a good estimate over the internet without seeing the truck, alot of little things can be damaged that you wont ss until you start removing parts, GOOD LUCK.

 

i toook about 10 pictures and posted them on that link below the paragraph ABOVE^

 

Saw the pitures, but even so the pitures won't tell the whole story until you start removing parts, like was there any fram damage, steering compontete's, and so on. Ranger pilot can be you biggest help, he had a simular accident. He said it cost him around 1,200.00$. Body work is expensive now days, thats why it doesn't take much to total a vehicle.

 

And why I did all the work myself. Great learning experience.

RP
Zach

 

Around here tailgaters that cause an accident get a "following too closely" ticket, and if someone like ME witnesses the accident and stops and talks to the cop (which I'm ALWAYS thoroughly delighted to do) the driver will probably get a negligent driving ticket (mandatory court visit). People going the speed limit and maybe a tad above don't exactly appreciate being tailgated for obvious reasons as well as the fact that the accidents these people cause raise insurance rates for everyone. Hopefully a permanent lesson was learned here.

 

Around here it's grouped under "Reckless Driving" but I've never seen someone get a ticket for following too closely unless there was a wreck.

RP
Zach

 

yes i was very fortunate i didnt get a ticket, even my dad said i could have got one. Ok well the parts were ordered today and it was around 900.00 for the parts. My dad and i plan to put everything on and its gonna be a very good learning experience i suppose. We pretty much ordered everything in the front, driver headlight, front bumper, front bumper brackets, front bumper valance, header panel and etc. The mount for the bumper to the frame is bent so we plan to just beat it back to the origanl postion.So much for fords being "bulit ford tough"it seems my dads tundra seems to be the tougher truck seeming that all that got messed up on his was the rubber hitch cover and mine well it pretty much got bend and tore to hell. I just now got my hood up it was stuck. to my fellow ranger drivers, i believe we need a tougher truck

 

what are you going to get next that's tougher, an M1A2 Abrams tank....you would make good tank bait in Faluja with that wild crazy driving...make you point tank driver in the hot seat...won't have to worry about tailgating then....for all those new Belurus titanium/depleted uranium ultra high velocity anti tank weapons the Russia weapons corporations have sold to the Sunni tank killers...remember, the side armor behind the track rollers is like thin peanut butter and you, the driver, does not enjoy the turret Chobam armor

 

Remember his hitch leads directly to his frame, which took the impact evenly. Your truck took it on many other parts, which are much weaker than the frame comparitively. The header panel, for one, is fiberglass. Not exactly impact-resistant material.

The frame to bumper brackets on my truck were easy to bend back to shape. Remove, "inspect" with five pound sledge and 2x4, replace.

RP
Zach