This quote sums it all up for me. I drive my car because that is what I bought her for and that is what she was born to do. I am very sorry for your loss and glad no one was hurt. Alden
. My heart sunk when I read the first line... I thought I was reading the wrong post, and that I was reading your previous post on another Mondial, again. Then I realized you weren't joking... sad! Sadness turned to relief when you reaffirmed that you and your wife are ok. ...then the emotion turned to anger -- how could this happen to such nice people with such a nice car on such a nice trip. Thanks for letting us know you are safe, and thanks for the pictures. :-( They are not nice to look at, but provided much assurance that you are ok. We are glad the damage wasn't more serious. Hope you can get home with no problem. And hope the insurance can sort things out for you to your satisfaction. I think the car can be repaired, and you will love it even more.
I too am so sorry to hear about this. Definitely not the way you wanted to end your two week vacation. But the most important thing is that you and your wife are alive and safe! We all love our cars, but that can't compare to someone's life! Give her a long hug and extra kiss. Don't give up hope on the Mondial just yet. Hopefully not all is lost and maybe you can start a new thread about the repair process. Bill P.
Hi Jon, I've been trying to do some research on my phone but I'm in Australian mountains and Internet is poor and screen too small to see details. However I do think that the damage to your car isn't probably nearly as bad as you think Firstly I think that that uj joint from the other vehicle struck your transmission tunnel where there is a 1 1/2 inch square tube that runs it's length. This is quite thin and would bend easily, this would explain why the accel pedal is bent and also gear linkage and loss of coolant, since all are housed in this area and the square tube is the cage that surrounds it. Off the top of my head and without close study of any proper diagram ie working from my memory of that area. I would think that the fix would be removal of the water pipes that run the length of the car.Removal of the gear linkage and selector. Removal of driver's seat and transmission tunnel trim etc. Cut out and replace the damaged tube, this is a repair that would be good as the original. Then replace damaged water pipes and repair damaged gearlinkage or just re align. It's important to note that these cars have old fashioned and typically Italian 'tubed' chassis that are easy to fix. It's also worth noting that if you had bought a new $300,000 Ferrari 458 it would need chassis welding by now since all of them are cracking. My point being that when your car is welded it will be good as new, however work on the 458 is a patch that I would feel less happy about. Hope this post gives you some heart, it can be fixed. All the best Bell.
I'm with Mike... these cars are really quite easy to work on. But a full assessment needs to take place before the ultimate decision is made. Jon, I'm so happy that you and your wife are okay. But am so so sad to hear and see what's happened to your Mondial.
So sorry to hear of your accident, but I'm grateful you and your wife are fine. Felled by a piece of someone else's debris ... eerily similar to poor old Justin. What a very sad day.
Wow, so sorry to hear of this. It is a loss. I try not to put into words how I feel about my car, especially around my girlfriend. My ex wife had suggested I loved the car more than her. Hopefully it is fixable and if not, at least it can be replaced. Shouldn't deter we drivers from getting out there. These things will happen. Sorry for your loss on this, again, hope it's fixable so you can continue on more journeys.
So sorry to read about your accident Jon. People say it is 'just a car' but these cars are more than that to most of us but unfortunately accidents do occur and from reading your post I don't think there was anything you could of done to prevent it. Maybe you will get lucky and your Mondial won't be totaled and you can have her back on the road again.
Bad things happen to good people. I hope you and your wife heal emotionally very quickly and your Mondial makes a fully recovery as well. My empathetic best to you all...
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. The good news as noted is no one was hurt. Perhaps better is that Bell Bloke is thinking this is fixable; that from someone who understands these inanimate objects (yeah, right, they are part of the family). Don't get too absorbed in any "loss" until a quality body shop goes through this. Don't rush it, here quality is much more important than speed. If this is fixable, hopefully the budget is flexible enough to get some proper pedal covers; those originals are getting a bit "knarly"!! Regards, Jerry
Hey Jon, I look at your response to the "moment", and then I look at what could have taken place in those clock ticks after. What you "may have" done, had you had more time to react, could have resulted in a very different, and very possibly, negative result. Think about this - - had you more time to react to that driveline missile approaching you, this story may have been dramatically different. We're all happy that it unfolded as it did - and that you and your co-pilot (wife) are OK. We share the hurt that you feel for your car. But I really do believe, that after all the Ins. BS, she'll be OK - and we already know the the two of you are OK, as well. Hank
Thanks to you all for your encouraging words and kind wishes. Everybody is absolutely right about the most important thing being health and safety of the people involved. Since thats all taken care of, I will turn my attention to updating the status of the car. I got back home late Sunday (er, very early Monday, to be technically correct). Monday afternoon, I unloaded the car from the U-Haul trailer into my garage where it now sits awaiting its inspection by an insurance appraiser and or repair technicians. I am definitely not giving up on the car yet. I feared the worst at the side of the road, and tried to mentally prepare myself for it. But I am hopeful that someone more knowledgeable about frame repair will look at it and say, oh yeah, we can get that fixed. Can you pick it up next Friday? Ive included some further photos of the damage. The first is of one spot on the shoulder where the driveline piece scored the asphalt, as it was pinned under the car. The undertaker, er, I mean tow truck driver was really good; very careful with the car. Once the car was on the trailer, photographing the undercarriage was a good deal easier. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have considered these possibilities, even while standing by my car on the side of the road! If the car is repairable without being written off, then its a straightforward insurance claim where Im responsible for my $250 deductible, unless negligence on the part of the trucking company is proven or admitted, then I keep my deductible. If the insurance company deems the car a write off, then one of two issues arise: Either its not repairable in a way that can be proven to be safe to the licensing/registration authorities, at which point the agreed upon value in the policy is my settlement. The other scenario would be where the insurance company writes it off, but offers it back to me as salvage. In that case, I need to know the cost of the repairs to make it safe and driveable again in order to arrive at the correct salvage price. I am not afraid of owning or driving a salvage-titled car, even a Ferrari. I was probably never going to sell the car anyway, so Im not too concerned about the potential effect on resale value.
Bell, that is some diagnostic wizardry from half a world away! Youre spot on about the throttle, the coolant pipe, and the gear-shift linkage. The floor pan needs to have the hole that was punched in it repaired (unless I want a Fred Flintstone-style Mondial). But all of those things seem readily doable. The mechanical stuff I would probably attempt myself. What really worried me was the frame-tube cross-member. All I know about frame repair comes from horror stories about straightening bent frames, so this was the piece of damage I thought would be most likely to cause the insurance company to incline toward writing the car off. If the repair is really as simple as cutting the tube and replacing it with another one (newly fabricated, Id assume?), then I think the write-off is far less likely. I have reached out to a couple of names recommended to me by people I consider knowledgeable in the area. Unfortunately, they all want to see the car at their shops, which poses me an obstacle in transporting it around.
Im prepared to work for years on this if need be. I would rate my mechanical skills as moderate. The three ts come into play here: Time, tools, and training. I can budget the time, but if Im out of my depth on ability or equipment, I will happily pay someone who isnt.
Jerry, my car may be a driver, and I may not be a total preservationist, but I am bone stock until the end! My pedal covers may need a cleaning, but I don't want to replace them with anything different. While I love seeing the custom touches other people make to their cars, theyre not for me!
It is certainly repairable, but as you said, the cost. You'll probably want to be involved, do some searching and find what you feel to be the best shop to do the repairs/give bids. It looks like that cross beam might need to be cut out and replaced, don't know how the parties involved will feel about that. You can ask your insurance company if they recommend or have a list of repair shops and that might give you a start. Sometimes they simply leave it to the owner of the vehicle to choose a shop. There may also be some deconstruction that needs to take place to determine extent of damage. That cross beam IMO is part of the frame, but not all frame damage is equal, if the car is square and I bet it is, you're in much better shape. Hope it goes smoothly and you get good news.
I thought a bit about this on the long drive home after the accident. I think you are quite right Hank; I imagine that if I had swerved and struck the object with a front wheel, the damage would probably have been worse, and possibly could have led to severe injury. Or if I had missed the object, would I have kept control and stayed on the road? The bottom line is that what happened happened the way it did, and its a waste of mental energy on my part wishing it had happened differently. I don't have any excess mental energy to waste, so I am trying not to go down that avenue.
Hi Jon, my thought would be to cut out the bent or badly damaged cross members and to replace with new. The chassis member shown in the picture is if an unusual cross section peculiar to Ferrari. It may be possible to source this from a Ferrari breakers or have it fabricated. It may also be possible to repair and straighten yours off the car and then replace it. Basically it's a straight forward but potentially time consuming repair, since most of the carpets, wiring inside and out etc have to be cleared to facilitate this. It is a job for a good qualified body shop who know how to repair cars that have chassis. These type of body shops would have experience in say replacing corroded chassis tubes and the like. I myself have replaced major chassis outriggers on my Aston DB 6 which is due to corrosion (Astons upto end of 90s are badly made) Anyway as I say a good shop should have no problem with this kind of repair and once it's been stripped it'll all look a lot more simple. I've actually done a sill replacement on Kato and replaced with stainless steel. This I did because of corrosion and dealing with corrosion is I think worse than accident damage because with corrosion you have to keep cutting into the car until it's all gone. Your damage won't have bent or twisted the chassis in any way, so this means it's a simple cut out and replace affair. On the subject of insurance, the other guy is liable without question. That uj joint looks dry as a bone, no wonder it failed and it must have been making a hell of a noise that was ignored before it did fail. It's bordering on negligence I'd say... Just imagine if that had come in through the windshield.... Anyway I still can't see this repair being more than £4000 IMHO. Good luck, keep us posted Bell. Ps. Here is my stainless steel sill replacement thread it's just geometry and metalwork... http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/mondial/423352-sill-cover-corrosion-cautionary-tale.html
I'm fascinated with the generous nature of the Mondial section on F Chat. I wonder if other forums have the same level of support and brotherhood that exists here. I can't wait to see the outcome of this. Fingers crossed. - Ron Frohock
What a great adventure, right up until the unfortunate incident. If nothing else, you had a great driving holiday and survived it. I hope the damage is not as irrecoverable as your first feared. Good luck with the assessments and repairs! All the best, Andrew.
