I still do not know what happened that day and I am afraid to look at the dashcam footage.
BHPian govigov recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Above photos of my car are some of the treasured photos that I have of the car. An update has been long overdue. Some of the members know that I had installed the roof carrier and rails on the car for hauling luggage. With 430L + 420L on the top, the car has a carrying capacity of over 800L. I had carried about that much a few times. It was a calculated decision, to get the roof carrier, as I was planning to hold the car till untill the 15 year mark. The car had recently got some goodies like Ceratec and the engine was smooth and with Wolf stage-1, it was really great to drive. The car just delivered everything we wanted, and it was decided that we will hold the car for longer and get a small city automatic for run arounds, to keep the mileage of the S-Cross in check. With this in mind, we got a Ritz Automatic.
Enter the disaster.
I still do not know what happened that day and I am afraid to look at the dashcam footage. We were returning from doing the last rites of my wife’s grand mother and at around 11 in the morning, around 200 m from the house, the car met with an accident. There was a big sound and the next thing I know, I was staring at a tree through the airbags. BANG!! There was a smell of fire crackers and mud and dust and exhaust, I was disoriented and took about a minute to come to my senses. Next steps:
Checking in on everyone amidst chaos, my son for the first time in his life was not on his car seat and was sleeping on my father in law’s lap. I found him to be safe in my brother in law’s hands as he had swept him and kept my son safe. I will be forever grateful to my brother in law for keeping my son safe. I had some pains, not sure what. My wife had huge pain in her knee as it made contact with glove box and made a mess with the glove box. My wife and I were in the front seat and had the seat belts on. My FIL had some major whiplash injury and had to be hospitalised. He was diagnosed with some hair line fractures to the spine, FIL did not use seat belts. FIL was asked to use a collar for a few months.
The car had stuck a tree and no one apart from the car and a few of its occupants had injuries. Thankfully, no one else was injured.
Some pics of the aftermath:
Above shows the tree that stopped the car. I am grateful to the lord that it was only a tree and no one else was hurt.
One of my long term goal was to reach 160934.4 kms (100,000 miles) The accident was at 158xxx kms.
After a few weeks. I took the week off from work to settle this mess and to care to the wounded. The car was towed to a Maruti workshop. All of us got checked out by the hospital and we started planning on the return journey to our home town. Police formalities over, FIR filed, the car was flatbed to my Nexa from where I get the car serviced. I knew the people there and were in contact with them and they were very coperative. Thank you, Nexa Kalammassery.
Next:
Insurance process was on going and I was not in a good mental state. The S-Cross was declared a total loss. I thought a lot about getting it back into original shape, but how much ever I thought about it, it did not make sense to get that done. I would not be sure, if the car can take another accident and every little sound and weird behaviour of the car would make me paranoid. Financially, I was getting a fair market value from the insurance for the car. At 158000 kms on the odo, the car was still on stock clutch and timing chain. The tires still had about 10,000kms left in it. I had already budget for all these about 6 months back. After a lot of contemplation, and about a month at the service centre, it was decided that the car would be deemed a total loss. With no idea on what the next car would be, we marched ahead. T
The car was auctioned off, insurance paid me the money and the car was then towed away to another owner. I know that, the person who bought the car from me is planning to fix the car and sell it. So, the S-Cross will continue to live on with a future owner. I hope that the S-Cross will be happy there. I understood that the new owner, a workshop person is planning to facelift the car before selling. I am aware that the person has a nefarious intend and is not planning on disclosing about the accident.
Parting short of the car, as it is taken away from the Nexa Kalamasserry to north Kerala for its next stint.
The plan was for the second small city automatic (Ritz Automatic) to take on full time duty until a plan was reached.
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