I just thought I might tell everone here, that I've been in 3 major accidents in my Astro. 3 times, I've been told, "It's up to you, but we're calling it totalled." My insurance company has offered it 3 times!

Fender Bender (1): Unsafe lane change. A Suburban with a soccer mom and her 3 kids changed lanes into my left side at the gas tank. The dent is still there. I use it to identify my Astro in the parking lot. If I bought a new car, I'd have to replicate the dent in order to maintain sanity in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Accident (2): 45MPH at point of impact. 3 am. Coming back from a party at which I was the designated driver, I'd just dropped off the last of my crew. I went through an intersection with a green light that'd been active for at least 10 seconds, and was still green when I entered the intersection. A BRAND NEW Hummer H2 ran the red, and I smacked the living crap testaclesout of that truck. I must've been swearing up until I hit the thing, because I was still swearing when I got out of the truck! I was watching my speedo, and it was saying "0MPH" because obviously, I had the brakes locked up. Yeah, good job ABS. Guess what didn't go off! My airbags. After the truck was fixed, the people at the body shop told me that they'd replaced my airbags, too. I asked why. They said, "there weren't any in the truck." Well, I guess buying a used truck, you may want to check for that. Note to Chevrolet: Please explain to me how someone could bypass the "Airbag Diagnostics System?" Anyway, coolest part of that night was finding out when the cops got there, that the guy who was driving this Hummer, was carrying drugs, paraphanalia, and a loaded semi-automatic AR. Needless to say, he went to jail. I got to find out I was doing 45MPH when the red-light cam that caught big-shot H2 going through red, also caught two frames where I'm entering the intersection, and clipping the hummer. Simple math, and it was fun. My hospital bill was fully covered.

Fender Bender (3): Punk *** kid driving through parking lot at 40MPH. Expected me to stop so he could wizz by me, going the wrong direction. Hey! Guess who expected something they didn't get. Little f***er got quite a surprise when he found out that my 6,000lbs of American van trumps a Honda Civic. Zero damage to my van. Two broken windows and a new rear axle for the Honda.

Fender Bender (4): Guy in front of me on a one lane, one way street, hits a car. Stops quickly. I do, too, because I don't tailgate. Tailgating caused the guy behind me to run into me when I suddenly hit the brakes to avoid the car that had just suddenly stopped.

Accident (5): Stopped at a red light, I was rear ended by a 2005 Lexus LS430. Damage estimate was that he was going 35 miles per hour. He was a lawyer who had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Accident (6): Stopped at a red light, I was rear ended by a BMW 325i. Apparently, while filing the claim, the woman told me it was exactly 6 months to the hour that I'd filed the previous rear ending claim. The*donkey* who was driving said BMW apparently just wasn't paying attention.

Fender Bender (7): (two days ago) Driving down a certain road that goes in front of a grocery store, a cart, no ****, rolls down the hill and into my lane of traffic. I hit it, but I'd already seen it coming, so I was on the brakes. I was just happy there weren't any rugrats in the thing. Apparently, what the woman told me, was that it was my "D*** fault for not swerving to avoid it!". Thank God the cops got there at that time, or I may have reduced the population of middle-aged screaming crazy women on the earth by one. Like I'm going to ruin my alignment by hitting a curb to save your purse that you just pushed down a hill into traffic? Achem... no.

Anyway, I love my Astro, and even with the worst safety ratings I know of, it's still held up fine for me. Astro pride. Anyone have any horror stories regarding the Astro in an accident?

-Tom [/align][/align]***Please be easy on the language. This is a family friendly site, and we would be glad if you do your part to keep it that way. -EuroGoldLS***[/align]

 

HAHA.....those are awsome stories....well not really....but awsome to know you didn't get hurt, and you take your astro for what it is: A Lean, Mean, get the hell outta my way Machine

 

That is truly awesome to have avehicle that has survived all that!

 

Thanks! Here's a few pics of her, for a little visual.

Sorry, I have no pictures from the accidents... some things you just don't want to remember!











I just noticed in the side picture that my door is not aligned right haha.

 

It really doesn't look that battered![/align]

 

Haha, yeah, I made the body shop redo the frame alignment. I became rather good friends with the body shop clerk there. The only thing that really makes it evident that it's been wrecked is that certain brackets and plastic body pieces don't actually fit all the way correctly, so there's only one or two plastic pieces holding the bumper on and certain other things. I'm still impressed with her.

Although, it did die today in a parking garage. Not attributed to any accident, that I can tell. The starter relay failed. No big deal.