Had this get towed into the shop yesterday. Apparently out delivering and had a large tree branch fall down while driving and land right on the windshield, entering the interior. Driver is ok, but I bet he needed a new pair of shorts. Waiting for the snow to melt and we'll get an estimate done.
Wow. In the never ending re-body debate & removal of the VIN tag I've proposed this exact hypothetical. You have a really nice orig car & something comes down and goes through the windshield. Only damage is the windshield and dash. Only way to repair is a new dash and transfer (i.e. remove the original) the VIN tag & transfer it to the new dash. Will be curious what's involved in fixing this, esp. if the dash needs replaced. The question that always comes up is the legality of transferring that VIN tag. Please keep us posted.
X2! From the outside it doesn't look that bad. It actually ripped the dash and fuse box out? This is one of those 2 more inches to the left or right could of ended real bad.
I am guessing this is a total. Although the body damage is almost nil. That dashboard damage is surprising based on how the windshield looks.
Damage coming into view better as the snow melts, the branch is a lot bigger than it looked covered in the white stuff. We're over 4k in parts so far, and that's without the windshield and a-pillar repair, plus we don't know if any modules are bad now. VIN is not part of the dash, it's part of the body. I doubt it'll be totalled with the current state of pickup resale value and availability, it only has 89k on it.
never seen a FedEx truck like that. They're driving U- haul trucks , home depot trucks, basically anything they can find.
We have the full variety here, mostly vans and box trucks, but they have the 4x4s to get up in the mountains where a 2wd or big box won't fit or won't make it.
Scary chit right there Would that be covered under insurance or is that considered a natural disaster? I think it would be like hitting a dear and it would be covered? Is hail damage covered? Tornado, etc... Waiting for Brad to chime in
As to the VIN - I would assume that if one had to replace the panel upon which the VIN tag is attached, the overriding issue would be intent. If the intention is to repair the vehicle, I see no reason not to move the VIN tag. If the intent is to represent one vehicle as another, I see a problem. This issue comes up frequently on the Model T forums as the only "VIN" on pre -i926 cars was stamped on the engine block. Over the years many engines were replaced with used engines of a (obviously) different engine number. Some new replacement engines had an engine number stamped on them, some did not, and were restamped by the installer. The situation arose that there was the same car, but possibly a different year engine number (a friend has a 1924 with a 1919 engine; it's registered as a 1924). In 1926 Ford started stamping the VIN on the frame as well as the engine, but it is possible that the two numbers were not exactly the same as the engines were not necessarily installed in the exact order that the engines were built. My 1927 has both numbers and it's a relatively rare numbers matching car.
Insurance companies will (or used to) repair a vehicle as long as the estimate was under 70% of the vehicle value. As to the dash damage, as long as the body isn't distorted so that a new dash won't fit, replacing a dash is not that difficult. I replaced many in the 80's and 90's during theft repairs and most new vehicles require removing the dash for certain repairs.
Falling object so under Comprehensive and not Collision. No such thing anymore as "act of God" in insurance. Added in edit: Collision is the coverage for striking an object, having an object strike you or overturn. Comprehensive is everything else.
