Pop-Up Hood - Warning

[JonnyWil]

It seems evilaudi incident was just a freak impact by something hitting the bumper near the sensor, and was just extremely unlucky.

In terms of cost and writing off an older car, an accident causing the bonnet to pop up I suspect would normally also fire the airbags which would cost thousands more, this is the cost of safety.

Hi wh05apk, with regards to the airbags this is something I asked Lexus about and a friend who is a mechanic. The airbag sensor requires significatly more force to trigger this. They would expect that in an accident with a pedestrian this would never be enough to trigger the airbags, unless they were, no offence intended, a rather portly gentleman or woman but even that is unlikely! :-)

The airbag senser control unit is part of the pop up hood unit so even though the airbags did not deploy that whole unit needs to be replaced as it is a one use system!

[JonnyWil]

Yes, it was a muntjac deer - literally got on the road and ran towards me, single carriageway so nothing I could do apart from anchor on the brakes. Literally no other damage apart from slight cracking of the plastic housing around the registration plate.

Ah right, I can understand that a deer would trigger the system as the force applied would be similar to that of hitting a pedestrian if not more. I have seen the damage a deer did to a car years ago which was shocking but it was hit at about 40mph!!

At least you actually know what did this, sadly I have no idea and even after searching the area straight after the incident, which is the most annoying thing for me!! So much so I have even purchased a dash cam now just in case the worst should happen again! Touch wood!!

[rayaans]

I dont agree with the blending in - Modern paints don't need blending in - if they're blended there's going to be a distinctive line between where they blended it and where they didnt.

I took a look at the invoice I got which was initially £4.5k. Only damage was front bumper and right fender. They were trying to replace the door, the handles, A pillar, fender and blend the bonnet. They were also going to replace the grill and all lights as well as the F-Sport badges after inspection.

F-Sport badges are stuck on yes, they can be removed and re-attached though. The Fender needs replacing and the bumper but I highly doubt they need blending in on a car only 2 years old in our case. Although the paint is a tri-coat pearl, its not as sophisticated as Arctic pearl to get right, it hardly pops. As long as the spraying is done in the correct direction there should be no problems just painting the changed parts.

[JonnyWil]

I dont agree with the blending in - Modern paints don't need blending in - if they're blended there's going to be a distinctive line between where they blended it and where they didnt.

I took a look at the invoice I got which was initially £4.5k. Only damage was front bumper and right fender. They were trying to replace the door, the handles, A pillar, fender and blend the bonnet. They were also going to replace the grill and all lights as well as the F-Sport badges after inspection.

F-Sport badges are stuck on yes, they can be removed and re-attached though. The Fender needs replacing and the bumper but I highly doubt they need blending in on a car only 2 years old in our case. Although the paint is a tri-coat pearl, its not as sophisticated as Arctic pearl to get right, it hardly pops. As long as the spraying is done in the correct direction there should be no problems just painting the changed parts.

HI Rayaans, i do see you point and it is well made. My car was 1st registered in April 2015!

With my repair work they state they need to paint the bonnet and front bumper which I do understand as the new bonnet will not be pre-sprayed and the bumper does have the small mark where the light lens scraped a small bit of paint off (bumper is just unlucky). But with a car that is less than 8 months old I see your point, how much colour matching should really be required for the wings/ fender. They did state the wings would not require the full 3 coat pearl but only the single top coat for matching.

I have actually just emailed the repair centre to ask if you have to single coat spray the wings to match the bonnet then how does this then match the two front doors and the A pillar which are the next section of the car next to the parts already being sprayed. Will be interesting to see what they say :-)

[JonnyWil]

Just to update with regards to the wings/ fenders being sprayed I have spoken with a freind that actually works in a bdoyshop who has confirmed this is standard when spraying a new bonnet to colour match the wings too.

I didnt understand the process why as it is quite an art form but this is required to properly colour match the car. It also has nothing to do with the age of the vehcile or any fading of the paint work.

At the end of the day, he is a friend, and expert in this field and has no reason to tell me anything other than the truth :-)

[DanD]

Jonny Will,

Glad you got your car back.

I hit a pigeon this morning, as it took off the grassy verge in the path of my car. Bounced off and disappeared somewhere in the undergrowth. Made me wonder whether whether you might have hit a bird... I guess this would not have left a mark on your car.

My hood did not pop. Which confirms that my car does not have one. Probably too old. Not much I can do about that.

As for using the RX for the school run... Dont beaucoup ridiculous... That's what the helicopter is for. Besides, parking outside winchester college is a nightmare.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[DanD]

Don't BE ridiculous. Damn predictive text.

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[rayaans]

Just to update with regards to the wings/ fenders being sprayed I have spoken with a freind that actually works in a bdoyshop who has confirmed this is standard when spraying a new bonnet to colour match the wings too.

I didnt understand the process why as it is quite an art form but this is required to properly colour match the car. It also has nothing to do with the age of the vehcile or any fading of the paint work.

At the end of the day, he is a friend, and expert in this field and has no reason to tell me anything other than the truth :-)

It does make sense regarding the painting for blending and I know that a lot of bodyshops do it as standard practice.

However, I have seen bodyshops which just do the panel fitted and do tonnes of prep before painting to make sure it'll look right. I think it takes much longer but it can be done. Probably a cost thing really

[Rabbers]

Earlier this week I had a chat with my insurance broker, who originally trained as an actuary, about the influence

of safety devices such as pop-up hoods on vehicle insurance.

He confirmed, without going into too many technicalities, that when a vehicle is first put on the market, insurers

supplement official safety ratings with other data, if available, about the effectiveness of factory-fitted devices and

systems, and once quantified and statistically projected, an overall assessment of safety is factored into the

calculations on which premiums are based. Because the weighting of the data in the calculations is not disclosed,

there is no way of disproving the claim that advances in safety technology help to prevent premiums from rising

too much and too quickly but are insufficient ever to reduce them. Or, to put it another way, we have no means

of knowing if and to what extent insurance companies exploit those advances to improve their profit margins.

Which, of course, they are perfectly entitled to do. Personally, however, I would like to see more transparency

and find the lack of it to be sufficient to annually conquer my laziness and shop around for alternative quotes,

any significant differences between companies for similar cover for the same cars having always struck me as

mysterious or illogical or even suspicious.

On broadly the same subject, I was intrigued to hear that whereas insurance companies like "passive" safety

devices (such as pop-up hoods), which purport to limit the extent of damage from accidents, there are some

concerns about the increasing popularity of "active" ones such as active cruise control, rear-view cameras,

blind-spot monitors etc., which purport to limit the chances of accidents happening in the first place. According

to one school of thought the latter devices may have the effect of reducing a driver's overall perception of danger

and thus give rise to excessive complacency with potentially dire results. Again, one is left wondering what

impact, if any, this might have on the science of risk assessment.

[ganzoom]

My personal view is that nearly all accidents are due to human error, intentional or not. None of us pay 100% to the road at 100% of the time. Even something as simple as changing the radio station is a distraction.

The more active safety features we have on a car the better. Computer and sensors don't get tired, ignore things based on 'experience'. I trust any computer to be able to react to any sudden braking/unexpected obstacle much more than my own experience. The sooner autobrake, speed limit detection or similar technology is made compulsory on all cars the better.

Indeed the only logical progression for road safety is to remove human factors all together. Hence the drive from virtually every car manfacture, and Google/Apple for fully automated cars....

[JonnyWil]

Jonny Will,

Glad you got your car back.

I hit a pigeon this morning, as it took off the grassy verge in the path of my car. Bounced off and disappeared somewhere in the undergrowth. Made me wonder whether whether you might have hit a bird... I guess this would not have left a mark on your car.

My hood did not pop. Which confirms that my car does not have one. Probably too old. Not much I can do about that.

As for using the RX for the school run... Dont beaucoup ridiculous... That's what the helicopter is for. Besides, parking outside winchester college is a nightmare.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Hi DanD,

Sadly the car is not back yet, will be another week yet so around 3 weeks away in total :-( That is what I was wondering or even a Pheasant maybe?

Superb response by the way :-)

[olliesgrandad]

Having just replaced a Mercedes E250 AMG Sport Cabriolet with an IS300h F Sport I read this  thread with great interest.

In August driving at about 20mph in my Mercedes through a local trading estate I encountered half a dozen seagulls feasting on a loaf of bread in the road. As I approached they took off. One of them took off towards my car and hit the front bumper. BANG hood popped up at back. No damage to bodywork at all. With the Mercedes the system is powered by springs. Lift the bonnet hard and it resets. No damage= no cost !

[tvshacker]

I had a similar experience as @JonnyWil during the day, no birds or anything. Only damage found was some scratches under the front bumper (which could've easily happened while parking).

I'm trying to argue my way with the local Lexus dealership since as said in this thread the system seems to be badly designed and shouldn't have triggered under those circumstances.

Can anyone help me find technical details regarding this "feature"? Like at if there's min/max speeds at which it's supposed to trigger? I'm looking for something "official-like".