traben27

On the way to the Fort Worth Zoo with my girlfriend and her nephew, I got rear ended on 75. The left lane's closed right now because they're changing it to an HOV lane. Well, the truck in front of me slowed down pretty fast and so did I. Looked in my rear view mirror to see a green Chevy truck getting WAY too close. The hit wasn't too hard, it jerked us forward but not too bad. Luckily we just pulled over into the closed off lane and got out.

Turns out it was a mexican worker guy (no racism there, my gf's mexican after all) so I was worried at first that meant he had no insurance because that is very common down here. He had a trailer full of rebar behind him so he really had no chance of slowing fast enough. I really don't even need to do anything insurance wise, I got a small dent and the bumper shifted, he was the unlucky one.

Damage:






His truck on the other hand had both headlights hanging out, grill completely smashed, hood bent and popped up, radiator cracked and leaking all over and bumper hanging down.

First thing the gf said was "I'm so glad your truck is so high"

Jay351

Are you going through insurance?
Built toyota tuff!

traben27

I haven't decided yet. He had insurance, but I mean is it really worth it? I was thinking about it, wouldn't that be a very expensive dent to fix, with everything thats inside the tailgate and stuff, so maybe if i could get some money out of it I could put it towards something else.

Jay351

Well you never know if anything else was tweaked in the accident.
I would go through insurance and have them fix it up right.
Sure its probibly gonna cost this guy a good chunk of cash but thats the lesson you learn from driving too close.
He should have known his braking would be comprimised from having the trailer hooked up.

But hey, thats my opinion.
Looks like you need to just get that dent out and fix your bumper mounting brackets (not really sure how they mount on 4runners)

bigtrucknwheels

one can hardly tell! the beauty of owning a Toyota

drguitarum2005

your damage is TINY compared to what you described about his truck. wow.

had someone hit me like that, they would have gotten a low-hanging trailer hitch to the hood and at the worst slid under me, thats why i enjoy having my hitch back there (it hangs down more than most). gotta love a toyota!

crolison

I would do insurance just in case. You get it throughly checked out to see what all is exactly wrong . Then you can take the money and buy something good, or save for something sweet.

traben27

Thats what I was thinking of doing. I've been wanting some sliders or new wheels

CJM

Get a ball for that hitch, thats whats stops rearend collisons!

crolison

Amen, thats the only reason i have one.

bigtrucknwheels

i dont have one on yet, but that is one of two reasons i will have it. the second being that i need to tow a trailer.

SwampThing

Yep, gotta love the trailer ball hitch. As you can tell from the dents in the back of my truck, I aint got no love for tailgators

traben27

haha radiator slayer thats funny. i have a ball for it, i'm just not quite sure where it is, probably lost in the garage somewhere. the hitch itself did enough damage, i wonder what it would've done with that ball on there.

91muddog

in our lifted tahoe, the hitch we usually leave in (for our 40 ft travel trailer) is the radiator slayer of all rad. slayers, ill get some pics tomorrow

OSIRIS

You should submit to his insurance the bill to fix the entire thing. Get the money that would fix it and pick up a set of skids, rear bumper, or something else that you want for it.

I did the same thing in college with my bike. Got the money to repair with all new plastics and then went out and got used plastics and all new HRC engine internals.

Osiris