So I am grusing along at 60 MPH to a friends house just after dark when out of know where there is a deer right in front of me! I didn't have time to brake or avoid the $%^@#$$ thing. BANG I hit it with the driver side corner of the car.
All I see after the hit is my headlight without the complete cover and a lot of Deer hair. The car is driving fine as I pull over to check out the damage. I call the Highway Patrol to let them know that I have hit a deer, then get out to check the damage. To my surprise and the Highway Patrol Officer the ONLY damage is the torn off headlight cover and the turn signal lense is broken.
The driver side bumper had a lot of deer hair on it and there is some craze cracks in the paint. It took me about an hour to repaint another headlight cover and install a new turn signal unit from my spares.
I am still amazed at how tough these cars are and I now have proof that they are tough survivers
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE 2.8 - beater coupe- 86 SE 3.4 -in progress 3800 II SC - 88 Formula GT 4.9 5 speed beast Enough parts outside for another one -And a 3.4 push rod for sale in the mall Go and look-
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01:33 AM
PFF
System Bot
Capt Fiero Member
Posts: 7657 From: British Columbia, Canada Registered: Feb 2000
Wow congrats you did not break anything. I lived in Coeur D' Alene, for a year. Worked for Ponderosa motors for a while as a salesman. (never gonna do that again) Are they still in busniess.
But ya congrats again on the car. Glad there was no ther damage.
------------------ 85GT 4spd MSD Everything, Big Cam and Nitrous. www.captfiero.com
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01:49 AM
Convertable Indy Member
Posts: 1644 From: Hanover, IN. Registered: Jun 2003
Glad you're OK. I always imagined that a deer strike head-on would be worse in a Fiero than most cars- the slanting hood sending the animal right into the windshield.
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02:14 AM
Disillusion Member
Posts: 1132 From: Victoria, B.C, Canada Registered: Nov 2004
eh, you just grazed him. deer suck though. im glad you didnt hit it with the middle front, or you might not be typing right now as it would have come through the windshield! glad to see it didnt do much damage
------------------ The unfortunate history of my GT
"Because you're so chocked full of preservatives, they're just preserving you now" - why you shoud eat healthy
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02:16 AM
Erik Member
Posts: 5625 From: Des Moines, Iowa Registered: Jul 2002
I hit a deer at 30 mph and I thought it was coming in my car to sit on my lap. It cracked the fender rolled over the top on the car and ripped up the rack on the back of the car. FIrst deer i ever hit and i thought it was going to be my last.
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10:57 AM
Scott-Wa Member
Posts: 5392 From: Tacoma, WA, USA Registered: Mar 2002
I wonder if the Fiero being as low as it is actually is a bit safer in a deer hit because it takes the hit in the legs and can slide over the car rather than hitting it square... still not a good thing for the deer.
Poor Bambi :-(
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11:03 AM
Convertable Indy Member
Posts: 1644 From: Hanover, IN. Registered: Jun 2003
I was going to say that I bet you payed "deerly" for the car but apparently you just payed a "buck" ...sorry couldnt resist
.........lol
quote
I wonder if the Fiero being as low as it is actually is a bit safer in a deer hit because it takes the hit in the legs and can slide over the car rather than hitting it square... still not a good thing for the deer.
I dont think I would want to find out what would happen in a Fiero. If I have to hit a deer, I just hope Im in my p/u. It sits high and if the deer doesnt bounce off, it will just go underf it!.....yuk.
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11:25 AM
Erik Member
Posts: 5625 From: Des Moines, Iowa Registered: Jul 2002
about 2 year ago I hit a racoon with my 86SE doing about 40mph..sucker just jumped right out of nowhere ..The 86 sets so low that it just pushed the coon off to the side but it managed to bust one of my driving lights. I stop and turned around to see if the coon was still there and sure enough it was setting on its hindquarters there in the middle of the road dazed looking so, I went and grabbed a blanket from my trunk and proceeded to throw the blanket over the coon so I could pull it off to the side but it kept facing me every time I tried to get behind it to do so. The poor things rear legs didnt look like they were working so it would drag itself around to face me. This went on for about a min or so. Finally it just snapped out of its apparently temporary paralysis and went scooting off into the darkness..weird.
I've pulled into my drive and had about 20 deer on it ..at first I thought WTF? Who are all those people in my drive? It was dark and my lights were shining on just their legs and it was foggy..it looked like a bunch of people having a party for a second ...LOL..Of course they took off after a few seconds.
I've hit a few deer in my Z28 Camaro one night about 12 yrs ago but managed to slow down to about 5 mph before I hit them ..it was about 5 deer going across the road and I nailed er well "tipped over" the last 2 ...and stopped, got out and went to the front of my car and the 2 were laying on their sides trying to get up, kicking and flailing till they got traction and righted themselves and took off .. it was hilarious !! I felt like I was tipping cows but instead using a car and tipping deer! I looked at my car and it had a few paint chips out and as was mentioned in this thread there was hair embebbed in my paint as well!
[This message has been edited by Erik (edited 03-12-2005).]
Some moron farmer didn't close a gate and they were all over the road. My friend grabbed the wheel while I was lighting my "tobacco pipe". I was ready to beat him senseless till he managed to get me to turn around and look at what we almost hit. I was young, and not a very nice person. I got my 1.5 million candlepower spotlight out of the trunk, plugged it in, and had my friend shine the light on the cows as i drove into the next town. with all of them following. I led them a couple blocks into town, and went to the truck stop to let the half dozen cops in there with nothing better to do know about these cows.
Yes sir officer, they are all over the north end of town. That poor bastard got one hell of a fine. Some might say this makes me a bad person. I look at it another way. That guy could have killed me that night. Had I done nothing, he could have killed someone else. He needed a lesson.
Man Fieroking you're lucky, I got worse damage on my Dakota hitting a seagull @ 60, he was helping a couple of cannibal crows and couldn't get airborne fast enough, I couldn't change lanes because a carmudgen liked riding in my blind spot. Norm
P.S. : Carmudgen - noun - descriptive term for the crotchety old people who drive 52mph in the diamond lane because they have two people in the car, and nobody should be speeding any way and they're the enforcers (they should get tickets for obstructing traffic, or "inducing road rage").
[This message has been edited by gt88norm (edited 03-13-2005).]
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12:35 AM
Gordo Member
Posts: 2981 From: East Guilford, NY, USA Registered: Mar 2002
I agree that you were very lucky Joe. You hit the deer with the corner--not square on. There was another thread year's ago, and the impact was centered on the Fiero emblem. It folded the deer's legs under him, without expending much energy, and the carcass impacted the windshield/front roofline. Ruptured the windshield inward and pushed the front roofline back about 4". Damage was extensive and the car totaled. No injuries to the occupants as I remember.
I've never hit anything with a Fiero, but have had several encounters with cows in my pickups over the years. The cows survived and all but one truck did. I did come up an accident where a passenger car travelling at highway speed hit a brahma bull square in it's rear end. The car was demolished, and bull dead. Bull crap, hair, hide, and blood, all over the front of the vehicle and the engine was pushed back into the rear firewall. This was in the days before seatbelts and a child in the back seat was propelled into the front and hit the windshield. I had to drive about 20 miles to get to a phone to call for medical and State troopers. AFAIK, the kid wasn't seriously injured, just bruised and cut.
Somewhere in archives, there is also a thread about a car that had a donkey fall from an overpass into the front windshield. One of the female PFF members was the driver in that freak encounter, tho now I can't remember if she was driving a Fiero or not.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 03-13-2005).]