Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Before today I wasnt a big fan of commodores, but after today, I will never bag another vt to current commodore.

My friend owns and drives a VX series 2 executive. Travelling down a large hill today up at nambour. Pissing down rain, and water all over the road.

My friend was driving, and all of a sudden I feel the rear end step out. we werent speeding, in fact doing about 75 maybe 80 in a 80 zone. we hit a massive river of water flowing down the hill and the left rear stepped out. Being at the top of the hill, and with about a 45-50 degree incline, we starting sliding down the hill sideways. then it rolled onto the passenger side, then onto the roof.

We were travelling at about 70km/ph down the hill on the roof of this commodore. for appox 15-20 metres when we hit a guard rail for a massive embankment that was flooding with water. we hit it so fast on the drivers side, that it acted like a pivot and flipped the car again, righting itself in a flooded culvit, with trees and shit everywhere. both crawled out about 3 metres up this embankment, and called the police, etc. Police were really good, said the driver didnt breach the road rules and was just an 'accident'

Both Taken to hospital, nothing major wrong, just bump on head, few cuts, sore neck, back, arms and dizzy. (I think I will feel it tomorrow)

Being a car buff, I was interested to see what damage and stuff had happened, (before being taken to hospital, that is)

The engine shut off, whilst we were upside down. no fuel leaks or ruptures, even though rear suspension had collapsed.

The engine was shunted back and down, thus ensuring it did not protrude into the cabin. (engine would have been ****ed)

All windows were 'flung out' during the accident and had 'rolled up' with the tinting. The only cuts I got were on my feet from collecting all my shit over the road. Because we were upside down, everything was on the roof. (excatly like the movie hot shots when he does a barrel roll and all his shit falls on the roof. because the rear window shot out whilst upside down, all our crap was spread all over the road, like cd's etc)

Air bags did not deploy, (thank god), insufficient damage to front and/or rear for them to deploy (i think)

The side panels absorbed most of the impact with the trees and guard rail, with them collapsing in critical places. not one panel was ok, it looked as though they all took the impact together.

dash, steering wheel and seats did not move one inch during the impact. seat belts did pretty good to stop us from moving around too much.

The roof was by far the most interesting thing, the pillars showed no sign of bending or collapse, but had crimpled in certain places in the middle of the roof, between the passenger and driver. Thus ensuring the head space above the driver and passenger was not compromised. (we collected a reflecter in the middle of the road which was embeded into the roof above me !! when we finished.)

In summary, I have always bagged commodores for being crap, etc, but after going through something like that and looking at what crash technology has been installed in modern cars, I have to admit if i was in a smaller car, I doubt we would have walked away. It was quite amazing for a car to stand up to travelling upside down at 70km/h, flip, and land in a gully and the passenger and driver to walk away. And you dont really take any notice of what crash tech is in your car until you have a crash, and walk around it, going "ah that bit collapsed allowing this bit to etc"

As soon as I get the ok from the doc, that I can drive again. He told me to rest as I will be very sore soon. I will post pics as soon as I can get photos of the car. and look more into the certain elements that saved my life today. I cant really go anywhere so I thought I would share this story with you.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/30657-commodores-are-good/
Share on other sites

Cool story Matt, Glad you and your friend are ok and glad you weren't in the R33R. Nice avatar...... now I need to change mine!! You deserve it more, having a genuine impul, mine is a genuine kit but not a real R33R. And Holdens have always been good to crash!!

very lucky there! I'd be entering lotto or something! There is some good things in modern cars afterall, and safety gets better every model - no matter what the car. One of the reasons i am not a fan of small cars, no matter what the safety features they might have, they never feel as "safe" as a larger car.

Without meaning to be rude, im glad you came out of your accident ok.

As safe as Holdens may be structurly, my mum drives holdens flagship car the caprice, and as "adavanced" as its sposed to be the airbags did not deploy, when she rear ended an almost stationary car at 80kph the other car almost not moving (doing approx 5kph). Caused 10g's worth of damage to her car alone and the airbags still didnt deploy, she broke the windshield in 2 spots, one with her wrist and one with head and yes she was wearing a seatbelt, the pyroneumatic (sp*) seatbelt pretensioners didnt work either. It was a dead front on collision.

How safe are holdens??

My mum and dad are currently seeking legal advice about what to do as mum was off work for a while in an accident where the airbags should have deployed and saved her from many of the injuries she recieved.

Just my 2 cents...

I dont think holden is good just from ur experience, sorry to hear about it by the way. The way i see it is the car does its job in the safety department, doesnt make it a special vehicle tho, its still JUST a holden. And i think if u were in an excel u would be ok as well, as it has panels that crunch easy to save u!

The issue is not panels that crunch "easy to save u". If the roof collapsed easily then it would have been extremely dangerous, hard to get out of the car, and could have caused serious injuries to the occupants. An Excel does not have anywhere near as much sheetmetal as a commodore to absorb and resist impacts, and is a lightweight old korean (or something) design. It may have some panels that crunch easy, but anyone can put some panels that collapse on a car, thats easy, and doesn't necessarily mean the car will be safe in a crash. Making a car safe in a crash is a complex and expensive excercise.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I would just put EBC back on the "I would not use their stuff" pile and move on.
    • Can I suggest you try EBC directly again and link them to as many competitor catalogues as you can to show their listing is incorrect, eg https://dba.com.au/product/front-4000-series-hd-brake-rotor-dba42304/ If you have access to an R33 GTST VIN and your VIN, you could also use a Nissan Parts lookup like Amayama to show them the part number is different between 33 GTST and 34 GTT which may get their attention
    • So i got reply from EBC and they just this site where you can clearly see those 296mm fronts on R34 GTT. I send them photos and "quotes" that 296mm are not for 34 GTT and they are too small. But it will be very hard to return them cuz nobody here knows 100% and they just copy those EBC catalogue :-D https://ebcbrakesdirect.com/automotive/nissan/skyline-r34
    • Hi, is the HKS  Tower Bar still available ? negotiable ? 🤔
    • From there, it is really just test and assemble. Plug the adapter cables from the unit into the back of the screen, then the other side to the car harness. Don't forget all the other plugs too! Run the cables behind the unit and screw it back into place (4 screws) and you should now have 3 cables to run from the top screen to the android unit. I ran them along the DS of the other AV units in the gap between their backets and the console, and used some corrugated tubing on the sharp edges of the bracket so the wires were safe. Plug the centre console and lower screen in temporarily and turn the car to ACC, the AV should fire up as normal. Hold the back button for 3 sec and Android should appear on the top screen. You need to set the input to Aux for audio (more on that later). I put the unit under the AC duct in the centre console, with the wifi antenna on top of the AC duct near the shifter, the bluetooth antenna on the AC duct under the centre console The GPS unit on top of the DS to AC duct; they all seem to work OK there are are out of the way. Neat cable routing is a pain. For the drive recorder I mounted it near the rear view mirror and run the cable in the headlining, across the a pillar and then down the inside of the a pillar seal to the DS lower dash. From there it goes across and to one USB input for the unit. The second USB input is attached to the ECUtec OBD dongle and the 3rd goes to the USB bulkhead connected I added in the centre console. This is how the centre console looks "tidied" up Note I didn't install the provided speaker, didn't use the 2.5mm IPod in line or the piggyback loom for the Ipod or change any DIP switches; they seem to only be required if you need to use the Ipod input rather than the AUX input. That's it, install done, I'll follow up with a separate post on how the unit works, but in summary it retains all factory functions and inputs (so I still use my phone to the car for calls), reverse still works like factory etc.
×
×
  • Create New...