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A serious ouchie

cnewton44 said:
Members: 9,094

Hmmm. I dont think thats even one tenth percent of the people that drive contiques.:shrug:
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Actually, that's very close to 1% of the number of Contiques built. Now, lemme drop some knowledge on you: I work for a trucking company. We keep all of our wrecked trucks locked down in a separate lot for insurance purposes. From time to time, I go pull parts off these wrecks. It's very interesting to see these huge trucks in such states. Surprisingly, the worst looking cabs tend to have the highest survival rate. Most notably, a cab was ripped clean off the frame when it went under another trailer at speed. The driver and co-driver walked away almost unscathed. On the other side of the coin, something as simple as laying a trailer over; thus rolling the tractor on its side; have killed many of our drivers. A sharp turn too fast and BANG you're dead in the median.

An 80,000lb truck and trailer going 70mph will kill you no matter what passenger vehicle you're driving.
 
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that's a crown vic after being rearended by....nope, not a semi.....not a pickup or SUV......not even another large sedan. That's rearended by a Nissan Altima at a speed of 71.6 mph. I wonder what it would look like if it was sitting stopped at a light and that ol Kenworth lost his brakes, or was distracted and plowed into at say....50. 18 wheeler with however many tons a fully loaded semi can carry vs. a 4500 lb sedan. No car is safe in a collision with a rig, as the saying goes, size matters.

Those of us who have been around these forums for a while have seen many, many people walk away from some bad, even horrific accidents in their Tours. It's actually one of the reasons I drive mine. And I used to drive 70's Cadillacs. Actually, that reminds me, I got rearended by a Chevy lumina I think it was in my 76 Sedan deville that had a class 4 reese hitch on it. I was stopped, she was going maybe 30, afterwards, the trunk of that car was folded down so badly the hitch was only about 2 inches off the pavement, and I had to put the car in nuetral at stoplights to keep it from stalling. The lumina? I broke her grille and messed up her bumper some. Big sedans aren't always safer.
 
cnewton44 said:
Meh... I think some people need reality check.:laugh:
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What reality check are you speaking of?

You've done no research or anything for that matter to substantiate your claim. You have no idea what happened to the car pictured, but you now deem your car to be unsafe...

I've seen pictures of wrecked vehicles where the driver walked away, but if you judged from the pictures alone you would assume that the victim was taken away in a tuna can.

:rolleyes:
 
cnewton44 - I think you're making too big of a deal out of this accident theory for getting rid of your Contique . If it's a pile , it's a pile - just call it as that and sell it ! Many , many people (CEG members & not) have had terrible accident with their Contiques & walked away with nary a scatch . They are very safe cars - period - end of that conversation .
If your car has been beat-down , is getting worn out , or just wearing out it's welcome at your house , don't blame it on the far-out possibility that someday you MAY be rear-ended by a Mack truck at 80 mph while you're sitting still & have to be cut out of the car , living or not . That's simply absurd :crazy: !! Just sell the car then & get it over with . maybe you'll be safe in a hermetically-sealed bubble , never leaving the house :shrug: . I don't want to sound crass or anything , but your thought process is astounding - I just don't get it ...
 
I wont lie. Im overreacting. Right now im just tired of the issues my car has when its not that old. Im just leaning away from cars like this I guess. After all they are WWD cars. :laugh:
 
Wow! And that is why I watch my mirrors!

Odd how the spare tire well is still largely intact. I wonder what happened? I don't see any paint from whatever hit it - does anyone else?
 
cnewton44 said:
I can honestly tell you this. If I was in my other car(a 1989 Grand Marquis) and this happened to me. I dont think it would take the jaws to get me out. I wont lie. Contours are built cheap. Just like every other "Economy" sedan out there.
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A Corvette is not an economy sedan... Have you seen the picture of the corvette that was chopped in half (horizontally) after it ran under a semi?

Contours may total easily these days, but they do so keeping the occupants safe.

My first SVT was annihilated by an SUV that hit my side doing 45, I didn't even receive a scratch. In my time on CEG Ive seen two or 3 roll overs, all with occupants that walk away.

and last but not least, Ever see pictures of barges wreck? He's still intact:blackeye:
 
cnewton44 said:
Members: 9,094

Hmmm. I dont think thats even one tenth percent of the people that drive contiques.:shrug:
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My conclusion that Contiques are safe is based upon real-world driving by over 9000 (that's NINE THOUSAND) people - including myself. (Plus, I am not aware of any CEG members who even know of any fatalities or serious injuries).

In addition - in the NHTSA tests, the Contour received 5 and 4 stars, and in the IIHS crash tests, (despite getting a "Poor" rating) it actually did a pretty good job of controlling and protecting the occupants.

You're basing your conclusion that Contiques are unsafe based on ONE (1) photograph in which (a) you have no idea how the hell the accident happened and (b) you have no idea what happened to the occupants.

You draw your conclusions and I'll draw mine. And I can tell you, if my wife had been driving an '89 Grand Marquis instead of my '96 SE at the time of our accident, she would have died upon impact - or at least been horribly injured. The side impact door beams (which are, of course, lacking in an '89 Grand Marquis) saved her life.
 
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A fellow airsofter fell asleep while driving home a few years ago. He was driving a Contour. He went off the side of the road, hit a tree, spun, and rolled.

His only injury other than whiplash was a cut on his hand from extracting his knife to cut his seatbelt off.

I was t-boned in my SVT by an S10 in a rotary. The driver had no intention of stopping until he hit us. It was dead center in the passenger- side door. NE-CEGers saw the damage done to the door. My dad, who was in the passenger seat, had not one injury.

The Cont/ique has taken care of MANY a driver/passenger in an accident.

Of course, it's also the only car I've ever seen hanging from a power line...
 
96RedSE5Sp said:
My conclusion that Contiques are safe is based upon real-world driving by over 9000 (that's NINE THOUSAND) people - including myself. (Plus, I am not aware of any CEG members who even know of any fatalities or serious injuries).
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There was one person who got serious injuries from an accident. My recollection of the story is vague, but into a ditch and flipped a few times (I think after being T-boned). I think a few vertebrae in his neck were broken. I remember that it took several months of recovery before he posted on here.

Honestly, that's just one out of the MANY rollovers, flips, T-bones and other horrific accidents I've seen posted on these forums. I also remember a weird period between 2002-2003 where a bunch of people were flipping their SVTs driving too hard on offramps, and none of them had injuries other than minor bruises.
 
Rouar said:
There was one person who got serious injuries from an accident. My recollection of the story is vague, but into a ditch and flipped a few times (I think after being T-boned). I think a few vertebrae in his neck were broken. I remember that it took several months of recovery before he posted on here.
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I remember this ... as I recall the car was hit driving though and intersection and sent into a ditch where it caught a pipe of some sort causing the car to flip end over end about three times, as I recall from the pics the front and rear of the car where smashed but not the sides. The driver did receive some pretty bad injuries, notibily the broken vertebrae but he did recover.

After reading that one and knowing of many other accidents I desided that these cars are pretty same. broken vertebrae sounds pretty bad to me but the guy did recover, now that says something to me
 
cnewton44 said:
Meh... I think some people need reality check.:laugh:
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Clearly it is you that needs the reality check. You obvioulsy have no concept of the energy involved in crashes, and how modern vehicles dissipate that energy to protect the occupants.

Modern automobiles are designed to crumple and tear away in a controlled manner in a high energy crash. If a car were perfectly stiff, the energy would be transferred directly to the occupants, and even though the car might look fine, the occupants would still be dead from internal injuries. A car that doesn't look really bad after a hard hit is not a car you want to drive (unless it has all the extra safety gear of a proper race car, with the 6-pt belts, roll cage, racing style seat, HANS device, and a helmet).

Almost any modern unibody design car would look similar to the original photos after the same crash.
 
OK. Public apology. I am sorry. I have just been really frustrated with my car lately. Things going wrong at the same time, so its not been fun. I have pulled my head out of my ass. :eek: Forgive me?:cry:
 
Yeah I know, when I hit that deer, if I was in my Talon at the time it would have come up and threw the windshield.
 
cnewton44 said:
OK. Public apology. I am sorry. I have just been really frustrated with my car lately. Things going wrong at the same time, so its not been fun. I have pulled my head out of my ass. :eek: Forgive me?:cry:
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Yes. But will you please take this one back, too?

cnewton44 said:
...i know you guys are gonna flame me up and down for this. But working at a Yota dealership has really made me see that american cars really are junk. I rarely rarely ever see a Toyota come in for anything other than regular maintenance. Trust me I know. I also used to work for a Ford dealer...
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If it helps, I ran my '87 Taurus about 182,000 miles. My '94 MTX Taurus SHO about 222,000. My '00 Contour SVT has 116,000 miles on it, and has thus far suffered only one mechanical failure not necessarily related to routine maintenance -- a worn out IAC valve.

The way a car was maintained before you is of great importance. My second SHO (the ATX one mentioned in my signature) was never quite the car that my first one was because it was not properly tended to before I bought it.

The excellence of FoMoCo runs in my veins. I am possibly one of the most ardent Ford supporters out there, and I admit to certain degrees of bias. I drive Fords not only because they don't leave me stranded, but because they excite me and hold my interest as no other marque can.

Don't leave the family. :cool:

Enjoy the Panther, by the way, should you decide to run that instead of the Mystique.
 
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