I am trying to find out if hitting a car can damage the transmission (or something) to the point that the car won’t “go”.
My son’s car looked driveable after I hit it.
My car is a suzuki SX4 (small). His car is a 1990 Lincoln Town car.
I was backing out of the driveway… and his car was parked on the “parking pad” at the top of the driveway. The parking pad is made for smaller cars and to park there the tail end of the Lincoln hangs out in the driveway SEVERAL feet. I told him to park there.
My driveway (going out) is uphill so I usually kind of step on it when I’m backing out, not to the point that I blast out into the street, but I step on it enough to get me to the top of the hill… pretty fast.
Well yesterday I did that and crunched into the rear drivers side of the lincoln. I hit it behind the rear wheel with the back passenger side of my suzuki. It crunched in the fender (?) of the lincoln and smashed the tail light. I hit it pretty hard.
I got out and both cars looked like they survived and could still be driven so I went on to work, sent my son a text telling him what happened, and that I’d be calling the insurance company. I was really more worried about my car than his. Mine only has 5K miles on it and the back end got really scraped up and some of my trim was hanging off.
… so he calls me a couple of hours later telling me that he got in his car and started it up, backed it out of the driveway, went down the hill and turned the corner (about 500 feet) and then the car made some weird noises (from under the car) and there were some “vibrations”(?) the the car just stopped moving. It kept running, but stopped moving. He pushed it to the side of the street.
Meanwhile I’ve called the insurance company about my collision and they came and got the lincoln.
My question is … did my hitting the lincoln cause this? Would that be something that could happen? What are the odds that the transmission (or something under the car) would just “give out” like that, if indeed that’s what’s happened, after being driven about 500 feet after getting hit.
I called the insurance company (all state) and they sent someone to pick up the lincoln and he was asking why they were sending the car to a body shop when the transmission was out, I guess he noticed something when he was putting the car on the truck to tow it (I wasn’t there).
I am scared the insurance company is going to think something was already wrong with the transmission, but it was driving fine.
Any comments on this would be most appreciated.
In case my rambling was unclear (probably) this is what I’m trying to get an answer to:
My question is … did my hitting the lincoln cause this? Would that be something that could happen? What are the odds that the transmission (or something under the car) would just “give out” like that, if indeed that’s what’s happened, after being driven about 500 feet after getting hit.
The fuel cutoff has been tripped. In later models, it is on the left side of the inside of the trunk. I don’t know about the '90. It can be reset by pusing a button. Check the owner manual.
Oops, never mind, that is not the problem. I am dumb tonight.
The car still runs. It just won’t move (forward or reverse).
sorry, just saw your follow up.
Without seeing the car and wild guessing a bit, my opinion would be that the problem could be more related to the rear differential rather than the transmission.
This differential should be a C-clip type and it’s possible that the impact could have dislodged a clip or broken a pinion shaft in the spider gears since the diff. obviously has some wear in it.
If a clip falls off the car may move for a short time; until the axle moves out enough to disengage the splines, and at that point the car will make noise and move no more.
i agree with ok4450.have the differential checked .me and my friend were 4 wheeling in his truck one time and he slamed into a tree sideways pretty hard two minutes later tire and axle laying on ground beside the truck .cause c-clip fell out along with the shims.hope this helps.