New seats?

Our friends just came by and hit ice coming down our driveway. Their vehicle slid right into mine. Their front bumper has a dent the size of a soccer ball (About the depth of half of the ball) and my driver's door was quite indented but has popped out now that their vehicle isn't buried in it.
Do I need new seats for the boys? I hate to be questioning it but I'm just not sure on this one.

(Oh, my door opens and closes fine. No damage done to the framework, it's just the outer panel.....if that helps at all.)

It's really your call. If the impact was less than going over a nasty bump in the road, I don't see why you would bother. If it were more severe than that, perhaps. The official answer would be "any" crash--but this could involve the little scrape in a parking lot, or even a door ding! If you're not filing a claim because of the lack of real damage (that and them being friends) then I would obviously say no--it wasn't severe enough.

The whole idea of saying ALL crashes is just to take that judgement call out of the picture. But if you're confident making it--have at it. I've hit potholes worse than low-speed impacts like that.

Again--the official answer is yes--replace for all crashes. However, there's still some amount of parental decision there.

-Nicole.

Clear as mud!

Normally I wouldn't even blink twice at this because it was such a low speed and there really wasn't much force at all involved. It was just their vehicle sliding slowly into ours with nowhere else to go. Both the plastic panel and bumper ended up dented because they were smushed into each other.

The only reason it is bugging me is because I told these same friends this week that they should replace their son's seat. Dad rear-ended someone just a few days ago. (He's not having a good week.) Again, low speeds. He came up to a stop sign and hit black ice, couldn't stop and rear-ended the car in front of them. Their son wasn't in the car but the seat was. There was rear bumper damage to the other car and he was quite sore.

So, now I'm second guessing myself. I keep saying "all accidents" so that would be this too. But really, had a 300 pound person hip-checked my door hard they probably would have done the same damage.

We aren't going to go through ICBC, I don't think. Insurance is high enough as it is. If I decide to get the panel popped back out I will just take it to my cousin who runs a body shop.

I'm feeling a bit better now about not replacing them. Had it been 4 weeks ago and I didn't have Nick's new seat yet then it may be a different story.

If he was sore after the other crash, that's an injury, and absolutely I would replace the carseat(s).

-Nicole.

QuassEE said:

If he was sore after the other crash, that's an injury, and absolutely I would replace the carseat(s).

-Nicole.

Click to expand...

Yup. I had no doubts on that one. But because he wasn't sure, said it was a mild fender bender.....I had to push on the "all accidents" rule. I had that so pounded into my head this week that it was still there when this slip&slide happened today.