Car gets rear-ended, starts leaking antifreeze?

SWMBO got rear-ended (heheh) on the way home from my house Monday evening. Once she told me she was ok and car seemed driveable I decided going to meet her would just get in the officer's way, and traffic as well (that's how it happened, stopping for construction backup).

Yesterday she said it seemed to be leaking something, and later confirmed it was leaking quite a bit. I thought it was weird but believed her, there has been no leaking in my driveway all these months other than Subarust.

She got hit, but didn't hit anyone in front of her. I know you can't diagnose the problem over the internet, but have you seen this before? (I had a friend get rear-ended and they both decided older vehicles, no apparent damage to either, he let the person go, only to find out his car would not start now.)

Don't underestimate what that amount of force will do to things that are nowhere near the actual point of impact. I would have no trouble believing a cracked radiator or broken coolant line could result from a hard hit just about anywhere on the car.

Have I seen it before? I've broken the hood off a car just by hitting the bumpstops hard enough, so sort of?

I have seen high speed video of accident damage ripple through a chassis.

If the tailpipe got hit end on and the exhaust was in good shape it could certainly has tossed the engine around on its mounts, or broken them.

The same way that she felt her head jolted forward, everything in the car that did not crumble did the same.

So the radiator could have moved, as the engine and transmission and stress out hoses etc.

Hopefully is something minor.

Good luck

not to be a e36m3head, but are we sure its not just a lot more condensation than normal off the AC? Seeing as most of the country is seeing ridiculously high heat and humidity, what was maybe not noticable before has turned into quite the 'leak'.

I was sitting at a red light in my E46 and got rear ended by an old guy in a Mercedes SLK doing 5-10mph. I pulled over and expected to see carnage, but I guess German-on-German bumpers impacts are compatible and there wasn't a mark. His car looked like this was a pretty frequent occurrence.

I'm here to tell you it HURT...knocked my cup out of the cupholder and I saw stars for a second. Even at low speeds, there is a lot of inertia in a 4000# vehicle.

Plastic radiator end tanks are dubious at high mileage anyway. I have no doubt you could have cracked one from a low speed impact.

you didn't mention what she was driving.. but something like a BMW leaves very little room between the radiator and the front of the engine. I can believe that a hard hit could bring that engine to briefly make contact (especially if running) and ruin it

I'm assuming that if it was fuel, she could tell by the smell pretty quickly. To second Robbie, though, anyone who gets in an accident will be more alert about changes in the car, so it could be condensation from the A/C that she never noticed before because she wasn't watching the car to make sure everything was OK. Where the leaking is coming from would be a decent clue. Front? Might be radiator. Middle? Could be the A/C. Rear? Might be fuel? But again, that's a strong smell that she'd notice.

-Rob

Color?, smell?, texture of fluid?

Robbie wrote: not to be a e36m3head, but are we sure its not just a lot more condensation than normal off the AC? Seeing as most of the country is seeing ridiculously high heat and humidity, what was maybe not noticable before has turned into quite the 'leak'.

Along these lines, the impact could have knocked loose dirt and rust allowing the condensate to drip in a different location than before the impact.

I haven't seen it yet, she thinks it's antifreeze. So did a family member she visited about the same time. I plan to see it this weekend, today or tomorrow. She's finally calling insurance adjusters today for a rental car (rear bumper got pretty berkeleyed)

And it's a mid 2000's Pontiac Grand Prix, that she's not very found of anyway.

I won't say it's impossible, but it would be very unlikely. Unibody vehicles don't have the same energy transfer issues that old body on frame vehicles did (not saying NO energy transfers). I've seen odd things here and there, but usually it was something that was about to fail on it's own.

stan_d wrote: I have seen high speed video of accident damage ripple through a chassis.

You can tell it was a bad hit or not by checking if the tar board under the back seat is still stuck to the metal, or just sitting on it now.

My stepsister was rear ended in her 04 kia spectra, it didnt even dent the bumper but broke the exhaust manifold. Weird E36 M3 can happen.

Long ago my Rover 2000tc was t-boned. The impact cracked the mainshaft in the transmission which failed a couple of weeks after the car was otherwise repaired.

My jag got hit and the damage for the impact sustained did not look bad but later I found out from the insurance company of the person that hit me that their client estimated there speed at 50 mph. Because most of the impact was on the rear tire it transferred lots of energy to the body and caused all sorts of weird electrical things to start happening. I found out that after they tested the car and verified the issues the major reason it was totaled was because of the problems with the can bus system in the car caused by the impact.

Small update....... Bodywork completed yesterday, insurance is giving her the run-around about wether the accident caused the leak or not. It's at NTB right now, where they did a bunch of maintenance about a year ago so they can at least say "no, this did not leak before, and certainly not like this."

In slightly related story, a construction dump truck driver rear-ended someone yesterday afternoon, 5 car accident with a fatality (and tried to run up the highway before he was caught!), all about 100' from where her accident was.

News story

Not SWMBO...thankfully. (I can't help notice the back of the car moved forward 3' yet the tail pipe is untouched)