backed into by brothers neighbor and now radiator is leaking

by brent » Mon Jul 11, 2011 05:05 pm
Posts: 2
Joined: 11 Jul 2011

my car was backed into by my brothers neighbor with his trailer. we were driving down his street and he had stopped his car, and then proceded to back up before i had a chance to put my car in reverse and start to back up. we didnt exchange information cause there was no visual damage but then a week later my car starts over heating and my radiator begins to leak. i took a picture of his license plate and have his address and phone number. what should i do?

Total Comments: 3

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 12:05 am Post Subject:

Determine what is causing the radiator to leak. if you feel it's related to the accident then contact that person and ask for their insurance information.

Frankly, I don't see how your radiator could be damage without body damage to your vehicle as it's not really exposed. It's also unlikely that you'd start to see problems a week later.

If he won't give it to you and you still want it, file a police report

By law you are required to exchange contact and insurance info at the time of the accident. You did not do this.

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 02:44 am Post Subject:

i had a VW year ago where this happened. No damage but a little hit in grill next to head;ight and broke bracket of radiator causing a crack. You should be able to see if one of the 4 brackets craced the radiator. If so tell hom what happened and get his insurane info.

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 03:17 pm Post Subject:

No damage but a little hit in grill



This is either damage or it isn't. Because the radiator and its supporting brackets sit well behind the grill, as tcope has already stated, unless there is significant trauma to the vehicle, such an "impact" is highly unlikely to cause this sort of damage. Even if the brackets are made of plastic/ABS, they will not be broken in an impact that does no damage to other body parts. If they could be broken by such an "impact", they would have broken much sooner simply by hitting a pothole or two on a surface street. Your scenario is implausible.

As to the OPs comment that he began having trouble "a week later" following his collision event, if there truly was damage to the cooling system on the vehicle due to the collision, it would have been apparent almost immediately.

I think this is mere coincidence. Kind of like a friend at church who, last Sunday, asked one of our members who is a mechanic about white smoke coming from the tailpipe of his car when he first starts it in the morning. Water leaking into the cylinder(s) is the probably cause. The question was, "My wife wants to know if it was caused by the emissions probe inserted into the tailpipe when the vehicle was smog checked about a week before."

"I don't think so," said the mechanic.

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