This is going to give me an ulcer worrying about my beloved car...

UPDATE: Repairs are underway, and the parts are on order (maybe even here already). They are hoping it will be done in about a week.

I got to take a look at my car with the entire front "bumper cover" removed (actually the grille and bumper assembly), and got a close look at the radiator. There is a actually a seperate radiator for the inverter, which is about 3-4" tall and runs the whole width of the grille/radiator area. (This inverter radiator is the one that was actually punctured in the collision - not the engine coolant radiator.) This inverter radiator sits right on top of the A/C condenser, making it look like a tall single radiator in front of the engine coolant radiator. The inverter radiator is what you can see when looking through the grille, and the A/C condenser is what you see when looking through the large opening in the lower bumper cover.

Spiff72... Do you still have your Mag Grey Camry?.. What was the amount of danage to your car and the DEER incident?. I just banged up mine a month ago when a gentleman ran a red light in front of me.
<img src="http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/fil.../acc0308-2.jpg" alt="OUCH-1" />
<img src="http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/fil.../acc0308-4.jpg" alt="TCH07 Ouch-2 and 3" />
<img src="http://www.greenhybrid.com/share/fil.../acc0308-3.jpg" alt="TCH07 Ouch-2 and 3" />

The airbags did NOT deploy and the car was driveable, however, the TOYOTA authorized dealer repair shop states that the damage was nearly $7,500 !. They told me that they had to remove the entire front end of the car, engine, transmission, hybrid system, windsheild, dash and replace the front frame rails. This sounds really bad to me, but they assured me that it would be good as new. I am skeptical. I am surprised by the amount of damage on a rather low speed impact. My HONDA pilot wouldn't have suffered near as much damage. The impact was with a Chrysler Mini-Van and I struck him right in the sliding door.. Probably a REALLY stiff frame right there.
I'll keep you posted on the repair progess and of my satisfaction. I had 35,000 miles on the 07 TCH at the time of the accident.
Thanks
WillyBill

Just remember that cars these days are designed to take damage themselves in such a way as to reduce the likelihood that you get squished. May make them take damage more easily but if it comes down to me or my car, much as I do love my TCH, I'd rather it got busted up than me!

willybill,

My damage totaled about 4800.

Here is a link to a post on my blog a while back (with higher res pics if you click on the images):

http://www.spiffspace.com/blog/2006/...sidelined.html

Externally, my damage looks worse than yours, but I think it was more cosmetic. They did have to replace a lot of parts on the front end, but they didn't have to pull the engine, transmission, or hybrid components.

Mine wasn't technically drivable, since the inverter radiator was punctured and leaking, so the coolant would have eventually run dry. I did drive it a mile back to my house after the collision. Other than that, there was no structural damage.

The deer I hit was pretty small (most likely a baby following its mother) . I think its shoulders were about as high as the front seam of the hood. You can see the dent that the head made in the hood above the drivers side corner of the grille. It just bounced off and ran into the woods. No idea if it survived or not...

Edit: In answer to your question - yes, I still own the car and love it (except for the rattling of the windshield against the dash).

Hit a deer with my '04 Toyota Sienna XLE LTD back on a June morning. The minivan was driveable, but really only for it's original "mission" (to the airport for a dropoff) and then to the body shop.

Total cost: $7,200! It's as good as new except the AM radio reception is weaker than before. Nobody can seem to find out why.

Main thing - GLAD WE WERE IN A MINIVAN and not a low sedan. Who knows what might have happened.

Spiif72
Terrible update on my reapir job After a record 66 days in the TOYOTA factory authorized repair shop, MY CAR IS STILL NOT WORKING!
The body shop is a separate operation from the TOYOTA dealership (BUTLER TOYOTA in Indianapolis). The body shop did their thing and had to send the car , as mentioned in a previous post, back to the dealership to have the engine and hybrid system removed so that they could fix the frame rails. This happened in several weeks. That's when the problems began, after the frame rail repair, the car was again towed back to the service garage to have the engine and hybrid system put back in.
The immediately found out that they had drained the main HYBRID battery.. Someone had to have left the ignition on or the car in neutral for this to have occurred. The after that, they had the dash lighting up like a Christmas tree.
They said the HYBRID system light was on, the airbag system light was on and others. They had the car hooked up somehow on-line for diagnostics and they said they determined that it was an airbag sensor that had gone bad. A several day wait occurred until that part came in. No GO. Then they said the airgbag ECU was bad and had to ship that in. NO GO, then they said the wiring harness was bad.. But rather than replacing that, which was a $1,500 part and 10 hours more of labor. The intelligent body shop manager said, whoa, you guys obviously broke this car since it was working fine when the owner drove it in to the shop. He pulled the car out of the dealership and sent it to a expert auto electrical shop. They determined that the wiring harness was 100% ok. That's the last I heard.
The insurance company is refusing to pay for any more parts and repair since everyone feels that the service area made the blunder. The Toyota dealership has agreed to pay for my rental car until they have resolved the issue, but this is one of the worst debacles I have ever been involved with. My confidence level regarding both the service department and the hope that my HYBRID will ever be the same again is greatly shaken!.
All this with what was a relatively small impact on the car. By the way, the last bill estimate was nearly $8,000 !
SO...66 DAYS AND COUNTING.

Wow - that sucks, WillyBill.

I hope you get things resolved soon.

I don't know if you saw my other Camry vs. Deer thread, but I hit another one about 3 weeks ago, and this repair was done in less than 5 days. (Brought it in on a Monday, had it back the following Friday). This one wasn't as bad as the first one, though...

Good luck!

Souinds like you got caught in the SHOT GUN Syndrome, beginners (fresh out of school tecs) gun parts in until they hit the right one(bingo). being electriacal parts the parts dept will not take them back and they just ;leave all the new extra parts on the car. So sad as this chit has been going on for decades when I was in the business in another life.

TCH-43mpg
VW TDI--48
08 LS 600 HL-20
08 LX 470-16

Wow Bill, sorry to hear that. I hit a deer on Halloween night in 07 with my 08 mag grey camry hybrid and the same Butler repair shop in Carmel did all the work. It took over two weeks if I remember correctly (maybe a month?), but I didn't have any problems with them. Or at least any problems they told me about . . . now you've got me worried! My damage was a lot worse than yours, too.