I ran over an 18-wheeler tire on the way home from work about a week and a half ago and it did enough damage to get my car towed. My insurance company had it towed to one of their appointed body shops. General damages included: bumper & lip (OEM), grill, radiator, tie rods, and some other smaller parts. I just got it back tonight and the body work looks fantastic (I think they put an 06-07 sport bumper on my 05 coupe- I'll post a pic for someone to verify tomorrow).

Unfortunately I have a small list of electrical problems now that I'm 100% positive weren't present when my car got towed. So far I've noticed:

1) Air bag light flashing
2) Radiator fans on full blast constantly
3) My heat doesn't work
4) My aftermarket alarm (viper 5902) seems to have been partially bypassed; the stock alarm and FOB work now as well. The stock alarm even goes off when I pop my trunk/hood with my viper FOB.

Any advice on how to handle this? I'm going to call the body shop tomorrow and see what they say. I just don't understand why some of these problems would arise when it only needed body work and a radiator.



Before the accident

 

Definately contact your insurance company.

 

Seems like the accident may have caused the mechanical/electrical problems. Did you test the heat before it was towed away? And the airbag light can come on any time if a wire is loose or something got messed with. Mine came on out of the blue one day and nothing, that i know of, was touched.

But definitely contact the insurance. Let them know the problems were caused from the accident.

 

I bet when they replaced tge radiator the did didnt bleed the coolant system.thats y u probably don't have heat

 

Thanks for the info. I dropped my car off at the body shop again and they put me in a rental for a couple days. We'll see what they find. My main concern is the airbag light since I've read that can be an expensive repair. Hopefully it is just a loose wire.

Also, I noticed my heat kicked in on the way to work this morning after about 20 mins. I don't know if this would affect it, but I punched the gas a bit then it kicked in.

 

Yup that's the same symptoms I had with my heat.its air in the system.

 

+1.

Did the airbags go off?

EDIT: The airbag wiring run down under the driverside radiator support. I bet this was pinched/crushed. Just follow the impact sensor's wire on the front alumnimun bumper to the driverside. I bet this is damaged.

 

Thank you very much. If my body shop can't figure it out I'll have to tell them to check that. The airbags didn't go off so it sounds like the wire was pinched or something.

 

^damn thats possible? to crash and have the wires pinched and disabling the air bags?

 

^^^That's what I was thinking. ^^^

 

Had this issue with a Maxima in our shop last year... airbag wiring had bad connection after front impact, causing dash light. Because it was a Nissan dealer's car, they had the whole module replaced along with the wiring.. it's a good idea to go the extra mile when something like your face is at stake. ya dig..

 

Reading this make me scared lol, i hope my car comes out the shop good next week