Faulty Bonnet catch almost killed me!!

[NCA01]

Hello All,

I am a fairly regular reader and some time contributer to this site. Some of you will remember me from my posts last October. I bought an 03 Noggy Blue S4 Avant. Despite the cold start issues, heavy use of coolant and of course fuel - I was more than happy with the car.

But on Sunday evening the car threw a new suprise at me and an alarming one at that. I had left the car over night at a friends and Sunday afternoon went round to collect it. Being such a nice day I figured I would give it a good run before heading home. I had just pulled off the round about at the bottom of the A43 and was accelorating up the hill in the outside lane. Suddenly the bonnet catch opened and the bonnet flew open and smashed against the windscreen. A potential big accident avoided I managed to stop the car and get it to the side of the road. Thankfully I was 5 mins from home and was able to limp the car home. I had some small framents of glass in my eyes and went to A&E Sunday night to get them checked out.
As for the car - well the bonnet is destroyed as is the windscreen. The pillars seem to be ok but the first 30cm of the roof above the windscreen is badly dented.

Now some questions if I may:
1) have any of you had simular issues? the bonnet always required a god clunk to shut it. But there was no warning light to say it was open as I started my journey.
2) The claim is in the hnads of the insurance comapny and I am waiting for them to get back to me. The car will have to go to one of thier approved shops. Do you think they will scrap it or be able to fix it? Bought the car for £13k last October.
3) I am about 20 mins from MRC in Banbury. Should I get those boys involved? (I know they are not a body shop).

Have a look at the pics... I guess I should be greatful to be in once piece. The "what if's" have started to hit home.

Cheers,
NCA

[NCA01]

Sorry Can't get the pic's to attach... can somew one host them for me?

[nihc]

Hi NCA,

So sorry to hear about your accident. Thank god that you are OK, relatively speaking, of course.
I take it there was no permanent damage to your eyes?
I can't remember hearing anything like it before. Do you think the bonnet catch had been opened and it was just the safety catch holding it shut?

I would just let the insurance company sort it out - it sounds like you need to take a load off after that.

Take it easy.

Regards, Chris.

[elmo]

I would re-iterate the above. You had a lucky escape and it could have been a lot worse. Hopefully you have not done any permanent damage to your eye, as this is definately more difficult to get fixed or get replacement parts for!

Hope you get it all sorted out soon and this won't put you off. Take it from me, it could have been any bonnet latch and I have not heard that the Audis are particularly prone to this.

Hopefully you have the leather interior, which should be easier to clean from the brown underpants moment you almost certainly encountered.

Hope you get it all sorted out soon.

Regards,

[no_RS]

Blimey, glad you are okay,that's a scary story.

Do make sure you eyes are okay, if anything doesn't feel right get them checked ASAP very IMPORTANT. Car is a non issue in comparison to your eyes.

Hope the car gets fixed and you are not obliged to use their approved repairers, if you don't you might not get a courtesy car. Repair quality is more important to me anyway. It is worth reporting the bonnet failure to both Audi and VOSA and see if anything happens.

[grizz]

It'll be a easy repair .. The roof skin is a easy job... they won't wright it off..

I had it happen to me many year's ago in a classic range rover.. To say a <beep> myself is a under statement....

Good luck ..