Hi all - I tried to do a search, but didn't find anything too similar from my issue. If there's one and I missed it, just point me to the right place! So I've had my new Prius Two about a month and did something very stupid. While leaving a small parking lot in a downtown area, I miss-judged where the driveway was and drove off the darn curb. I wasn't going very fast probably about 5mph, maybe a little more - I had pretty much just taken my foot off of the break to let the car coast out into the street (it was narrow with cars parked along each side, so I wasn't trying to peel out or anything for sure). It made an awful sound in the front without much noise from the back, but I drove home with no problems - no weird or new sounds, vibrations, etc. Looking underneath, there doesn't appear to be anything scratched, dented or bent and no fluid is leaking. There's still no new or unusual sounds and no vibrations at any speed - drives the same as far as I can tell. I was concerned about the alignment, so I took it in to the dealer and had one done mainly for some piece of mind there. I've done the driving slow in an empty parking lot test, and it drives straight as I'd expect. 2 of the cars I had previous to this one were both complete nightmares - if it could fall apart, fall off or leak, it did - so I think I'm pretty much scarred for life and keep thinking the worst. I know Toyotas in general are pretty reliable, but this is also my first brand new car (AND the exact car I wanted), so I'm basically kicking myself nonstop over doing something so dumb - especially since I'm usually a pretty decent driver. Since nothing appears to be out of the ordinary or scratched/dinged up, should I be ok? Oh, and I will NEVER do that again!
Most of us, given time, will do something stupid. If you had bent some part of the front suspension the alignment tech would have certainly noticed and suggested replacing the part. So you got away with it. DON'T DO IT AGAIN!!
The sound you heard was probably just the suspension hitting up against the rigid bump stop that limits suspension travel. Hopefully, nothing was bent or damaged. It's good you were going very slow.
join the club. you may have scraped the plastic aero panels underneath. if nothing is hanging down, you're probably fine.
Indeed. Those "air dam" lowers will scrape again, it's just a matter of time. Sounds terrible but they are made rather soft and flexible on purpose.
Thanks, guys. I certainly didn't go off the curb all Dukes of Hazzard style , but I am thinking (and hoping) I got off lucky - the only price I paid is/was to my anxiety level. Nothing is hanging down or leaking, rims and tires look fine and still no vibrations or strange noises after nearly a solid week of driving. I would hope the mechanic that did the alignment yesterday would notice anything bent or needing replaced already that would bring in some money. Oddly enough, I'm not too worried about the plastic under panels getting scratched up since that seems pretty much unavoidable over the life of the car - those look fine enough to me for now anyway. I didn't even know they were there until looking up underneath it after my blunder! And no, I won't do it again.
Tardis, welcome to the club. Sooner or later everyone is going to bottom out. Sounds awful but usually there is no damage. If it was as bad as you feared, the guy wouldn't have been able to do the alignment. I hope you got it entirely out of your system. That first scratch is going to hurt.
If you call this stupid, then I've done at least 5 stupids to my Prius thus far. I don't worry about it.
