Wildlife Encounters

Rarely a day goes by without someone, somewhere in the Aspen-Snowmass region experiencing the wildlife in Colorado a little bit too close. Especially during these winter days, wildlife encounters are all to frequent. Whether it is because of driving too fast, or because of driving through a particularly low-visibility situation, animals do get on the road, and we end up bumping into them. Sometimes it’s a minor scratch. But sometimes, animal collision can cause significant damage depending on the speed of travel.

Animal collision auto body repairs can get quite expensive and complicated when you have to do all the paperwork to sort things out with your insurance company. This is why we at High Tone Auto Body offer the complete service: paperwork and elbow grease.

In the images below, you can see how a Volvo S40 front end got severely damaged from a deer collision.

Collision repair Aspen CO — This Volvo S40 was damaged in a wildlife encounter. The deer walked away and the car had to be towed in.

Deer collision repair: Headlight, fender and hood damage

It doesn’t take much for a collision, especially when roads are slippery and wet. Even a 30mph speed is enough to cause significant damage when a collision with a large animal happens. In this case, the deer collision caused significant damage of the front end of this Volvo S40. As the image below shows, the hood is deformed, the left fender is twisted and torn at places, and the headlight assembly is completely destroyed.

Aspen auto body repair Snowmass. Deer collision repair — Left fender and headlight damage from deer collision

The front bumper and grill also got some damage.

The positive end of things was that none of the mechanical and electronic components of this car had any damage. The radiator was completely intact and the structural beams around the engine protected the wiring. Volvos are strong and sturdy vehicles.

Aspen auto body repair shop fast reliable deer collision repair — Localized but severe damage: broken headlight, bumper and deformed side panel and hood

To do this repair properly, we removed the front bumper, hood and left fender. Then we replaced all the parts that needed replacing: front headlight, fog lights built into the bumper, new grill, new bumper, new left fender.

After the repair: Car looks like new, client is very happy

While our tech’s were working on the vehicle itself, Tanja took care of all the paperwork with the insurance company. All in all, within a couple of days the owner of this vehicle had all the details sorted out, and the Volvo S40 looked like new.

Aspen auto body shop fixed collision car looks like new — After the repair: No signs of any sort, like-new looks of this Volvo S40

Thanks to our very friendly and competent staff, the repair experience was excellent.

Animal encounters are quite often, and in some cases these encounters sound a bit strange…but this is only a reminder that wildlife acts unpredictably and we should be careful in how we leave our vehicles, and what we leave in them.

Below is a series of photos from a damage done by a small bear that somehow got locked inside a Honda SUV and did considerable damage on the interior. Luckily, nobody was hurt and the bear had left the car by the time its owners returned.

Honda SUV bear brake-in interior damage — Honda SUV with a bear close-encounter

bear feces in vehicle and other damage — Bear left feces in vehicle while trying to get out

Interior roof damaged by bear — Damaged Interior Roofing and Plastic Molding

bear damaged plastic panels in car — Bear tore off most of the interior plastic moldings

Bear broke the sun roof while inside vehicle — Damaged sun roof on Honda SUV during bear brake-in

As you can see from the images, the bear that got stuck in the vehicle did quite a bit of damage.

On the back seat the bear did some damage on the seats themselves, broke off some trimming in the boot area, took off some plastic panels in the passenger area and broke off the sun roof. Also, it marked the vehicle with its poop in the boot area to make things even worse.

The vehicle needed some replacement plastic trimmings, some parts for the sun roof, and a complete interior detailing to get the bad odor out.

Usually, bears get close to vehicles if they smell food. Bears have excellent sense of smell and nothing gets by them. To avoid bear encounters like this one, make sure your vehicle is clean of any kind of food:

Don’t leave wrapped/unopened food in the car like candy or crackers, bears can smell them
Take the food out of the glove compartment and other storage spaces in your vehicles
Make sure there are no larger chunks of food or wrappings of food lying on the floor
Remove any used bottles from juices, milk and any other sweet beverages

Volvo S40 Collision Repair: Significant Front End Damage

Deer collision repair: Headlight, fender and hood damage

Bear Break-In Car Interior Repair Aspen, CO.

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