A couple months back, I was involved in my first-ever accident when my Lexus IS 300 was rear-ended on a highway in Toronto. I’ve already gone over the specifics of the actual event, and now it’s time to talk about the repair.

The first surprise after my accident happened shortly after, when I brought the car to the local Lexus-certified collision center for an estimate.

From the outside, the damage appeared minimal — just some denting on the rear bumper. But taking the cover off, the appraiser found that the entire steel impact bar had pushed into the rear panel and broken both of the crumple zone clips. The car was no longer safe to drive, the protection gone if another accident occurred.

This began an odyssey of repair that took almost two months to resolve. There were communication delays between the collision center and my insurance, a Lexus parts shortage in Canada, protracted discussions on OEM vs aftermarket parts. I had already been concerned about the paint shop matching the Atomic Silver exterior, but this morphed into a whole other level of aggravation.

(There was a silver lining, as I managed to score an 2018 Audi A4 as my rental car. I’ll cover that experience more at a later date, but it was a lot of fun getting an extended test drive of an IS competitor.)

In the end, the IS was flawlessly repaired. I can be borderline obsessive about my cars, but no matter how hard I tried, there was no discernible difference, no indication that any damage had occurred. In fact, the repainted bumper eliminated some previous scuffs and stone chips behind the rear tires, making it even better than before. Sometimes bad stories have happy endings, even if they take longer than expected.

This IS 300 AWD was made possible by the folks at OpenRoad Lexus Richmond, the premier Lexus dealership in British Columbia and a proud sponsor of Lexus Enthusiast.

It happened in a flash, unexpected. I was driving alone my IS 300 on the highway in Toronto, stop-and-go traffic, plenty of space all around me, when a dusty old Buick slammed into me from behind.

First the shock, followed by a surprising quietness and a head full of racing thoughts. I angled towards the shoulder, eyes locked on the other driver, making sure to write the license plate number on my windshield with my finger.

Thanks to my Lexus dashcam, I have footage of the accident:

At first glance, the damage doesn’t look serious. I had been coasting with the flow of traffic, and that movement reduced the impact to a visible imprint on my back bumper.

I call the police, but was informed that no officer will be dispatched to an accident with no injury. Thankfully, this isn’t the case — we are both fine. Instead, we have to drive to a Collision Reporting Center to make a statement and have the damage photographed and assessed.

There’s little drama as we exchange information. I do my best to photograph the cars, and before I know it, it’s back out onto the highway with a CRC programmed into my GPS.

In my twenty years of driving, I have never been in an accident. I didn’t know about the rush of emotion that occurs a half-hour later, didn’t know about looped “what-if” scenarios that would play out in my head, or the post-traumatic stress every time a car pulls up behind me. The experience has been entirely new and wholly unpleasant.

Even so, I’m thankful it was minor in every regard, and that my biggest worry was the paint shop matching Atomic Silver just right. That is, until I went to the dealership…

This IS 300 AWD was made possible by the folks at OpenRoad Lexus Richmond, the premier Lexus dealership in British Columbia and a proud sponsor of Lexus Enthusiast.

I recently interviewed my wife Karissa to see what she thinks of our Lexus IS 300. She opted to handwrite her responses.

What do you like most about the IS?

What’s your favorite feature?

What’s the one thing that’s missing?

What do you think about the Atomic Silver/Black color combo?

How has the IS worked for our family?

This IS 300 AWD was made possible by the folks at OpenRoad Lexus Richmond, the premier Lexus dealership in British Columbia and a proud sponsor of Lexus Enthusiast.

Earlier this month, my family had a fun night planned — my daughter was scheduled to dance at a dinner celebrating the birthday of Scottish poet Robbie Burns, and all week we looked forward to the event. Just hours before, a cold system swooped in and dumped a blanket of snow over the region. We couldn’t go.

Shortly after, while I was out on an errand run, some bro in a Ford F150 abandoned all sense, gunning around the corner of an intersection where I sat waiting at a red light. His tires lost traction, his truck pirouetted in slow motion, and the bed of his truck came inches away from my driver door. He jumped the curb, drove over the sidewalk and sped away.

Then it was more snow, and more snow. Walking to the car in a mall parking lot, I couldn’t find my gloves in any of the fifteen pockets of my parka. Fumbling, I slid on a patch of ice, my feet bobsledded under the car and I almost smashed my face into the side mirror.

Bad luck abounds, it comes in bunches. By pure accident, I was caught driving in a whiteout, the snow whipping across the car so badly I could feel the wind’s desire to push us into a ditch. I pulled over until the worst of the weather subsided, and I white-knuckled it home, never breaking 30 miles an hour.

Winter is here, and it sucks. No matter the vehicle, no matter the tire, no matter the tech, the dangers are real and ever-present. Stay safe out there, my friends.

This IS 300 AWD was made possible by the folks at OpenRoad Lexus Richmond, the premier Lexus dealership in British Columbia and a proud sponsor of Lexus Enthusiast.

A good marriage is about compromise, and my marriage is better than most. When my wife, Karissa, suggested that we switch vehicles for a change, there was no counter-argument — all things considered, how could I stand in the way of a woman’s quest for luxury and higher fuel costs?

Anyway, this should explain my decision to veer off-brand with a review of my current daily driver, the 2008 Toyota Prius.

As anyone that knows me personally will attest, I have an enduring vocal love for our Prius. This is an iconic vehicle, changing the industry with a cost-effective hybrid drivetrain and optimal aerodynamic fastback design. The revolution is now in the rear-mirror, but there was a time when the second-generation Prius was unlike anything on the road.

Continue reading…