Earlier this week, a video went viral on YouTube showing someone hitting a dip on a dirt road a mere nine miles after taking delivery of his new GMC Hummer and leading to a significant amount of damage. Now, he reports that the accident caused nearly $80,000 in damage to the electric vehicle.
Speaking to Road & Track, Edmond Barseghian, the man driving the Hummer at the time of the crash who’s also behind the YouTube channel the accident was featured on, Mondi, said that the vehicle was a write-off.
“Yeah, the car was totaled,” Barseghian said. “The front sub-frame was bent. The shocks were busted.”
More: YouTuber Wrecks Brand New $109k GMC Hummer EV After Just 9 Miles
So severe was the impact that the front skid plate was torn off the Hummer, and damage was done to the A/C condenser, the radiator for the battery cooling system, the rear tie-rod, and more.
In fact, the damage went further than that, because, according to Barseghian, the “rear frame was two and a half inches higher on the right side than on the left side”. That, in turn, caused body panels to buckle and panel gaps to emerge.
“The damage was $78,000 with parts and labor,” Barseghian said. “Getting the parts was the issue, because a lot of the parts weren’t available. I did not go through insurance. I just wrote it off as a loss. I sold it for much less to a third party. I lost a ton, but it is what it is.”
Even though he estimates that he has taken a roughly $80,000 loss on the GMC, Barseghian says that he does not regret the accident. He is, however, disappointed by the vehicle, claiming that its weight may be to blame for the extent of the damage.
“It was such a minor bump, it really was nothing,” Barseghian said. “But because the truck weighs so much, the frame [was] just completely destroyed. Also, I had traction control off, because I wanted to go sliding, but that dumps the suspension, so the suspension had no travel at all.”
He says, though, that there is a silver lining to all of this, because historically, he has written off one car every five years: “I’m glad I’ve met my quota on this car rather than one of my supercars. So basically all of my supercars are safe for the next five years.”
