Desperately need help

Take look at the first image, and you can see that whatever that stud and nut is for is not for the strut.

If it were, there would be three other studs and nuts for the upper strut mount. And they’re not there.

Then if you look at the second image, in the separation of the sheet metal. you can see the upper strut tube. So the strut mount is above that separation.

More images would be helpful.

As long as the strut tower hasn’t moved, the vehicle is repairable.

Just need to know how to cut out sheet metal, and weld in sheet metal.

Tester

I wasn’t looking at the stud and nut as much as the area above that where the metal is overlapped.

Interesting damage though. It almost looks like an elephant sat on to bend the sheet metal down like that. Must have gone underneath something and totally crumpled the hood down and fender. Must have been kind of hard to remove everything. What friends get themselves into sometimes and wish you never would have started.

Good point about ownership Tester. Perhaps the OP should approach the lender/owner/entity with the car title and try to re-finance the car loan to cover the repair by a competent collision shop. OK’s comment about a frame shop makes this a whole different project, and he knows his stuff. You don’t like what you have now OP but what will you have if the repair ends up being unsafe and not drivable? Of course the lender/owner will not be happy with your breach of contract (not carrying insurance) but what are THEIR options now? Taking back a damaged car and salvage? Without knowing the $$$ on value and what’s owed, this is a tough call. Rocketman

Looks like a dodge minivan. I bet the pic of corner of van moments after accident looked pretty bad. Hood, fender, grille, headlight, bumper cover, fog light, and so on

Interesting idea, rocketman If the car owner has a LOT of equity in a vehicle it might be possible to get a new loan sufficient to cover the repairs. I’ve never heard of it being tried. If the car loan is a typical car loan where it doesn’t begin to pay much toward equity until at least half way through the loan, I wouldn’t get optimistic.

This looks like a Toyota Yaris, I’ll bet the damage exceeds the value of the car.

I no highly educated economist, but it seems like common-sense the decision about whether to repair or not isn’t dependent on whether the car had insurance or not. Wouldn’t that just be based on the cost to repair vs the cost of buying another one just like it? Everything else being equal of course. Still, In this case if OP can get it repaired for a good price, or even free, but couldn’t do the same if it had insurance, then repairing it would make complete sense. Even if the cost to repair – assuming the dollar value off the free labor was included – exceeded the cost of buying a replacement.

I think the issue is that with insurance they may have just totaled it out and she’d get paid off to buy another one. With no insurance, she would need to pay the loan off right away and sell the car for scrap which would be a little bit of an economic loss. So if she can get it back on the road again by hook or crook, that’s a better option.

Mine was totaled after hitting a deer but I just collected the money and fixed it myself. It was just hood, grill, fender, head light, etc. and nothing this severe. So just bolt ons and painting.