Hello,
I recently got into an unfortunate accident where i hit my 2015 toyota yaris hatchback in a electricity pole at about 30 mph , the entire hit was on the right side of the car as you can see from the picture, fortunatly the engine was not harmed whatsoever the car still starts as well as the electrical systems, but everything under the right fender was shatered, the chassis was bent in to places a couple of inches(red arrows) and the doors on the right side wont open obviously, the car will have to undergo a frame straightening.
The good thing is that i am insurred , and will repair the car at the best place possible which is the toyota dealearship garage,
My question is judging by the photo and what i have told you how good will the car be after the repair, how severe is the damage? how good can it be repaired, will the car give me any futur problems after undergoing a chassis hit.
@PvtPublic their still inspecting , havent got the answer yet, but the insurrance clause is if its more than 65% of the car market value which is about 8000 dollars in my country they dont fix it, i was told the repair for this wont go over 4000 $ if not 3000 $.
do you think it should be tottaled? i’ve seen worse accidents get repaired
That’s a big hit. I’m surprised this wasn’t declared a “total loss”. If the repair is very well done, you will have issues with the paint on the repaired areas compared to the factory paint. Since it is white the paint match is easier, but the clearcoat of the repaired areas won’t hold up as well. The clearcoat might yellow and eventually it can flake off. The hood and front bumper will be the most likely areas where this can show up.
The new front bumper is a black plastic which will be painted white. These repainted bumpers often develop areas where the paint chips off. It will be obvious when the white paint chips off and you see black plastic.
If the frame is straightened correctly the car should drive straight. If it doesn’t hold alignment well you will get erratic tire wear. If you see this I’d dump the car at that point.
If you usually keep a car 2 to 5 years and trade for a new one, then the repair will be OK if the car drives the same as prior to the accident. Keep it.
If you planned to keep this car for 10 years then you will see problems with the repair as the car ages. I’d sell it and get a new one.
All that damage to the passenger side front involves all the suspension and steering. The motor is OK, but there is still a lot of important stuff that just might not work as well as OEM factory parts. The car has crumple zone technology to protect passengers and it just seems all that is compromised by this kind of impact.
I really would ask why this car isn’t declared a total wreck?
I would expect it to be totaled. BTW there is no “frame” as such, it is a uni-body type car. In any case I would not want it after that kind damage to the uni-body. It looks like there may be major front suspension damage also.
@UncleTurbo i havent gotten the insurrance report yet, but i was told it could be rapaired since the rapair costs wont excced 65% of the car market value; insurrance companies dont care how well it will drive afterwards,i dont want to seel it now since i have 2 years left on my mortgage, it will be repaired at the official toyota garage, its state of the art, so if anyone is gonna do a good job its them
With all due respect to others comments, anything can be fixed, and fixed as good as new. It just takes skill, tools and parts. In the US, our legal climate and labor rates would likely total that car. In another country, maybe not. Any crushed panels can either be straightened or replaced based on the part design and metal types (high or low strength steel, aluminum ect.). The overall structure can be pulled back into shape and repair parts welded on. New fender (wings) and door replace the old ones. If it measures square and true, it will be as good as new.
Our 15 year old car has a dent repair done 14 years ago that looks perfect all these years later.
A large car wrecked into my wife’s compact car (at 45mph!) years ago. Set off the airbags and destroyed the front of the car. When we got it back, I could not find a single spot on the car that I could identify as crash damage and it drove absolutely straight as an arrow.
After the vehicle is disassembled and inspected a revised estimate will be written, at that time the insurance company will decide if the car should be repaired or not.
Without knowing in what country the car is in how can anyone suggest they lack the skill to do a proper repair? Repairs like this are routine in the United States.
A good shop can repair it, if they find the damage less than the ‘total it’ limit. I wouldn’t worry about the paint, quality paint will work out fine, otherwise any fender bender would require selling the car!
A technical question: doesn’t bending metal, then subsequently re-straightening it, affect the fatigue life? (For example, bending a paperclip back and forth until it snaps.) Usually, the only possible away around that is to re-temper, and I don’t see that happening to an auto uni-body. So, is a “correctly” straightened car the equivalent of a “never wrecked” car, or isn’t it?
get an ACCURATE and complete estimate FIRST.
It may just BE totaled.
We just got STUNG in the shop here by an adjuster who did NOT go through a thorough and complete estimate process . .both body shop AND mechanical shop.
Body shop ordered parts base on that adjuster’s estimate. . then mechanical shop got the job stating ‘’ ok to repair ‘’ . WELL ! . . it turns out, the parts the mechanical shop needed were never part of the first estimate and the supplimental claim turned out to TOTAL the truck.
Now the job is a total.
Now we have to take back ALL $15,586.72 of orderd parts !
Once bent, metal cannot be returned 100% to its original condition. However, frames can often be straightened to a point where the car will drive perfectly normally. Sometimes it doesn’t come out perfect… that’s the risk. Whether or not a good shop with a frame straightening table can do this one such that it will feel normal again cannot be determined from here… or by anyone other than the shop pro examining the vehicle hands-on.
What we think doesn’t matter. Your insurance will make a decision whether or not it’s totaled and should give you your options… if in your country you have options.
“Once bent, metal cannot be returned 100% to its original condition. However, frames can often be straightened to a point where the car will drive perfectly normally. Sometimes it doesn’t come out perfect.”
+1
Here is an experiment for the OP to try:
Take any can–either steel or aluminum.
Now, crush it.
Then, use your hands and/or whatever tools you have at hand, and try to put it back to its original shape.
More than likely, you will find that you can’t return it precisely to its original shape and form, and that type of situation with the chassis of a unibody car (your car doesn’t actually have a frame in the traditional sense) can lead to…bizarre tire tread wear problems…weird handling qualities…an inability to track straight down the road without constant steering correction…an inability to accurately align the wheels.
While it might be possible to do the straightening job with no resulting problems, the very real potential problems that I listed above would cause me to not want to keep a car that had been damaged in the way that the OP’s car has been damaged.
@meanjoe75fan It will affect the fatigue life by a small amount… but… uni-body parts aren’t cycled (bent and straightened) enough to matter. It is mostly mild or low carbon, non-heat treated steel. The metal sees stress cycles but not nearly high enough to significantly reduce its fatigue life.
Suspension parts are a WHOLE different matter! They operate at much higher stress levels and some of them are heat treated. They get replaced.
High strength steel is also a different issue. Not tempered steel but high carbon steel. HSS is very resistant to bending in the first place. Its yield stress (pretty much the bending point) is much closer to its ultimate strength (the breaking point). Un-bending it without tearing it and getting the correct shape is difficult and sometimes impossible so those parts get the spot welds drilled out and the metal replaced.
An even better test is to bend a strap of metal, any kind of metal, and then try to straighten it again with a 3-lb sledge and an anvil. You can make it pretty doggoned good IF you’re a good metal pounder, but it’ll never be exactly what it was. Nor will it be as strong.
However, my recommendation to the OP is to see what the insurance company says, ask what options he/she has if any, and if the car goes to be repaired simply wait for the results. If it drives normally, just don’t hit any more poles. Life isn’t perfect. If the job is well done it’ll probably be safer than many of the junkers I see going down the street. And I guarantee it’ll be a heck of a lot safer than any motorcycle. For the record, I like bikes, always have, I’m only commenting on the safety issue.
If someone is going to fix that for 3 grand they must work awfully cheap.
My concern over impacts this hard is that quite often other areas of the may be damaged and may not be easily visible. That could include strut towers, firewall, floor pan tweaks, and so on.
When my son wrecked his car not many years ago it did not look nearly as bad as this one so we thought about home fixing it. The more we got into it the more damage we discovered including the floor pan and firewall damage. We said no way and he sold the car to a bodyman who wanted it in spite of the floor and firewall problems.
A week or so later the bodyman had second thoughts and resold the car as parts. After getting into it he decided it simply wasn’t worth the trouble.
