The main safety cage of the car is compromised. It is no longer safe to drive as it will not protect you in an accident again. Because steel becomes more malleable when it is worked, even if you straighten it, all you've done is weaken it more making the lack of protection more significant. Your best route is to find several similar vehicles so you can talk the value up as high as possible to get a decent settlement. Then for your own safety and your family's, go buy a new car. There is no way to make a unibody car safe ever again after an accident when the main cage is compromised.

 

Not for the sake of argument, but just for clarity, when steel, and most metals, is worked (the shape is changed) it actually hardens. This is called "work hardening." It is part of what makes cold forged steel so strong (it is physically made denser and the work hardening causes the crystalline structure to be stressed and therefore more rigid). The problem comes when metal is over work hardened. Then you get fatigue. The metal breaks rather than bends. In this case it would be my opinion that the whole car could be straightened and it would give the same protection as before. It would have to be bent many more times to fatigue the steel alloy used in the car. I think completely folder-over sheet metal could be straightened without worrying about the strength. The real question is the time, money and how easily the bent parts can be manipulated.

 

Honestly from what I saw in the pictures the only part of the unibody cage that was compromised was the door pillar. That could be repaired by cutting one from a junkyard car and welding it in. Or if you pushed the original pillar back out you could even weld in some extra metal to beef it up. If there is a will there is a way. But it's true that the easiest course of action would simply be to buy a replacement car if you can find a decent one. The accident that I experienced did a lot less damage and in the span of a couple hours I had the metal almost back to where it started out. And I happened to luck out and know someone with body working tools.

Also remember that those doors have metal beams in them.

 

I'm the guy with the original post, Allstate (person who caused the accident) agent found a comparable, Allowed extra $ cause mine has lower mileage (220K !) and gave me $ to travel to NJ if I wanted to buy the comparabe car. $1825 minus 175 salvage fee gets me $1650 and I get to keeop the car! Sweet deal I think. I was going to Craigslist it for 500 see what happens.

If I cant sell it and were to fix it I would cut a pillar out of a donor car and heve it welded it. Dont think it could be pushed out. Check out drivers side shot- looks pretty nice I think! Dave

 

That car looks sweet. If I were in your area I would buy it for $500. I would find a way to get things back to near normal. So are you going to buy a replacement car?

 

A guy bought it for 450, coming with a rollback. So all in all, 2100 bucks on a car I paid 1100 for isnt a bad deal.The only bad thing is my nice old Volvo got smashed. It all really has worked out well since I was trying to sell another car when the crash occured.

I plan to winter (Syracuse- up here we get winter) with a 2000 Dodge Caravan (car I was trying to sell) and shop for another southern 240 wagon in the spring. Maybe a later model with an airbag. Oooh, and maybe a 5 speed. And working AC. that would be nice. I dont think I'll be looking to pay a lot more than the 1100 I did last time. Maybe pay to get some stuff fixed upon purchase- I never seem to do that. Dave

 

i cant believe the windows didnt shattered. Unless i cant tell from picture.

 

No none of the glass broke. I could even roll the front window down about 4 inches. D

 

Yea, that car is toast. They'll offer you about $900 for it. If you bumped your elbow and need a look at that, they may throw another $6,000 at you. Then you can replace it with a nice V70 or something.

 

rspi- yeah shouldve held my neck when I got out of the car. Allstate gave me 1650 and let me keep the car so I'm good. Think I'll keep the 1100 budget next time see what I can get. D

 

Keep us updated on your hunt for a 240! -Jake