Our mini was in an accident yesterday. Insurance company is on the fence as to whether to repair or total. Car was t-boned at 45 mph. The person who hit my wife never even touched the brakes according to his statement to the cops. Every one is fine so that is good. i thought the mini held up very well to such a big impact, but after I went out to look at the car today I think it maybe too much to repair. Here are some pics.

Door:

Bent dash:

I have a buddy that owns a body shop... his motto is when in doubt total it.

Of course he likes this motto because he then buys them with a salvage title for next to nothing and fixes them to sell.

Buckled roof:

Wow, for a 45 mph impact it looks like it held up very well indeed. Glad your wife's okay...

Broken motor mount:

The other guy:

Yeah the car did very well. It ended up in a hedge 15-20 yards from the point of impact after it jumped a 12 inch curb and it did all this basically going sideways

Dang, Nick. Sorry to hear about this. I am glad yoru wife is ok. I would personally total it. It is gonna be a huge pain in the ass to get it righ most likely. This way you can move onto getting another one.

The other dudes car looks worse.

Glad everyone is ok.

"I have a buddy that owns a body shop... his motto is when in doubt total it."

If the insurance is enough to get you a simular car in the same or better condition of yours BEFORE the accident then I would hope they total it and move on. Get your self a new (to you anyway) car with no crash history and go about your merry way.

My 2 cents YMMV

The metal will never be the same, and will tend to rust faster if that is a concern. The alignment may never be the same again. Even if it wasn't totalled, I wouldn't keep it long. Not a keeper for sure.

All this despite wanting to salvage the 914/6 that Andy straightened on the Celette bench. That one is rare enough to take the chances. It will also be a 'body in white' ground up restoration.

If there's any thought that it might be totalled, I would press the insurance company very hard to total the car. Is there any structural damage?

My son wrecked my wife's '99 Beetle a couple years ago. GEICO didn't total it. They estimated the repairs at around $8600. To have totalled it would have cost them around $12k. They wound up paying substantially more to get it fixed ($14k) than if they had totalled it. The car was never the same and we eventually sold it to Carmax just to be rid of the damn thing. I hope they fired the guy that did the claim.

Skip

Not sure about structural damage, but I bet the fact the roof is bent is a sign the car isn't straight any more. So far the insurance company seems to be totaling it. It has to be assessed by one more guy. I never thought high resale value would be a problem but the blue book on the car is 18K. That's a lot of repairs.

I agree, it will never be the same. I have seen too many cars "crab" down the road. Glad your wife is fine.

They haven't stopper making Minis. The new ones haven't been bent. Go for the total.

We had the same type of accident with my son's Jetta GLI, but theyk wouldn't total it. Every time you open the passenger side door you can feel that it's just not quite right though it looks fine.

I'd say total it and definately buy another one. That's awsome performance for that kind of impact. Gald everyone's peachy.
Mark D.

Glad to hear your wife's okay. Cars are just steel and plastic, that can be replaced...

As for the car? Yeah, total it. The reason why the MINI is so well rated in crash tests is that the whole chassis deforms slightly to absorb impact energy. That car will never be right again, and it's a new car to begin with. If it were a 30 year old classisc car, that's one thing. But you can just get a new one right now. Total it and don't look back.

I'm surprised the driver of the other car is okay. And it looks like there was a passenger that hit the glass. Or at least that's how it looks from the picture.

Make sure that your wife isn't suffering any delayed effects before settling with the insurance company though.

-Josh2

Only the driver in the taurus. The windshield broke and popped out because the A pillars bent in the impact. I should have taken a picture of it from the side. Everything is bent on that car in front of the B pillars. I was not impressed with the fords performance. None of the doors open on that car

Is the car bent in the middle? Judging from the roof pic. Maybe frame is bent? How about a pic from the front view?

These are all the pics I have have. I couldn't really look at to much . . .

I'm glad that your wife is OK too, and luckily the MINIs fare so well in a crash. From your description, it appears that if the Taurus had been t-boned at 45mph, it would have ripped in half.

Hopefully your insurance company will total the car out so you can get another new MINI. They are very fun cars, and to be stuck with one that was bent out of shape would diminish the Motoring Experience