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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

>You may not know -- forgive me if I'm wrong -- but damage to a car frame totals the car.

This is a pretty safe general rule, but it is not absolute. I had a brand new truck < 6 months old where I was hit from behind in stop-n-go traffic. The insurance company did not want to total it because the repair could be made for less than the value of the total. I asked how a frame could be repaired, and they just said it can be done. My counter was that the vehicle would now show frame repair and would have no value for trade-in nor would someone other than less than reputable dealers offer a car with repaired frame damage.

So, depending on the insurance company (Progressive was pushing for the repair. I hate Flo), some will argue against frame damage being an automatic total.

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Frame is a very different concept between a pickup truck and a Benz. Nearly all pickups are built as body-on-frame, where there's a separate chassis that mounts all the mechanical bits, and then the body goes on that. Nearly all sedans, wagons, and things that most people would consider "not trucks" are unibody. The body and frame are one and the same. The Benz in question likely had a detachable subframe at the front or rear where the mechanical bits are attached. It's pretty common to have bolt-on frame members (cross members especially), a fully detachable subframe forward of the firewall is less commmon.

All that to say, they can sometimes straighten a body on frame vehicle. Whether this is a good idea or not obviously depends on the severity of the damage. If a frame rail is bent into a banana shape, probably not. If there's been some light shearing or twisting movement of one rail to the other, they can probably do it safely within limits. Remaining imperfections get taken up in the suspension (it's adjustable). If you wonder how they put race cars back on the track so fast, it's because they'll tolerate a lot of frame geometry out of spec if they can make it up in the suspension without otherwise compromising safety and handling.

All that said, all of your points about the reduced value of the truck are certainly true.

I've had a car in a crash that should've been totaled. I was rear-ended by a truck while stopped about two months after my previous car was totaled (t-boned by an drunk driver). The insurance company balked at a 2nd total in that time period and demanded it be repaired. The total repair cost came to almost $5,000 over the KBB value. The rear end had been accordioned and the repair company straightened it out (you can indeed straighten frames with the proper alignment tooling) having to replace all the panels past the doors. They claimed it was back to spec, but it never tracked correctly in turns after the repair job. I sold it shortly after for about what I paid.

> I sold it shortly after for about what I paid.

How did you manage to do that? Was that in USA? I presume damage was on record with CarFax, etc. Did you tell new owner what happened to the car?

Finally - if you were able to show the car does not track correctly, wouldn't that be enough to re-open the claim and go back to your insurance company to properly fix it (most likely replace it at this point?)

Yes, USA. Damage and behavior was disclosed. I was told by my insurance company that the problem was "in my head" as the vehicle's body and alignment were within specifications and their road test found no issues. This was a sports car and the behavior evidenced itself on more "spirited" turns.

Once cars hit a certain price people know they’re all sorts of messed up but don’t care.

You can find things on salvage titles that are literally two or three cars welded together.

I'm kind of in the market for that kind of car myself. I need a car to just run errands in. I don't need it for commuting to working and back. I don't want a monthly car payment either for that kind of car.

The only thing that keeps me from doing that is not know what to do with that car when I do finally want to get a better car. It will have no value as a trade in, and I wouldn't want to have 2 insurance payments. Are they even worth anything as a donation?

You can always get rid of a working vehicle.

But to answer the question, yes, even a dead vehicle will have some residual donation value (or you can sell it to a junkyard for $200-500 scrap value).

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