post avon damage - opinions please
Turbo Mini Forums

as some of you know and as mentioned in the other thread i had an unfortunate incident after a really great weekend at avon.

on the way out of the site my friend in the non mini support car was behind me coming up to the junction with the main road. i stopped as there was a car coming down the road - he didnt...

ok, it would be wrong to say im not pissed off but i know these things happen and i think he was more gutted about it than i was. its happened now and that cant be changed, what im not sure about now though is what to do next.

ive had a good look at the damage this evening and tried to take some pictures to show whats bent and what still looks ok. obviously the rear panel, boot lid etc is destroyed but the concerning thing is the rear quarter panel has creased, the boot floor has folded abit and the rear seat back has been pushed forward by the fuel tank and seperated from the rear quarter. after pulling the bootlid back out the damage doesnt actually look too bad in the pictures but it was quite a heavy impact.

i really dont know what to do about it so thought i'd ask the many experts we have here to get a few opinions as to how repairable people think it is. as you can see the rear end is abit rotten in places (pretty much the only original part of the car) so hasnt stood up to the impact too well.





















now the car does drive and seems ok. i had to drive it back the 70 odd miles from avon in the end as the RAC man really didnt want to recover it! it seems to go straight and the rear tyre wasnt dragging or getting hot or anything so it doesnt seem twisted but cant be sure.

i'm undecided at this stage whether to involve insurance companies or not. my friend has been good about it (you would hope so! lol) and has said it is totally up to me how to deal with it. my only concern is if it goes into a normal bodyshop that the insurance company choose to repair they wont have the first idea about the car and will be trying to fix it with original steel panels and standard 1975 mini 850 fuel tank etc. i do have an agreed value of £3000 for it though which would be very useful at the moment with trying to buy a house but i really dont think i could let the car go to a scrap yard if thats what they decided, i have put too much heart and sole into building it over the past 6 years.
my friend who hit me also coincidently works in a bodyshop so that is another option. also nic from here has very kindly offered to help out to save it from the scrap yard but it may be a little too much to ask seeing how bent things are! but seeing the work on his and how hes helped me out before i know i could trust his work!

so im just after people opinions please. subframe etc look ok but can take more pictures of different areas to see if anything else is bent if needed.

thanks,
ian

i would say the insurance company will almost certainly write that off staight away.

see if your insurance company will let you buy it back from them, if it is written off then you could fix it on the cheap and have the cash in your pocket.

good luck with it, im in a simular situation with my daily drive at the moment.

have you measured between the wheel centres on both sides to see if its still true?

I reckon it can be saved

Mine had been hit on the other side and looked very similar, although that didnt have the fuel tank hitting the seat back

Well, When my first mini was hit by a third party, I got the payout and could buy the mini from the insurance for around 300 quid IIRC. Naturally - I took this route - and I would reccomend you do the same.

As regards your damage, it can be pulled a little - I'm sure the floor is recoverable - but I'm not seeing why/how the rear quarter got rippled at the very bottom?

Heritage rear 1/4 and heritage rear panel (do thyey do a half panel?) and a bootlid could have this fixed. Although your mate works in a bodyshop - unless he owns it he can't catagorically say he CAN fix it - or can he? Maybe he can fix it for a Price - but I'd be wary - say the bodyshop shits down or he leaves before it is done?

All said - I'd take the insurance route, and map out your options from there.

Edited by turbodave16v on 14th Jul, 2008.

Its totaly up to you tbh, If you went down the insurance route then you have the right to take it where ever you want?
You could have it written off and agree to buy the car back off the insurance. The only prob i see is the rear end wants pulling but with the strengh in the rear seat it will prob just tear the boot floor.
End of the day it doesnt have to go to the scrapper mate regardless.

Rick

if it helps ian , my mate at linch hill motors ,name martin ,is a mini enthusiast ,and may be able to help , he has extensive bodywork experience but doesnt do much body stuff now ,but does have a spray booth and so on ,, hes just down the rd from eynsham ,so would be worth a try if you want .

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

I would say that this will pull out if you get someone who knows what they are doing. The rear panel would need to be changed or a section of it

On 5th Sep, 2011 Vegard said:
I stand corrected. You should know

Shit didn't realise it had bent the back of the seat too!!!

I recon you should get Paul to get an evaluation from his work, if the work comes to stupid amounts you could pretty much say it would be written off, then decide what to do from there!

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1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

this is what we did to mine, the floor may hammer straight once everthing else is removed

The lower hinge panel needs replacing anyway, so perhaps part of the boot floor can be replaced too

Insurance will deffo write it off, but its certainly fixable. Id offer if I didnt have Gavins Speedster to fix.
Cut off the rear valance, cut out the damaged section of rear panel. Straighten the boot floor and rear seat bulkhead. For ease Id say put a new rear wing on as its rusty at the bottom anyway which has caused the crease in front of the wheel, then weld in a new rear panel section and valance. Quite an easy repair actually. I had a very similar thing on my 1964 on the other side. It was written off, I got £3500, bought it back for £100 and spent £400 fixing it.

Paul

I seriously doubt it!

shit bud, that's bad news. I'm gutted for you. Like you say, these things happen and I'm certain it's repairable. Minis with far worse damage get repaired.

It's a little beauty of a car, I'd rather give you the money than let it go for scrap.

thanks for the quick comments guys.

just been out and measured wheel to wheel on each side and it doesnt seem out, or if it is it is only very very slight as cant see any difference when measured.

i have a feeling its pulled out at the bottom of the quarter panel as there was a nice chunk of filler in there by the looks of things so would have been a weak point perhaps.

There you go nic has even put pic's up.

No excuise to do it yourself

Rick

As a first step I'd call your insurance company to notify them of what has happened, and let them know that you haven't decided whether you're going to claim or not.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Thats gutting Ian, sucks that happened!

From what peeps have said its repairable so I hope you can get it back to normal asap.

I seriously doubt it!

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1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

Isn't the issue with going to your insurers how they categorise it under the current rules, ie, Cat A or B and you can't buy it back to repair yourself (or have repaired privately), you just get the agreed value and it is crushed or broken for spares. Cat C or D can go back on the road but I think one needs an inspection first.
I may have got this all wrong but, get someone in the trade to look first to get an idea how the insurance assessor is likely to categorise it.
I would repair it, but the Insurance company may prevent you.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I dont know what category write off mine was, just that it was uneconomical, but after fixing it DVLA told me all I had to do was MOT it to be legal

Paul

I seriously doubt it!

I would get somebody to have a look at it my brother wrecked the cab and rear tub on his landrover, he went through the insurance and they wrote it off with no option of buying it back! The parts that were mangled were all bolt on bits!

Cat D just goes back on the road and cat C has to go for an inspection ,nothing special just to check the car is what its suposd to be.

Rick

Am going to have to learn how to spell arnt i.

I'd be very careful with the insurance route and buying it back, my red 205 needed a wing and a bumper, and ever such a light pull to the inner wing to repair it, and it was a cat C. Anything much more is a cat B where it cannot go back on the road, then you are stuffed.

If you do decide to repair it I've a spot welder you could borrow to make a proper job reattaching the new panels.

bad un buddy

repair it youself