No more than the movements the cars make on the road due to bumps in the road and such. And to say every fastener and weld would not necessarily be true. You could say this of fasteners and such that are subjected to tensile forces, but not necessarily of compressive forces. And then you have to consider to what amount of reason. I mean, functionality? If the bolt can still be screwed and unscrewed, and hold the part, then where did it lose any functionality? By his reasoning, I should not have been able to work on any part of my last car as it had been involved in 3 accidents. And they should have fallen apart as I drove. If I were the adjuster on that claim, he'd have to prove it in court. I'd take my chances and put it in front of a jury.

I know you are just regurgitating what he said, but it's just an unreasonable argument to make.

 

I sold a car that had a replaced bumper and hood to Carmax and they mentioned the damage and high mileage when I questioned their price...sounds like dimunitive value to me.

 

It's so good to here that your wife is ok!
You really have little say if the car is totaled or not, but you do have a choice in who repairs it if it comes to that. There is an awesome body shop in Houston; passed from father to son; in business many many years and I have seen them painstakingly bring cars back from the dead; they can be repaired correctly if the talent and willingness is there, even if the unibody must be straightened and cut into.

Hopefully the car will be totaled and you will not have to deal with repairing it.

 

If you have State Farm Insurance. They will total your car.

 

I work for an airbag supplier and have seen my share of crash tests and videos. From what I can see your wife is alive because of the side airbags and curtains. Without them this level of side impact is not surviveable.

As regards totalling the vehicle, I am no structural expert however looking at how far the console/ seat moved relative to each other I think you can safely go window shopping.

Count your blessings.

 

First off glad your wife is not seriously hurt. I am a former insurance adjuster and you can go after your insurance company if the other person was also insured by them. Not telling you to commit fraud but if your wife is feeling any back or neck pain I would inform your adjuster of such and let them know your going to be taking her to a chiropractor for treatment. Most of the time they will agree upon a certain settlement amount for bodily injury dependent upon the severity of the accident. Normally they will pay out $500-$1000 with no questions asked. Above that amount they will want the chiropractors treatment schedule and price. After it is all done which they will look at very closely as there is a lot of fraud going on with chiropractors and attorneys.

 

Certainly claiming every fastener, bolt, etc. is unreasonable, but I don't think you can claim there's no distinct difference between the g-forces applied by an accident, even at low speeds, and the forces the road exhibits on the car. Now, obviously, the engineers chose carefully and built in a factor of safety to the bolts, fasteners, etc., but the question is really, by how much have you reduced that factor of safety in an accident? The truth is it's impossible to say for sure without removing every bolt, fastener, etc. and testing its shear, compression and tensile strength, etc., but it's likely that a medium-hard impact with another object will stress some bolts and fastener to the point where you've taken them out of their original specifications, and this should be relatively easy to prove using data from a test vehicle. So, perhaps your car won't fall apart, but in another accident, will it protect as well as it did before?

And leaving aside compression and tensile stress, shear and bending are two big ones that are quite possible in an accident.

In the end, the likelihood is that following an accident such as this, many of the fasteners and bolts affected will be replaced anyway, and as for the welds and such, possibly those as well if there's significant unibody damage.

 

I just got T-boned today on the passenger side and received similar damage. I am curious how your insurance situation worked out. The lady that hit me had All State and was 100% at fault. I have State Farm.