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"Totaled" is an insurance term. Will it cost more for a regular body shop to put it back to good-as-new, compared to what the truck is worth? (meaning, what the Ins. Co would have to pay if the truck just disappeared.) Yes, it is definitely totaled.
What you need is plain-ole body work, just fairly extensive and time-consuming. "Winch it out" won't work; every bent frame member has to be mostly restored to shape or it will have no strength.
My first 4runner was a little worse than that and I was able to fix it. As long as the replacement hood and fender are available, it will just take about 50,000 hammer blows to the inner fender to straighten it.
I mostly used a sledgehammer as a dolly backing the inner fender and a maul hammer to pound against it until it was straight enough to mount the fender and get the hood to match up. It takes so much time,
but as you pound the wrinkles out, it will eventually go back to its original shape. Hopefully, it still drives straight, doesn't wear tires unevenly, and didn't incur any frame damage.
As somebody that been running on a salvage title for sometime, it takes a lot less then that damage for an insurance company to say it's totaled. This (severe) bumper damage got my 93 totaled.
And this is the scary crazy literal shade tree method for removing that bumper - it was pushed hard against the spare, had to straighten it out a bit in order to get at the bolts and I don't have a torch - "winching it out".
The trick is you have to make sure that nothing of the frame is bent. I was lucky (that time) in that respect. If it is, you will have a difficult time (1) driving around in it and (2) putting on replacement parts, but your pics looks like body work.
Sep 8, 2022 | 08:15 PM
