It was bound to happen...4runner crash
 

Had this ride since 2008. I've hit a deer and been rear ended before, but worried that insurance is going to total it and I really, really don't want that to happen. Prius ran a red, hit my right front side. Didn't see him until the last second. Pushed me into a forester. Honestly, at the end of the day I'm glad I got hit, since the forester had a 10 month old and a 4 year old in carseats in the back - if I hadn't been in the way, the 10 month old would have taken the full impact.

After inspecting the damage after the tow, it seems just like bumper/headlights/tie rod, and a slashed tire. I would love to get it up on a jack and spin the wheel myself, but it seems like just the tie rod, since the wheel turned freely and the steering turned my other driver wheel just fine. Engine seems fine. Couldn't find any frame damage. Radiator might have a tiny leak or a loose seal somewhere since I thought I saw some liquid below my ride, but it doesn't appear to have leaked anything since then (even after turning it on at the yard), and the prius lost all of it's fluid so I could have mistaken it.

I've been wanting a bumper and new headlights for a while. The tie rod is an easy fix for me, I've been planning on new UCA/LCAs as well. If they total it, is it a terrible idea to buy this thing back? It's basically our play vehicle. 135k miles, spotless inside, and manufactured after the head gasket fix. Routine maintenance. I would likely drive it until it's dead, no need to sell and we have another newer vehicle that we use for most of our driving. Don't have any values yet, and obviously I'm not at fault...but I'm worried they will give me a garbage valuation and leave me with nothing to buy another vehicle, let alone something newer.

<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/OFjvv8g" ><a href="//imgur.com/a/OFjvv8g">4runner crash</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Sorry to see the damage on this beautiful 4Runner, good luck with insurance company!

I would definitely buy it back. BUT... Make sure the insurance you are dealing with know you want it fixed and would not want a total claim, and they may work with you, especially if you are doing the labor yourself. Putting together a parts list and quote for you to fix it may sway a deal. A fixed car will not have to carry a salvage title. You may save yourself some anguish with insurance later.
Best of luck with it.

That sounds like good advice. ^

I think it is definitely worth keeping.

depending on what they end up valuing it at, if I had to guess, there's a good chance of it totaling unfortunately.

obviously a little hard to tell for sure from the pictures, but, a couple of things that I would guess will be written off to be swapped at the minimum with a shop:

-UCA
-LCA - hard to tell exactly, but it looks like its ben at the ball joint connection a little
-spindle- broken tie-rod or not, the additional negative camber is either in the bent LCA, or in the spindle, or possibly both.
-tie rod- hopefully it didn't damage the steering rack
-cv axle- I don't think this would have been damage since the LCA and spindle didn't fully fail, but a shop may write this in a change regardless.
-complete bumper assembly
-hood - hard to tell if this got tweaked, there is a gap to the drivers side fender, but could be caused by the fender being damaged itself. The fact that it was hard to open means at least some amount of impact traveled to/from the hood which is latched into the radiator support so a good chance the support is also tweaked.
-head light
-RH fender/flare
-hood grill (if any of the mechanism around the latch is tweaked most shops will write this in as a replacement)
etc. etc.



If it doesn't total, great, have them fix it and forget it ever happened. You'll more than likely have to live with the depreciation value unless dealing with a good insurance, which again, if they write that in, it'll total anyway.

If it does total, like mentioned, make sure it's at least for a reasonable market value of the car, and not the KBB. At this point, you know the car, you know the damage. If you don't care to have everything 100% professionally repaired, buy it back, replace the parts yourself. A lot of parts can be found even to a matching color without having to be painted.

car-parts.com is a great source for finding parts, ebay doesn't hurt either. If you really wanted to, I think you can get everything fixed for under $2k easily without even doing paint work if you look around... if not less..

below is my T4R I bought wrecked to how it sits today. Did not paint the replacement hood, bumper, fender or door.. found a complete set at the junk yard to the same color and damn near identical match for like 1100 bucks..

https://www.toyota-4runner.org/attac...1&d=1611079344

https://www.toyota-4runner.org/attac...1&d=1611079348

That's too bad and I hope you are able to get the 4Runner fixed without too much hassle. I actually am in the same boat after the rear door on my 3rd gen 4Runner was smashed in by a telephone pole, crushing the dog leg and buckling the B pillar. I ended up having to get the whole rear quarter panel replaced but hope to get back on the road before long.

You have. Few different ways to approach this.

1- let your ins company total it, buy it back and fix it. You will have to pay a certain amount to buy it back. It will not be branded a salvage because you are retaining it. If you let it go then it would be branded. Then you can do whatever you want.

2 - save yourself some money( a few more steps ) and you through the prius's ins co. Directly. This way if they total it you will automatically get full value for it providing there is no unrelated damage, you will be able to retain the vehicle as 3rd party ins companies to not take totalled vehicles.

3- you can go through the other ins co, take full price on the vehicle as stated above but take it to a salvage auction like IAA, Copart etc. You can run it through,, pay a auction fee and get a few more thousand out of it, if not more.

Good luck.

Thanks for the breakdown, I really appreciate it! I'm not sure if your post makes me feel better or worse than before honestly.

The hood is just partially latched, it was hitting the headlight which got pushed in a bit and I didn't feel like pulling it back out to push it in all the way. I feel pretty confident that there is no damage there, just headlight debris in the way. UCA was on my upgrade list for more caster, LCAs were seized, and I've been thinking of a steel bumper anyway - so those are all easy to swallow. Head lights are simple enough, body panel damage I would likely ignore until it bugged me enough to get a shop to fix.

The spindle makes me a bit nervous, but I guess it's just another part. The steering rack makes me more nervous than the spindle, but hopefully the tie rod did what it was supposed to do and snapped before any other damage occurred.

I'll probably find out more tomorrow, hoping for the best.