Possible donor car

 

You have to other hood to remove the 10 mm nuts to get the grille out. See if you can reach up into the grille area and release the latch maybe the cable popped off the hood latch.

perhaps a two tone paint job

 

The panel HHR is a sweet looking vehicle !! Of course, the orange lowered HHR is as well !! I like the panels the best though.

Anyways, here's a couple more pics of my wrecked HHR for your review. Not much left holding the grill in place. I tried removing it by hand before they moved the car, and I chose not to take the chance of cutting myself from being foolish, so I let it be.

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Looks like the hood took most of the impact. The fenders appear to be usable with some dent repair (dolly and hammer) . I see where the grille broke loose.

 

I made it to CoPart yesterday and got a look at my HHR. Due to the damage to the hood, being pushed rearward, I wasn't able to raise the hood but 4 inches. This kept me from being able to get a good look, or any measurements from under the hood.

I did see that the radiator support wasn't damaged too bad. It could easily be straightened and kept in use. The two rails that run along the top of the front fenders didn't look damaged to me. Although they could be pulled towards the passenger side, as I'm guessing they are.

One thing I did do, since I couldn't get the hood opened as much as I needed, I measured from the center of the rear wheels to the center of the front wheels on both sides of the car. Having rebuilt the front suspension to include an alignment less then 2000 miles ago, I expected the distance from the front to rear wheels to be equal on both sides. There is a 3/4 inch difference between sides. The longer side is the drivers, and the shorter side is the passenger. Makes sense since the force of the collision was towards the passenger side.

This has me thinking that most likely there is structural damage to the front suspension and the frame as well. Sorry for calling it a frame, knowing it's a unibody car. Old habit from an old man.

At this point I'm leaning towards walking away from the car.

Not having much knowledge about these cars, your input and advice, as always, is appreciated.

 

The 3/4 of an inch could have already been that measurement, you don’t have a baseline to compare to.
That could be from the steering wheel turned a bit. I say get the car back to your house and start with the rebuild.

 

I think it’ll auction for scrap, not much more. You have the advantage of knowing more than anyone else about the car. If you can buy it cheap enough, you could grab the wheels, seats, and a few other easy-to-pull goodies, then scrap it for not much less.

Grabbing the engine/transmission would be a bit more ambitious. Did you mention the miles?

Heck, if the seats are black and great, I’d want them.

 

How can you write off the car without doing due diligence? Don’t part it out, fix it .

 

In the future if you're interested it trying to repair a vehicle, make them tow it to your driveway. Puts you in a much better position to negotiate and you might get to keep it for nothing as if they want it, they have to pay to have it towed away. The insurance adjuster will come to your house as well as to a shop. I've don't that at least once thought the other side paid and they just let me keep the car. It was a basically worthless car, but so is a totaled HHR.

 

Air bag is tricky, get factory instructions.

Have to ensure all power is off.for a while.