I got my HHR fairly recently; a used gold LT2. I posted here when I had my first oil change and the dealership forgot to put oil in it. It checked out ok after oil analysis, and has been a reliable commuter vehicle during the high gas prices.
Last week I was driving along a city street in rush hour traffic when a sebring darted out of a parking lot across in front of me and slammed into the front end of my car. When I put it in park it made a grinding noise, and when I got out and looked the right front wheel was on sideways. Other than that, there really didn't look like a lot of damage- the right front fender and bumper, but the hood didn't look damaged. But the passenger side door wouldn't open. The other car was drivable, but the hood was folded up pretty good and the front end was busted up.
They finally looked at it and said it was about $6000 for the other person's insurance to pay for.
The axle was "pulled out ofthe transmission" and will have to be replaced. The right lower control arm and the right wheel will have to be replaced. The right fender, fender skirt, and hood will also have to be replaced.
They said I should probably replace the other front tire as well, to balance it out. There was a car seat in it, the insurance will have to replace that.
It's going to be out of action for a couple of weeks.
I took a couple of pics with my cell phone, but dont' know how to get them from the phone to the computer!
vickie

 

sorry about your accident. it should be fine when it gets fixed.
the other guys insurance will pay for a rental, so make sure you get one.

when somebody ran a stop sign and hit my wife's sunfire in the front, the shop had the frame lined up better than the specs called for.

take it to a reputable shop of your choice, not the insurance companies choice.

 

Send them to your e-mail address as a text mesage. You'll get an e-mail with the picture attatched.

 

Wow! Sorry to hear about your bad luck. At least it sounds like your ok though, that's a positive.

Make them give you a rental, take it to the best shop you can find and badger them to make sure they use all original GM parts to repair it and don't let them cut corners.

Good Luck.

 

I made sure of that too. they ended up buying a whole used front clip, I didn't want aftermarket parts on it.

Here, any car older than 2 years they don't need to use new parts

 

I made sure that only new and only GM parts were used on mine.

Insurance companies can be an issue make sure the repair shop you use will stand up for your rights.

The one I used made sure that nothing was over looked and was repaired to my standards.