New guy with a project HHR
 

A few years back we bought my dad a 2008 HHR for a company car. I had put all of 5 miles on the car since he got it but thought it was a neat little car plus the mileage is great.

Long story short I ran across a 2007 with 18,000 miles last week for a decent price but it had hit a deer. A little interwebbing yeilded me a parts car. Crashed car got dropped at my house on Wednesday, Parts car was picked up yesterday. Tear down begins tomorrow AM.

I'll part out whatever is left of the car on the left when the project is done.

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Going to be following this project.

One of my favorite colors.

Good luck!

Neat project! Are the colour codes a match?
Will you go with colour matched door handles and beauty bar?
We'll stay tuned!

I never thought to check if they were the same code or not. I'll look into that but it's not a huge deal if I have to get the hood & fender done. The bumper cover survived the deer and is in better shape than the one on the parts car.

The handles & bar will get swapped out for sure. If I do need any paintwork done I'll have the body shop shoot the waterfall too.

Both SBOM OB. Just be eyeball. Though, paint fade due to sun exposure may be different. May have to fade some.

Welcome and good luck with the project!

i have right front deer damage but nothing like that!

Welcome to the site :smile:

Car will be heading to the body shop later today to get the new core support welded in. I might be able to do it but I know my limits so I'm gonna leave this part to the professionals.

Progress this weekend:

No pics but all the of the airbag parts are out of the parts car. Trying to get every possible part I might need pulled so I can toss the parts carcass in the garage at work so my neighbors don't have to look at it.

Ordered a leather steering wheel with audio controls this morning.

So far the only part that isn't crossing over seems to be the radiator as the parts car is a manual and the fixer is an auto.

Swapped out the beauty bar & handles.
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Paint is a match. Hood from parts car installed per body shops request.
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Fenders & bumper covers off.
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Bent core support
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Parts car before & after ( The strap is the hood latch for towing)
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Learned something or should I say re-learned today. Just because it looks like its good doesn't mean it is. I reused the hood latch from the original car because it had the remote start safety switch on it. Got the latch all lined up and gave it a close. That's where it went wrong. The latch was bent just enough so it wouldn't fully release from the closed position. Not a huge deal though, I just had to run to work to grab the one from the parts car at work. FYI a flashlight, long 1/4" extension and 10mm socket are all that is needed to get it open. Luckily I didn't have the bumper cover on yet.

The exterior stuff is pretty much done except for buffing the hood/fender and recharging the AC

I was able to save the radiator too, They are pretty soft and twisted right back into shape.


Back from the body shop with the core support welded in.

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Going to need any color blending?

No blending needed, The parts car had a bunch more miles on it so I'm just doing it to match the sheen.

Figured I'd update this since the car is now "done"

Driving, Air bags working and radio all sorted out.

The car is a 2007 LS auto with 22,000 miles (was 18,000 when I got it). I repaired the deer damage, Installed a Pioneer AVIC5000, leather wheel, Fancy floor mats, factory subwoofer box with an aftermarket sub & amp. The grand total for the car is $3561 all in( this number is the true bottom line after selling parts from the parts car and selling the parts car itself. $613 of that was the above mentioned added goodies so if I would have kept it all stock I would have skated in just under $2950.

Not too bad IMO

I am very impressed!

You now have a very LOW mileage HHR. That looks awesome!

The body shop did a great job on the core support. Cannot tell from NEW!

You got this job completed in a very short amount of time.

Congratulations on your project!!!

Thanks! It came together really fast. It was on the road two weeks after it arrived. Sorting out the stereo and waiting on correct air bag parts were the time consuming things.

Nice work! Looks great!