I need some of your help to decide if im going to need to take this to a body shop....or if its something i can tackle alone. My main concern is if there is any structural damage. To be honest though im not to sure what im looking at so i took some pictures in hopes that you would be able to help. If you need pictures of anything else i can get them.







Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you could give me a round about price as to how much a shop would charge to fix that then please let me know.

 

In your situation, I'd probably just start all over again with another car unless you have hookups. By the sound of things, you probably don't.

That requires a new bumper, hood, headlights, front support brackets, fenders, and paint. That doesn't include labor. The body shop can give you an estimate after they look at it, but they will more than likely want you to buy parts through their retailers unless they're willing to work with you. If you have patience, a lot of those parts can be purchased from people on this site and ebay, which will become your second best friend (behind ls1tech, of course )

If you go the insurance route, they might total it, especially if it has frame damage. That may or may not be the case. It looks like you may have some, but not extensive. If the airbags deployed it's 99.9% likely that they'll total it.

So you have options, just trying to help you out. I'd weigh out the possibilities and financial situation though before I do anything.

 

I would guess if the insurance is paying for it the cost would be between $2500. to $4000.00 it just depends on what the labor rate is in your area etc. and what type of parts are used. Unless you have a frame machine you are not going to fix it yourself. The front innerstructure looks to be knocked over a fair amount. Not that any of this matters, its just my$0.02 Good luck

 

I would not recommend tackling this task by urself, unless you REALLY know what youre doing. I agree with 98Red, if the airbag is deployed consider it totaled if you let your insurance do it. Trust me I know, and unless you have the cash on hand you will most likely be going through your insurance. Keep us updated.

 

I am not going through insurance being that i was the only person in the accident. No one else was involved except me and a guardrail. The airbags were not deployed in the accident. I have been saving up trying to fix this for the past few months now and i do have cash in hand. I also managed to grab a white oem hood from around my area for 100 bux. I figured that would help cut down on the cost a bit.

 

Like I said, if you are patient, you can gather the parts together for your car. You may get away with not having to paint the car, if you can find them in white. That alon will be the most difficult thing to do. The fact that the air bags didn't deploy is good. I'd strip the car of all the damaged body panels and take it over to a frame repair shop so they can do it. Call around first, they're in the neighborhood of $50-$100/hour. That'll be the most important part in restoring the integrity of the car, so don't be surprised if you have to pay out the *** for that.

Good luck with it.

 

Maybe pay a body shop to put it on a Car-O-Liner or Cheif Velocity measuring rack they will then tell you if the "frame" is bent..if it is good luck doing anything with it. IT would be possibly to pull if it had a full frame but Uni-Bodys arnt that cool when it comes to trying to pull them a few MM's back to oem specs.

 

I would not suggest tackling this by yourself unless you have some previous experience with bodywork. Although it doesn't look like you have any serious frame damage, you will have one hell of a time getting all of the new body parts to line up correctly.

 

I've got some experience with this as I actually write estimates for insurance companies and my little brother did the favor of hitting two deer with my camaro and doing about the same damage. It looks like you hit another car with this as opposed to going over a curb or hitting somthing that did damage to the lower part of the radiator support. If that is ok then you are in pretty good shape.

As stated above you need a front outer nose or a short clip. If you can find a front nose or a car with verything from the bumper reinfocement out and up this will be best. However most camaros get totaled going forward pretty fast that usually is not an option.

Based on the overall shape of the car you have some frame damage or misallignment of the front unibody part of the car. Its not hard to fix but you need a frame bench
and ability to measure the car or when you bolt the outside to it nothing will fit.

When my car got hit and it needed only the outside stuff it was about $5000 for the shop to do everything and blend the doors which is about right for that kind of hit.

If you are on your own and there is no insurance to cover the loss I would tear down the front of the car bumpers hood and fenders and toss whats busted and broken and beyond repair. Save all the hardware and pieces that are salvage able. Find a shop that has a frame machine and have them come over and look at the car and give you an estimate to straighten out the front structure. See what you can do to locate used and aftermarket parts wich will bolt up which if you have some skill you can do.
you will probably want to test fit all the front panels and then have them painted off the car and install them yourself afterwards.

That is the best way to do the most you can yourself and save the most money.
I ran a quick value in NADA Super Clean 2000 with ~100k miles comes back at $6,925
retail. I've seen same car on here for much less. Weigh out what is the most cost effective plan.

PM me with any other ?s

 

I think in listening to all of your advice im going to take off all the panels and bumper, and then go to a frame shop from there. I believe that I am capable of bolting on the parts, although I am not able to do the painting. About how much do you think it would cost for the total frame work, and do you think buying aftermarket fenders would work? I have been looking for front parts off wrecked cars forever and finding these cars without frontal damage is near impossible.

 

It appears worse than it is. I am a collision guy and repair these types of wrecks quite often in the shop I work at. Once you get all the damaged parts off, you can inspect and measure to see if the front end is square. You can do this at home with a tape measure. Noone can honestly tell this info from just looking at it with wrecked/smashed parts on it. I know there are some guys trying to help in this thread, but they honestly can't sit there and tell you that you have frame damage unless the parts are removed and the front end is measured. They are merely guessing.

I am willing to bet that if it is slightly twisted, it is not bad, or your radiator support, air box, and such would be out of wack/busted. It all looks pretty good, in accordance to the blow the car took. Obviously, it did not deploy the bags so the impact must have been a glancing blow, and not direct impact, which is more likely to cause serious uni-body frame damage. Even notice the front inner re-bar metal bumper was not badly damaged. I would leave it on until you measure, because if it needs any pulling, you can get some accurate pulls with leaving this on, while on a frame machine.

I suggest tear it down, inspect everything with your eye, and measure from the outer bolts holes on the inner structure, to the center of your shock towers, to see if the front end is square. Also, measure front to back of the front end inner structure. If it is off, then you might need a slight pull, but if the car needs pulled, it will not need much, if any, judging from the way the car glanced off the guard rail. Wish you were closer, and I could come over and help you get it squared up so you could do most of it at home and save some money. If you take it to a shop, the hourly rates get pretty expensive, so I would look to get all the parts I could on my own.

Personally, I would never go with aftermarket fenders, as GM are much better, and you will not have to haggle with cheap aftermarket crap that will not fit and lineup correctly. Good luck with whatever you decide, and if we can help anymore, please holler.

 

I stripped my front end down and took it to a shop that would work with me. I brought them a front clip (framerails with radiator support) I cut off another car. they put my car on the frame machine, straightend the rails, they cut off about 1 foot off the front passenger rail and welded on a new peice from the clip I brought in. cleaned up the welds and painted on some new undercoating and charged me $1400 bux. The rest I did and so can anyone that has patience, skills, tools, money and a spot to do the work. good luck. oh and do your homework -research-

 

Looks like what happened to my car only mine took the blow harder, I think were in the same boat except I know my driver rail is mangled on the end.

 

Like mentioned, start taking stuff off. Measure the front end. If its bent a little have a shop straighten it for you. But just tell them to do that. The rest you can do yourself. Its not very complicated just take your time and make sure to keep all your bolts and screws and little pieces in a plastic bag when u take stuff off.

 

if you want to do it yourself it looks to me to be do-able, if i were you id start taking stuff apart to see what is all damaged, that way you will have an idea what you need to work on the car.

 

I do lots of bodywork with my grandpa and have fixed some bad cars. your car is really not bad at all in any way except on your wallet of course.

If you got no idea what youre doing, dont attept to fix it, just elave it be and have someone who knows what theyre doing, do it for you. if the rail or anything is twisted any they have machines and pullers that will pull out and bends and kinks.

 

The only work I ever planned on doing myself was to reinstall the fenders and bumper. I know that I am no where near experienced enough to attempt frame work so im going to leave it to the pros.

 

Your looking at a lot for jsut work... I need a new bumper and hood +supports and it will run me around 2300, you on the other hand need a whole new front end. Sorry about the crash