Offside rear impact - thoughts please

A few weeks ago I got back from work to find Mrs Munky had done her usual parking trick whilst I'm away on a trip and taken up both parking spaces so I parked on the road and went inside to get changed and her key to shuffle the cars around. Knock on the door, older lady had hit my PU, wing and rear tyre at a relatively slow speed according to neighbours but she had carried on driving for a few meters. There was a bit of a bang. Initially it looked like minor damage (scratches/chips, not dents) and since I had just repaired some rust spots to the rear arches I was going to do a bit of a rear end respray anyway. She was very worried but I took her details and mentioned that we could probably sort it outside of insurance . That was until I took it for a drive and the steering wheel was out, on closer inspection I hadn't noticed, in my jet lagged state, that the toe and camber was wrong. I had a local garage that I trust have a look and though it is much better they couldn't get it aligned so we're going through insurance. Question - how bad could the damage be? 10-15mph, most of the impact into the rear tyre. Arms are probably bent so I'll need to replace all of them. Rear wheel - remove and have it inspected by a specialist wheel repairer, my thoughts are that it would be ok. Replace camber bolts etc as they slipped. Will shock be damaged? My main concern is whether the Sub frame attached to the toe/camber arms has a hairline crack. Insurance specialist recommended initially £4300 to repair but costs will rise (i.e. arms need replacing when they can't align, also includes PU & wing respray and new rear wheel/tyre). Insurance would cover this unless it writes off the car. If they repair it will be beautiful but will highlight the shabby state of the rest of the exterior (all year daily driver, faded paint and stone chips) and I don't want to pay for a respray for the rest of the car. So I'm thinking if I took the £4300 I could fix all the faults, improve it and sort the paint for much less and have a fund for upgrades BUT I don't want to get caught out with a much bigger job and need to drop an engine, replace subframe etc even though I'm reasonably handy with tools. Work will be carried out on the drive on axel stands as the garage has more fun toys. Surely chassis can't be bent. Thoughts...

Sounds to me the insurance company will want to write it off if that quote is a baseline and likely to escalate. It's not something to settle outside the insurance company because the 'other party' will think it's a easy cheap fix and anything otherwise gets messy that's best to leave the insurer to sort. If they go for write off and what they offer you could buy the car back and get the work done yourself. If they don't write it off and you want to keep it I'd negotiate a full exterior refurb with whoever is doing it. Any sign of engine damage/interference as well as bodywork/suspension etc however minor the car will most certainly be written off when inspected by the assessor.

That is really bad luck (although at least the little old lady owned up!). It could be light damage - nut and bolt replaceable components in situ only, although ask yourself whether you'd be happy with one nice tight new corner and three old sloppy ones. Or it could extensive; and if the driveshaft took some of the shock the rear hub or even the diff/bearings could be damaged. But you may not know for many miles. It's impossible to know until expert inspected and they give you options. Make sure the insurance company are valuing the car in today's market though. That could make a big difference to write off or not.

The suspension has been renewed 30,000m ago with new arms, M030 shocks & Eibach spring so it all felt tight, although recently that was a slight knock coming from the front over speed bumps so I suspect one of the arms needs replacement. Good point on hub/drive shaft/diff - I'm hoping that due to low speed this would have not been damaged in the impact. I was wondering about write-off costs, someone mentioned this happens when repairs get to 50% of the car value? I bought my C2 for £11k 7.5 years ago with 80k on the clock. It's mechanically sound but with chipped/faded paint but with good condition interior and is now up to 125,000m, car has a few nice upgrades. Suspension, exhaust, SSK etc. Lapis/grey. Not sure what it's worth, if it low value then I would buy it back myself and repair. I intent to keep as long as possible, it's a drivers car and not for show.

If it was a low impact hit then i am thinking that at worse you have a bent suspension componet. You will be surprise how easy they are to bend, I have kept a couple from my 1st 996 to show friends. They are cheap to buy and simple to replace, a real diy job. Next is the eccentric bolts, sounds like they have moved, so when you replace (if rqd) the suspension arm/arms get it 4 wheel aligned. As for damage to the subframe, i doubt is as it would take a lot more than a low speed donk to damage that, that is what the suspension arms are for, sort of 'sacrificial components'. Post some pictures.

When you have the alignment checked was the opposite side also out? I'm guessing it will have been. There is adjustment on the subframe brackets and they're joined together with the crossbeam. I had a side impact at 90 degrees to a kurb at around the same speed (car slid across the road in the snow - knock was powerful enough to trigger my roll bars). The whole back end alignment was visually horrendous. Only damage from that was bent toe arms and the subframe had moved. If you look under the car in the centre you can see the central web in the crossbeam and see if it's in line with the centre of the bell housing on the engine. Mine was way off. All it was a case of to make it right was undo the subframe bolts, move it back central with the rest of the car, fit new toe arms (I also had to fit all new eccentric bolts and coffin arms, only because they were seized up and not due to the knock), then get the alignment done.

Very much doubt there'd be any damage to the hubs are driveshafts.

You should provide the estimate to the TP insurer and start asking about cash in lieu of repairs.

As soon as the insurance know the car's over 12 years old they'll do everything they can to write it off. Standard insurance protocol these days........tread very lightly. Personally I'd just fix it up myself and stand the cost.

this is an industry I work in, you have the right to get the 3rd party to repair the car to the cost of replacement! Lets round it off to 10k, you can insist they spend this amount to repair the car. if they cash in lieu you, they will remove the vat and cost of salvage to get you a figure. like others have mentioned, they may want to write it off/cash you as these can escalate. most decent repairers will be as accurate as they can and the costs should be pretty level. I would have a side of suspension costed, new bolts, wheel refurb/replacement and any body works. If you are getting quotes of £4k, if we add vat we are close to 5k another 20% only adds another grand! this is still in the repair territory, if you take it to a specialist that knows these cars they are likely to be accurate, if you end up at a insurance approved they are likely to take longer and not really know the product. happy to DM me if you want any advice thanks Nick

Did you say the rear quarter panel is damaged to....that alone will take this quote into many more thousands for an official porsche repair. Make sure you get the repair quoted by the highest end place you can...not necessarily the garage you intend to use. Settle for cash or buy back write off...i wouldnt go on about the mods too much. Dont accept them removing the vat on any cash settlement..they will try that but case law has you covered and they back down quickly. The 3rd party are incentivised to settle quickly and direct...they dont want others getting involved because of 3rd party fees and excessive courtesy car costs that will likely result. Once you have the car and that amount of cash...especially if its been wrote off and has miles....id be looking at stripping it etc and putting it all into something new. It sounds like a lot of cash to put back into it

Alex, there a bit of parallax in the photos but what I think is the centre of the bell housing (outside edge of the protruding bit) is still aligned with the centre mark on the crossbeam, unless I've got that wrong? It wasn't direct T-bone to the wheel like your impact more of a glancing blow from the rear. Good call though, I'm starting to think that there is minimal damage.Sorry don't know if the garage had to align the other wheel but I suspect not as the alignment looked normal and the bolts didn't appear to have moved. I didn't witness the impact, I'm just going on what the neighbours said and the TP, although she played it down 😉. I've had the wheel off and had a good inspection, all looks normal and straight so I suspect there is only a minor bend in a couple of components. The toe arm is adjustable and it looks like the garage didn't adjust that just tried to move the 2 eccentric bots that might have bent. I 'could' be lucky if accepted a cash offer.

Really it's just a few deeper scratches to a small area of both the PU and rear panel, I could easily repair them myself but obviously blending the paint into the rest of the car isn't going to be professional. A large area of both rear panels has been rubbed down after I repaired both arches and sprayed following anti rust treatment the week before. Zingari - I did ask the repairer how much they would charge to blow over the rest of the car but they said £5k+ as they only do a proper job, a bit too much for me. Nickyg63 - thanks for your offer, I may well PM you when it progresses further. Interestingly I had a scam call today, missus answered my phone and said insurance company wanted to talk to me. They knew about the TP, registrations, dates etc. Advised that another inspection would happen on Monday and that they could take the car away for repair. When I stated that wasn't what had been discussed yesterday with the TP insurance company the line went dead. I called them back, mobile number that went to a gift-gaff standard voicemail. I wonder how many folk lose their car through a similar scam, I imagine my insurance wouldn't cover it if I handed the keys over to a con man.

I reckon the suspension damage will be minimal by thesound/looks of things.

To conclude I took a cash offer in the end and have decided to repair the car myself as I reckon the damage is mechanically minimal, I will find out when the car goes for it geo in 10 days but I'm pretty confident. I pulled the arms and suspension off and measured/checked them and they seem in great condition still, everything else seems fine. As predicted the insurance company played silly buggers and reduced the amount by VAT but knowing my rights and a few snotty emails later they paid up. This is a good resource if you are in the same situation: [/url] https://www.motorclaimguru.co.uk/cash-in-lieu-of-repairs-as-part-of-motor-insurance-claim My reasoning was that if the repairers did a great job on the rear quarter then it would show up the body work on the rest of the car and I couldn't afford the £5k extra they wanted to bring the rest of the bodywork up to standard. With the money and my labour I'll be able to sort everything and buy a few nice trinkets and fix all the other things that I've been meaning to do + give the car a major service. Most of the mechanical works are done now, the respray will happen after it's driven through Winter. Car was bought for £11k nearly 8 years ago and was valued at £15.5k, not bad considering the extra stone chips and 45,000m.