Here's a testimonial to the Mini Cooper's crashworthiness. Wonder how an SUV would fair?

 

I do hope his son is not an idiot...it is so easy to drive a MINI beyond the limits of road conditions. It happens all the time. I sometimes regret MINIs new-found reputation as a performance car. Geez...it's just a Mini!!!

My son recently took a drivers education course and the instructor started out with "if you are here, then some how, some way, you were not paying attention." Seems harsh.....and in some cases may not be true....but in most cases, yes, that covers a lot of what you see out there.

 

This needs to be posted on failblog.

 

"Insurace is stripping car to asses if repairable"

umm... the car is flipped over and completely collapsed lol, i hope they wouldn't think about repairing it.

 

Not necessarily.

Given the cost of cars today and the MINI's ability to retain it's value, it may still be more economical to repair it than to total it.

Most states mandate a 75% value to total a car... that is, if the repairs cost more than 75% of the current value of the car, it's a total. So, on a $20,000 MINI, it would take $15,000 to total it out. That's a LOT of repair work. And a rollover isn't nearly as expensive as a hard front end impact.

 

Rollovers constitute easy totals. Rollovers stresses out the unibody in ways it was not designed to wheres the frontal structure (primarily the lower rail) is designed to collapse in measured intervals. You can completely collapse both front rails into the cowl w/o totaling it if it doesn't damage the front mechanicals, which sadly, never happens that way. In addition, if the engine is running when its upside down for any short time, you'll be starving the engine and other mech. stuff of lube.

Any rollover is an easy call: If there's any ill fitting doors or glass, I'd not want it back, nor would I want to repair it. A rollover will stress out half or all of your primary vertical structures in a direction where its hardest, if possble to return to correct specs.
Insurance companies call this constructive total loss.

Just saw the photos. I would not touch that car. No amount of money is worth the headache to repair that.

 

least he was taking a fairly nice looking curve!!!!!