Writing off nearly new cars can't be green. In an ideal world, manufacturers would provide a new panelled & painted and glazed shell that everything else could be refitted to. Obviously car makers have no incentive to do this because they want to sell complete cars. But the cost of writing off in bourne by us all in rising insurance costs.
Cars are now like everything else - progress is so fast that last years technology is obsolete this year.
Thats unfair. In the case of Lotus you can buy a complete new ally frame for it. The problem is that the cost of stripping the old car and re-assembling onto the new frame is more than the end car is worth by some margin. That isnt the case with an Aero and there was just such an example a little while back where a damaged Aero was rebuilt onto a new ally structure,
Instead the problem is that with glued and rivetted ally structures you cannot pull them back straight as you can with welded steel so its either very light repairs or bin it. The irony being, these ally structures are no lighter than steel ones. They are being used because the cost of press tooling for steel bodies is only viable in the sort of volume that Porsche do.
One final comment. All aluminium Ferraris do seem to get bashed back straight after a prang. Obviously the cost makes this viable but I also wonder if its easier to do because the bodies are welded not glued and rivetted. Maybe that allows them to be pulled straight. Certainly it will allow panels to be cut out and replace panels welded in.
All about money in the end.
Re the Ferrari repairing. I watched the episode of FastnFurious where they rebuilt a wrecked Ferrari (F40 I think).
A specialist jigged the car and pulled it back to Ferrari tolerances so the car was repairable.
OK it is a car worth in the region of £700k or thereabouts so the figures add up to a rebuild.
As for the post deformation strength of the metal....depends on the amount of deformation and microstructural change.
Bonded joints? Don't know about those but, if a chassis has designed in bolt on sections then rebuilds may be possible. I think ( based on sketchy knowledge) that bonded joibts are too strong to deal with.
Excluding top end niche cars, the mass produced cars tend to have structural parts replaced with new as a matter of course. Assessors give repairers a fixed target cost for the job re labour and this tends to mean quck cut and weld on panels. The days of panel beaters hand working dents are now limited to cost allowances from insurers. Smart repairers have stepped in for minor dents.
