Need Advice on Damaged Speed

[Benis]

Hey y'all,

I used to be on the mazdaspeedforums.org site for years but haven't been super involved into the Speed scene for a long time.

Here's my situation..

I'm the original owner of a 2013 MS3 and I freaking loved this car. It has about 105k miles and was planning to drive until the wheels fell off but unfortunately I got into an accident recently and now I'm in a pickle.

I got hit on the driver side on the bumper and fender which were completely smashed. I wanted to get it fixed and bought some of the parts needed including the bumper, fender, headlamp and some brackets (I even got the bumper and fender painted). The big issue is that the frame is pretty damaged and bent which causes some issues with reassembly. I have a quote from a shop to put the parts on for another $2000 but at this point I'm not sure it's worth it for me and I'm looking for opinions on what to do.

Junk it? sell the parts? sell the car for parts? Fix the car and then sell?

FYI - Technically I didn't put a claim insurance claim so it doesn't have a salvage title but clearly it's been in a wreck.

Any opinions are appreciated!

 

[Raider]

Welcome over to the "new" forum! I recognize the name! Yeah, that is a doozie. But the low miles is a plus, and you love it. What is your budget to fix? Really, getting the frame redone is one thing, then sourcing new body panels from a partout is next.

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

Been in your shoes before.

Best thing to do, is ask yourself what the car is worth TO YOU. Not the value in blue book or trade in value. If you let the insurance total it, you'll get peanuts for it. You could part it out, but that is very tedious. Been there done that too.

I got into a front end collision in Dec 2022. Took out both fenders, hood, bumper, radiator support, etc. To the insurance, the car was worth $8k or less. To me, it was worth more because the car was paid off, I had mods on it, and frankly just didn't want to get into another car payment. I had it "repaired", and since then I have been fixing the body shops "repairs."

Point of the story, if you are tired of the car and want something new, total it. If you like the car, and it has more value to you than your car insurance, fix it up. The MS3 is a pretty stout little car over all, and once you fold those seats down, you can fit quite a few bodies in the back.

 

[L337TurboZ]

My advice is to find a regular Mazda 3 sedan and swap everything over. You can find them for super cheap and in a manual transmission too.

Make a sleeper. Trying to fix your hatch is gonna be difficult. The damage is done. Can it be fixed? Yes. Is it worth the time? Not really.

 

[Easter Bunny]

Agree with the swap. If you go fmic you don't need to worry about finding new fenders hood and bumper. Plus you could get a color the speed wasn't available in and get rid of the chicken pox interior.

You will need to swap the body control module and instrument cluster too as they are coded to the ecu. The front subframe on the speed has stiffer bushings so if yours isn't bent it would be good to swap but probably not worth trying to source a straight one.