Can I repair and drive my car after an accident?

Hello Paul, a few days ago, my Toyota Premio Super 1999 model had an accident where it rolled four times and was severely damaged. I seek your advice as to whether I should repair and keep the car or sell it and buy another. Ojera

 Hello Ojera, the decision to repair a car that has been involved in a rollover accident should be taken carefully after a thorough inspection by a professional car body repair technician. A rushed decision to repair and drive a car which has been involved in a rollover accident without consideration of the extent of damage could result in grave injury or death (fatality) in the event of another accident. This is due to failure of the compromised car structure or components that could not be replaced or fastened securely after the first accident. 
There are a couple of reasons why a car such as your Toyota Premio may not be repairable after a severe rollover accident. 

As a vehicle rolls over, metal extrusion, compression and sometimes fracture occurs. A rollover accident stretches the flexibility of metallic components in a car, causing a deformation of the granular structure of the metal. Evidence of severe metal stress in vehicles that have had rollover accident repair includes doors that will not close properly or panel structures such as bonnets or trunk lids (boot) that will not sit well on their brackets or hinge mounts. 

Others include engine mounts that have to be twisted or stretched to fit the engine, damaged or buckled floor pans or steering racks that pull to one side or over the centre due to distortion of the points where the steering rack is mounted.

Car rollover accident repairs are complex and expensive. They require certain skill set, specialist equipment such as chassis liners, panel body repair jacks, dollys and mig welding machines to build in precision and fidelity during the repair job. In some cases, you might need to replace complete sections or frames, which can be very costly while there is a temptation to cut corners and fit in the budget. There is alsdo high complexity of repairing a unibody car structure such as your Toyota Premio (integrated in the body as opposed to body on chassis such as a pick-up truck or the older pre 2000 station wagons). 

Warning
Failure to restore stress concentrators or the cage-like module in unibody cars, which protects car occupants during severe roll over or impact crushes can leave them exposed to severe injury or fatality during another collision or rollover. No wonder the cost of such severe accidents usually exceeds 90 percent of its value and insurance adjusters or assesors often write off such accident cars as a total loss.