I had an accident on the way to work today, so upset and budget buster! UPDATE PG.2

[Leajess99]

Check and see if you have a local auto auction close by. We have one and many people I know have gotten great deals on good cars.

 

[traces7]

Does how the car looks bother you? If not, you could check with the shop, or another one for a price-comparison, to see what is the minimum required to have the car road-worthy.

I own a repair shop, we do body work and mechanical repairs. Of course you have to have working lights, and they need to be secured to the car. Fog lights are not important, they are more a show item than anything else. You want to make sure the radiator is holding pressure - there are many bent radiators on the road right now, as long as it doesn't leak you would be ok to just keep an eye on it. And I would suggest taking it to a reputible alignment shop - not a cheap chain place, they have no idea how to align a car most of the time. Around here in NY, the chain places charge $30 to do an alignment, and they never even touch the bolts required to properly line the car up.

If you can get it back on the road for under $1000, that would allow you a bit more on the truck down payment, and allow you more time to save up for a car for yourself.

Quick story - one of our good customers fixed his daughter's car after she totalled it (bought the car back from the insurance company). He spent all of the insurance money to put it right. She left our shop, headed straight to the highway on her way back to school, and roughly 90 miles from here the engine went. After sinking all that money into the car that same week, he felt like he had to put an engine in it too - and extra $3000! She could have had a nice used car for that money.

Good luck with your decision. And don't let the insurance company tell you that you have to use one of their shops. That's against the law - you can use any shop you want.

Thanks for the advice! Someone at work suggested the same thing to me today. I don't like the way it looks, but I guess I could live with it for a little bit. All the lights are secured and work fine. The only thing my DH was worried about was the alignment. The radiator is bent, but it hasn't leaked and DH thinks it will be ok for now. The rest is just cosmetic. So we may just get the alignment and I'll drive it for a little bit, til we find something else.
The insurance company told me we could take it wherever we wanted to get it fixed.