Left side collision, car won't start.
 

Thank you for taking your time to helping me with my unfortunate accident.

I have an 1987 GXL RX7 N/A (automatic) with 132K miles.

Technical: I just got into an accident on my left side, front and back left fenders. Ever since the collision, my car will not stay idle or drive. It just turns on and then the engine stalls after one second of being on. What could be wrong?

Financial: I may be at fault, and I have no collision coverage on my insurance. I bought this car for $2000 and bought parts for maintenance over $500. If the repairs are not worth the car, I do not know what to do with it. Can anybody give me any advice and an estimate on repairs? This is my first car accident. Pictures of damages below.

I want to figure out whether I should spend the money to fix the body and sell it, or should I just part it out, or sell it as it is.

I can do the work myself, but I also do not have much time as I'm a full-time student and part-time worker.

The damage doesn't look too bad. I'd replace the front fender for around $100 maybe the front bumper cover too.....then massage out that dent in the rear quarter as much as possible and use very little filler where needed for the creasing.

As far as the stalling issue, the damage doesn't look bad enough to cause mechanical problems unless something maybe just got knocked loose. Check under-hood wiring. Are your coils in that fender area like they are on my 1st gen? Maybe a wire got pinched and is shorting something out.

If you can get the car running good again it looks like a saver......

I'm Sorry to hear , hope you're alright
I'll think you'll have to remover/change the front bumper/fender/Headlight? And look for electrical damage

-bumper
-fender
-headlight ?
- front harness ?

That's just for the front...assuming there is nothing else wrong & you do the work yourself...

The back ...you'll have to pop the metal out/ bundle and paint

From my experience, just the damage to the back will cost more than the car if you do it at a BodyShop

The good thing .. It's that the parts are easy to find on the forum or junkyard even & cheap since it's a N/A

The damage as shown in the pictures doesn't seem nearly bad enough to have effected something to cause it to not start.

I think I'd do an under hood inspection, look for wires or hoses that may have been knocked loose. Also check for blown fuses.

Look under the fender liners for harness damage.

Also, what caused the crash? I had a car towed to my shop from a body shop that wouldn't start.

Turns out the engine had locked up and caused the crash to begin with.

Good luck

Yeah one of my acquaintances owns a body shop so he is going to give me a quote today hopefully. I'm sure I can get the car running easily if it's just a simple electrical problem...I'll let you guys know. Thank you for the support.

Sounds like there is a vacuum leak or an issue w/the AFM. Inside of the AFM there is a fuel switch which allows fuel to flow once the car starts up. If the switch is problematic it would cause the car to die immediately after starting but so would a large vacuum leak. To bypass the fuel switch jumper the fuel check connector and see if this makes a difference.