So I see a lot of people demonizing unibody damage saying that "bruh this car will never feel the same" and stuff but then I see people racing BRZ who do crap like this:
And it makes me think... what the hell? Isn't it like... people who are racing BRZ's are actually literally the only ones who should actually *care* about rigidity of chassis etc yet they basically strip out half of body panels and non critical unibody elements?... If so then do those non critical panels even matter in the first place?
I crashed my BRZ recently. Yeah I know it's sad, it had like 1k miles on odo but I'm young, and dumb it gave me a lesson that no other car was able to give me - proved me that I suck at driving more than I think and that I'm actually lucky I'm alive after all those years of driving like a reckless idiot and I think that it's really valuable experience and at the end of the day this car is meant for young drivers to teach them how to drive properly so at the end of the day I guess it kinda did its job?... Maybe not exactly the way I imagined but it still did so I giess it's fair...
And now everyone around me talks crap like "dude it's lost, it's totaled, it's gonna never be the same, it's all lost, it's never gonna feel the same, oh my god kill yourself, you'd be better of selling it altogether and getting another car"... And I'm like wth man... I just barely kissed the barriers going like 40kph on wet...
Wheels are not bent even if they may look a bit like this on photo. Afaik according to initial repair calculations structural chassis elements are not damaged and car won't require pulling back to spec on frame and suspension has not suffered any apparent damage.
I'm not gonna discuss exact costs of repair but lets say it's about 1/3 of this car price brand new. But it's leased car so I had highest insurance and it's gonna be fixed by Subaru dealership with all original parts and according to proper repair procedures. Yeah sure I know it needs replacement of entire RH rear panel but it's just body panel. It shouldn't be really significant in any way to how car feels and drives and to body rigidity - especially if it's gonna be properly welded together right? I mean I'm not an expert, that's basically why I'm asking here but my common sense tells me that it can't really be THAT bad considering body panels can be literally bent using bare hands if you apply enough force to them...
So is it really THAT terrible or people are just demonizing it and I shouldn't give a f* about that? Or am I just stupid and I don't know anything about how cars work and it's actually quite substantial damage?