Australia

Others that know anything about cars might be interested to know the year, make, and model...

Personally, I would absolutely 100% push for a write off.

I would much rather buy a second hand car which was a little older than I might like, than have to drive a car which has been in a serious accident.

IDK much about cars really. My parents had a Subaru WRX back when they were amazingly cool. Only a couple of years old. Got rear ended by an idiot, extensive damage to front and rear. They couldn't get the insurer to write it off. It was a crying shame. I would've been gutted if I was them. It was just never the same. Occasional leak from a door seal. Sometimes the check engine light would flicker. Never seemed to be able to get the alignment quite right. Clutch always seemed to have an obscenely short friction point.

Just all this niggly stuff that you could never really pin down. Like after going back to the repairer the 6th time and saying "look mate I swear the check engine light was flickering yesterday" and they hook it up and say "everything's totally fine... again" what are you going to do?

The thing that would really shit me though... is that it's just tainted. It's not my daily driver any more but I still have my first car, it's nearly 20 years old now. It's just... nice, like I've taken care of it and for a 20 year old car it's kinda cool. Once a car has had a major accident no one want's to buy it. For all of the above reasons.

If you push for repair it will be like someone spilled fish curry in your back seat. The smell will never really be gone and years from now on a hot day when you climb in you'll still find yourself cursing the day some cunt did you that nasty.