Unrepairable Nikon D7000

You may want to contact Precision Camera in Enfield, CT - they are an Nikon authorized repair center. Maybe they are more willing to risk a repair - then again - not many things that have been "run over' by a car tend to work...do you have insurance....

I doubt that Nikon can't repair the camera. their reasoning behind the "unrepairable" is pretty simple - this endeavour would cost more than/similar to a new camera (and you surely wouldn't pay that amount for repair), hence - economically unfeasible, i.e. not worth the effort, etc. However, a third-party repair shop might do that - not because they are better qualified than Nikon tech, but because they have the time and motivation to play around with the thing.
my friend dropped his 14-24mm Nikkor... Nikon said it was unrepairable, the local tech "fixed" it for ~250USD. No, it doesn't work 'like new', the zoom is pretty stiff, etc - but it is still better than keeping such an expensive lens as a paperweight

Well, if the body shape is compromised, very likely the whole camera would have to be taken apart and most parts replaced. So it's much cheaper to just buy a new camera.

In aviation we have a term for this - BER which stands for Beyond Economic Repair

If Nikon can't repair a camera or lens to factory specs they will always return the camera unrepaired.

This happened to me years ago with an F2 that to this day still works fine for me when it is used with a motor drive. It happened more recently when they didn't have parts any longer for the older lenses.

Like others mention, someone else might be able to fix your new compact version. Or likely not.

Thanks guys. It sounds like Nikon has a max price point, $200. If they can't fix it for $200, they don't fix it. Thing of it is, if it cost me twice that, at $400, it will be a whole lot better than paying $1200 (at the moment $1300+) for a new one. I'll do some checking around.

If anyone can recommend a good camera repair facility, I would like to hear about it (Thanks Rich, checking into Precision)

What Ilkka said.
In a case like this, I really do doubt whether a metal body is an advantage. It bends. If it bends inwards, it will snap electronic boards inside at a given moment, while the outside may still look perfectly OK. And it's pretty crowded inside a camera. Shattered plastic would be far more obviously damaged, but also in fact might still ensure the inside is intact (Though, probably not when running a car over the camera).
There's no perfect material obviously.

The fact that this particular D7000 is 3 weeks old with fewer than 500 actuations are totally irrelevant factors. You can pick a fresh D7000 straight out of the assembly line, and if you run it over with a car, you can still damage it beyond repair.

Of course Nikon could ask a repair person in the US to swap out most of the parts on that D7000 to repair it, but labor cost in the US is much higher than that in Thailand and you are essentially asking someone to tailor make a D7000 for you, in the US. It simply wouldn't make much sense to spend say $2000 to repair a D7000 that costs $1200 or even $1300. When Nikon tells you that they cannot repair it, economically, I wouldn't waste any more money trying to get it fixed. I am sure they would have been happy to charge you say $800 to fix it if they could.

But if you want to check with someone for a second opinion, try Authorized Photo Service in the Chicago area: http://nikoncamerarepair.com/

The perfect material is what the replacement value insurance policy is written on. Don't fault Nikon. Being run over by a car is almost certainly fatal for cameras.

I'll tell you an incredible story. I had a disposable camera that was part of a project, and bought a twin to it sans film from the local lab. I was going to do a gag picture of it squashed under my Audi, so I put the dummy on the ground and gently drove so that a front tire was directly on/over it, the car tilting. It held. Nothing broke!