Originally Posted by
kunsunoke
No, I'd probably try a combination of frame blocks and jury-rigged straightening tools. After straightening, any damage to the paint could be touched up by careful brushwork with a reasonably close color match enamel. At worst you'd have to prime and repaint the whole frame. It'd be worth it if you could keep the total price under about a hundred dollars. I have some builders around me (Bilenky and Kellogg), but they'd probably say "Don't bother, it's not like it's a Cinelli Supercorsa or anything."
I would do it, but I like these sort of challenges. Not everyone is me. Not everyone is comfortable wrenching and refinishing. Not everyone likes to expend effort of this kind, whereby the end product only has value to one person. If the original owner didn't tell you about the damage and you paid for it to be straight and undamaged, definitely try to get a refund - or at least some cash back to effect whatever repairs you can manage.
I'm under the impression that even if it was fixed, the frame would still be weak there, and fail there at some point. If fixing it would add life to the frame, I would truly consider fixing it. From what I'm hearing, the frame will always be weak at that point, and will fail at that point regardless of being fixed or not. I'm no expert, but I think this is what some people are saying. Now if the circumstances were the bike could not be ridden, or didn't ride well, then yes I would definitely fix it.