Car being written off - help with Insurers please

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that they would have to pay for the recovery of the car also. Bang goes another £100+ of their money.

dacouch

I've just noticed the value of the car and that they are in a hire which I assume is a credit hire.

There can be problems if the cost of the credit hire exceed the value of the vehicle, it would be sensible to check everything is ok with the hire company as in some circumstances you can end up paying part of the bill

vaio

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that they would have to pay for the recovery of the car also. Bang goes another £100+ of their money.

a threat of a referral to the Financial Ombudsman would add another £700 to their costs and might help concentrate their minds

dacouch

A referral to the FSA would add nothing to their costs, a referral to the Financial Ombudsman will add some money to their costs but would add months and months to the claim.

To get the amount offered increased you need to demonstrate they have made a mistake in valuing the vehicle (It does happen as valuing old vehicles can be difficult) by supplying adverts for the same model / age / condition of car which show a higher amount.

As stated before the adverts show that cars are offered for the amount in the adverts it does not mean they are actually being sold for the amount they are advertised for. (Car prices have reduced dramatically recently). This is a principal the Ombudsman uses, they also will ignore if some one has over paid for a car.

LinasPilibaitisisbatman

A look at Autotrader shows this offer is entirely fair, you might be able to pull out another 100-150 if you are lucky.

Autotrader is showing cars about 2 or 3 years younger going for under a grand. The older N reg's barely breach £500

wibblewibble

LinasPilibaitisisbatman wrote: »

A look at Autotrader shows this offer is entirely fair, you might be able to pull out another 100-150 if you are lucky.

Autotrader is showing cars about 2 or 3 years younger going for under a grand. The older N reg's barely breach £500

I don't know which ones you were looking at but I found 4 today alone exact year & model & transmission with roughly the same mileage (within 10k ) all on auto trader and every one of them were over £1200 (trade) - the reason I missed them first time of looking was purely down to my mistake as I thought the car was a 1.6 when it's actually a 1.8i - I've printed those off and sent them together with 17 pages of proof of the full service history and every mot cert the car ever had proving the mileage.

I also sent them a quote from a local mazda specialist bodywork firm that we'd already taken the car into for an estimate of the repair which they said would cost £919 - I would be more than happy to settle for them agreeing not to write the car off and giving me the amount of the estimate so that we can get it repaired ourselves.

goldspanners

wibblewibble wrote: »

I don't know which ones you were looking at but I found 4 today alone exact year & model & transmission with roughly the same mileage (within 10k ) all on auto trader and every one of them were over £1200 (trade)

over priced trader who is also covering potential warranty trouble within the price.
are they advertised at £1200 or actually selling at £1200?

dacouch

As stated before, just because a car is advertised at a price does not mean it actually sells for that price, so you need to take this into account.

I have done a search on autotrade and it has a similar car but for £830, your Insurers and the ombudsman (If they were involved) would do a similar search. You cannot selectively just send the most expensive adverts in, you have to take a balanced view when sending the adverts in. (Amusingly there is one trader on there offering a 1998 Mazda with low mileage for £1995) http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/MAZDA+323/Ne-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146-236,N-42-63-111-214-240-4294965165-4294967216/search.action?showMoreOptions=&formSearchParams=Ne%3D2%2B4%2B5%2B6%2B7%2B8%2B27%2B44%2B49%2B53%2B61%2B64%2B67%2B103%2B133%2B146%2B236%26N%3D42%2B63%2B111%2B214%2B240%2B4294965165%2B4294967216&sort=&make=MAZDA&model=323&min_pr=&max_pr=&max_mileage=80000&lc_channel=cars&dealerGroupId=&dealerId=&radius=1501&postcode=lu1+2bb&e_source=&e_min_pr=Ne%3D2%2B4%2B5%2B6%2B7%2B8%2B27%2B44%2B49%2B53%2B61%2B64%2B67%2B103%2B133%2B146%2B236%26N%3D240%2B4294965165%2B4294967216%2B111%2B63%2B214%2B42%2B15&e_colour=&e_max_pr=&keywords=&ukcarsearch_full.x=92&ukcarsearch_full.y=5&ukcarsearch_full=SEARCH

The following is a quote from the Ombudsman site regarding valuing cars...

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Customers who dispute the firm’s assessment of a car’s market value often draw our attention to ‘forecourt prices’ advertised in local papers, and – increasingly – to prices quoted on internet sites. Generally we place little weight on such evidence. Advertised prices for cars are widely understood to be a starting point for negotiation, rather than a fixed price. And the information provided is often insufficient to ensure a like-for-like comparison of age, condition and mileage. But we do sometimes take local factors into account when deciding a relevant replacement cost. If, for example, the car has been bought recently from a reputable source, then this may be a sensible starting point for determining its market value.

For more details from the Ombudsman on valuing cars have a read of this link http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/22/issue-22-motorinsurance.htm
[/FONT]

Brooker_Dave

wibblewibble wrote: »

Several weeks ago a lorry drove into the side of our car whilst my son who was driving was on the main rd - the lorry pulled out from a side street and broadsided him - at the time they admitted liability - then changed their tune - we disputed their version of events and the impact damage proved that the accident couldnt have happened they way they claimed, moreover as our car had the right of way it was always going to be their fault. They have now accepted liability and yesterday the insurers picked up the car and took it for repairs.

I've now had a phone call from them saying its a Cat C write off - uneconomical to repair (damage is to the front nearside wing and passenger door) the car is an N reg Mazda 323f auto, we paid £1700 for it 12 months ago, and it has only done 67k and only 2 weeks before the accident had spent over £300 having new brakes and cv boot fitted.

The loss adjuster told me they will not make any allowances for the work we had done as that would be "essential maintainance" and that all they are legally obligated to offer is a price based on what it would cost to buy another car of the same age - I hit the roof we knew we'd paid top book for the car precisley because of the low mileage and fabulous condition of the car, we'd spent out on it only recently and it was in immaculate condition.

We have of course got the option to buy it back off them but before it went into them we'd actually got an independant estimate which was £950 to repair it.

The offer as it stands now is £700 - which is derisory! theres is no way we can buy a comparable car for that kind of money!!

This was not our fault - the moron ran into us!! Why the heck should we be out of pocket??

What can we do?

Haggle them up to £900 and the car back, then get it repaired with used parts by a smaller bodyshop.

Either that or get a £1000 contract repair.

While getting £1700 out of them will never happen, you should be able to settle somewhere aroung the £900-£1000 mark.

Brooker_Dave

wibblewibble wrote: »

I also sent them a quote from a local mazda specialist bodywork firm that we'd already taken the car into for an estimate of the repair which they said would cost £919 - I would be more than happy to settle for them agreeing not to write the car off and giving me the amount of the estimate so that we can get it repaired ourselves.

If you stand your ground they'll get it repaired just to get rid of you.

Given that they're only fighting over £250, just explain that you want your car repaired.

I assume you still have the car in your possession?