HelpHire alernatives, preferably someone that understands modified cars.

housesitter

Lum, I'm heavily involved with modded cars and the way to proceed with this is to go after the third party.

A good friend of mine was hit by a taxi in the rear. Insured with Flux. He went stright to the 3rd party insurer and they paid for a new rear bumper and spray. The bumper was an after market one and cost £800 to import from Japan. Plus paint work on top of that.
The book price for the car is less than a grand, but it's got an additional £5k of parts in it and sold not so long ago for £7k.
A stock one in good nick is £3k all day long.

They have a duty to put you in the position that you were in before the accident.
If the car is repariable you can insist on them doing it.

vaio

Lum wrote: »

.....I've always been a little edgy about dealing direct with the third party directly since I feel they would be more likely to act in their own interests and there is nobody there to fight our corner......

I’d agree if the claim was in any way complicated or involved injury etc but this one is about as simple as it gets.

Get a quote or two for the repairs (pick your own repairer) send them off and they should just pay. If they start disputing liability or being obstructive and you feel out of your depth then hand it over to one of the professional firms mentioned above.

My guess is they’ll just pay up. I would get a witness statement from the petrol station bloke whilst every thing is fresh in his mind just in case.

ukjoel

Strider590 wrote: »

Won't this go in the favour of the Focus driver anyway? unless CCTV footage is available (which the garage is bound to deny), the insurance will go 100% in her favor as the damage is to rear of her car (or is it?).

Doubt it - OP Vehicle was parked up and filled with petrol prior to any contact.

Therefore they cant really claim she drove up their backside when fuel receipts will show she filled up first and independent witness of petrol station manager.

The comments about the abuse are interesting. Would make me wonder if either he cant drive and she is their only means of transportation or possibly she shouldnt have been driving due to ill health.

Seems strange they reverse into you and then still fill up like nothing has happened. Bet they were driving a total shed.

Lum

The petrol station bloke has said that he's happy to speak to the police and/or insurance, just call the store.

As for calling this a simple case, for some reason with us it never works out that way, there's always something that goes wrong. In this case the obvious one is they could claim that she drove into the back of them.

It's probably worth explaining the layout a bit here. That Morrisons uses the typical layout of several rows each consisting of two pumps, however in one row they have slapped a single LPG pump in between the two existing pumps.

The LPG filler on her car is right at the back and it's quite a long car so the pump in front is difficult for someone else to access. It's possible if you reverse close enough to still use it. Most drivers are competent enough to manage this, even those in hulking great 4x4s manage it as up here most of those 4x4s are necessities rather than status symbols, however for this old lady in a Ford Focus it was clearly too hard.

I guess it could have been worse, she could have been lined up straight rather than miles out and hit the front bumper square on rather than offset, likely damaging the radiator and FMIC.

vaio

That’s sort of why I suggested getting a witness statement now and obviously make sure that any CCTV footage is retained rather than deleted after a week or what ever, same logic applies with pump & till records.

Lum

vaio wrote: »

That’s sort of why I suggested getting a witness statement now

How exactly do we do that in such a way that it's actually valid?

vaio

Go talk to him, discuss what he remembers, write it down & get him to sign & date it.

Ideally you want him to remember that your OH parked, filled up, came in to pay and whilst she was paying the other car turned up parked and started to fill followed by him noticing a heated discussion which he then came out to investigate when he found the other car had hit yours.

Added bonus points if he remembers your OH not getting back into her car before he came to investigate as that rules out any iffy claims about her driving into them.

Include a sketch of what was where and find out how long they retain CCTV recordings for.

If you are feeling lucky you could type it up and take a couple of copies with you, if he’s happy with it then just get him to sign, if he’s not happy then either alter the typed bit or hand write a new one. Make sure you give him a copy.

colino

If you don't want bogged down in the insurance claim (I would as the Focus driver not only caused you a loss but lied about it too!), have a good check over the car. It sounds to me as if the plastic bumper clips have broken off and it could be possible that the headlight ball-joint has popped off. Hopefully not an expensive DIY fix, but claim for a new front end if its an insurance job, you know they deserve it.

Lum

Sorry but I have no interest in artificially inflating the claim. It ultimately doesn't affect the person who caused the loss, but it puts everyone's premium up.

We want to use a claim manager of some form due to a perfectly valid mistrust of insurance companies, and while it's actually being repaired obviously alternate transport will be needed. I think it would also be valid to claim for the increased cost of running a non-LPG car, but we're not going to do down the route of "oh it needs a new bumper, and look now the paint doesn't match so the whole car wants T-cutting and so on and so forth.