Pothole has more than just damaged my car

MORPH3US

Rossy. wrote: »

Without sounding pedantic you attacked me first.

I couldn't give a monkeys if they've been around since 1920 in all fairness, i was merely having a laugh which this forum somewhat lacks at times

You started it and i retaliated. You have no right to call me "rediculous" when you don't know me

A bit bored of this now and its not helping the OP (which is why I criticised your post in the first place)

My point was that slating all Fords with some hilarious little ditty that was a) no help to the OP and b) was backed up with no information whatever and looked (to me) purely to be meant to aggravate the OP.... I have seen so many threads on here and HUKD etc with the usual "know it alls" slating whatever car make is mentioned.... I don't think you'll ever get two people agree on which makes of car are good and bad.

Maybe I was too defensive but being a very impressed Ford owner for the first time I made my point, albeit badly. :A

@ Gene Hunt - From the very start I have been trying to keep this topic on subject (see above)... please don't feel the need to reply to me any further, every silly post off topic (#18, 31, 62 )serves to not help the OP even further

Gene_Hunt_2

@MORPH3US but you failed and thought you add some more jokes which

a. weren't funny
b. don't help the OP

But your a real hero aren't you.

MORPH3US

Gene_Hunt wrote: »

@MORPH3US but you failed and thought you add some more jokes which

a. weren't funny
b. don't help the OP

But your a real hero aren't you.

Again, I refer you to #70 - to clarify, I wasn't posting them as "jokes".... I was pointing out that anyone can make up an acronym about anything, doesn't make them factual / relevent...

As for me being a "hero" - that was not my aim, as I said earlier, the OP was asking for help and effectively got "Fords are !!!!!!".... put yourself in his shoes, if that was you asking for help would you appreciate that? You actually made some decent posts initially that were relevent which makes all this off topic stuff a real shame.

@ Wig - Joke or not (which wasn't clear) it was still not helping the OP "LOLZ"

Think I will ask a mod to lock the thread or delete all of the carp out of here (from me and others) now because I feel sorry for the OP having his post hijacked. @ DanFrazer, sorry mate :A

hubert_cumberdale

in away it may have helped him as he now knows what ford means

Gene_Hunt_2

MORPH3US wrote: »

As for me being a "hero" - that was not my aim, as I said earlier, the OP was asking for help and effectively got "Fords are !!!!!!".... put yourself in his shoes, if that was you asking for help would you appreciate that?


Think I will ask a mod to lock the thread or delete all of the carp out of here (from me and others) now because I feel sorry for the OP having his post hijacked. @ DanFrazer, sorry mate :A

Fords are 5h1t as are Mercs live with it.

Oh MORPH3US runs to the mods cause he was bullied at school.

hubert_cumberdale

Well back to the topic then

i dont think the council will be prepared to pay anything out could you get the cheque for the value of the car and try and repair your self a fiestas suspension setup is fairly "basic".
I seriously cant imagine that much is broken it doesnt take much to bend a ball joint or track arm and a couple of degrees on a ball joint mounting point can result in a large change in the wheel angle as its on a large radius

Gene_Hunt_2

And on a money saving point of view I would suggest that the OP take his vehicle to a good independant garage rather than paying main dealer prices.

Wig

OP

I have no real advice other than possibly to seek a no win no fee solicitor.

You don't have to give your car to the council, if you win against the council they won't pay you £150 what they are saying is that they will deduct £150 from your settlement figure. But you don't have to accept this.

You currently have an undriveable unrepairable car. You need to mitigate your losses, so you can't claim for the repair costs, only the value of the car. You could try renting a car (and recovering the costs from the council) but it's a very risky strategy to take, especially as this is such a low value car to begin with, I advise you to buy a new car or if you can't afford to do that, to use public transport and keep all your tickets to claim back from the council. If you want to scrap your car and recover your unused road tax........ assuming you don't have an off road storage space which is convenient for you to use........ you can scrap the car now and tell the council you want from them the "value of your car pre accident" less "the amount you got from the scrap man".

The council cannot dictate to you that you must keep your car until the case is settled. However to protect yourself you should tell them oof your intentions and ask them if they want to send an assessor prior to you scrapping it. If they say 'no we won't send an assessor' you might be wise to pay for your own assessor's report before scrapping the car, and recover the cost of the assessor along with your claim from them.

The council knew about this dangerous road and they did not repair it therefore they are negligent. However if you yourself reported this hole prior to your accident and they can show that you did, they may be able to put some of the blame onto you 50:50 for example. So if in your dealings so far (in regards to this claim) you have mentioned to them "I told you about this hole before" then in my opinion you could be on thin ice.

Gene_Hunt_2

Wig wrote: »

OP

I have no real advice other than possibly to seek a no win no fee solicitor.

So why the need to post then?

MORPH3US

Wig wrote: »

The council knew about this dangerous road and they did not repair it therefore they are negligent. However if you yourself reported this hole prior to your accident and they can show that you did, they may be able to put some of the blame onto you 50:50 for example. So if in your dealings so far (in regards to this claim) you have mentioned to them "I told you about this hole before" then in my opinion you could be on thin ice.

Some good posts above in 78, 79, 80 . The catch 22 on the above point (not specific to this case but in general) is that if someone drove into a pot hole that they didn't know existed and tried to claim from the council then the council could claim they never knew it existed and you have to take their word for it.

I have read in the past that the council's duty of care in a case like this is to prove that they checked the road regularly for defects and this would have to be discovered with a FOI request.

The fact that the OP reported the hole complicates things - by trying to do the right thing you have somewhat shot yourself in the foot. Rather than the council saying "we should have fixed the hole when someone told us about it" they will now probably say "you told us it was there so you knew it existed, so you shouldn't have driven into it".