Car Accident Advice

Blunders500

Hi all,

I'm after some opinions on an accident my other half had recently.......

Coming around a corner a car in front of her came to a halt, she stopped, but the car behind drove into her causing her to hit the first car. First car drove off after a quick look. Car 2 that drove into her stopped and they exchange phone numbers ONLY - no addresses and decided not to go through insurance. Also no photos (it was night) and no witnesses apart from someone apparently in the third parties car.

Car 2 takes partners car to garage and gets damage repaired a week later thereby admitting fault - this was fairly superficial, new bumper cover front and rear, resprayed and re-hung exhaust pipe. No waiver or closure paperwork was submitted.

Two days and 8 miles later the car claps out and shes toed to a garage - rear diff arm broken causing damage to drive shaft (rear wheel drive).

Third party is having none of it saying that he damage wasn't caused by him accusing my other half of taking advantage of him getting work carried out that was already at fault, despite the garage saying that it obviously was as they'd never seen this sort of issue on her model of car before.

Although we don't have the address of the other driver, I know its easy enough to get via DVLA V888

Can we take third party to small claims?
Should we just claim on our own insurance against the driver?
Should we just let it go?

Many Thanks

forgotmyname

How recently? You could goto your insurance. But dont forget you have broken the terms of your agreement by failing to disclose an accident/incident.

You need to get the car checked out properly. Sticking a new cover bumper on sounds a bit like a bodge job.
Are the crash bars/crumple zones damaged?

How old is the car?

Who chose the garage to do the work and who decided on what work was required?

How did the part fail? Is the part on the other side damaged also?

OnanTheBarbarian

What specific year & model of car is yours?

lesalanos

has the third party submitted his whiplash claim yet?

Quentin

You will need to prove the damage was caused by the collision to get anywhere at all with the third party (or win a court case against him)

InsideInsurance

lesalanos wrote: »

has the third party submitted his whiplash claim yet?

Why would they? They are the ones at fault and the OP is the innocent party. The at fault party cannot claim for injuries

Ultimately you need an engineers report to establish if this is accident related or not. The fact that other repairs have already been done without photographs will make it harder and more of an issue.

Presumably you have told your insurers about the incident for info only as you are required to do? The problem with issuing against them for it will be it'll be passed to their insurance to defend the claim and so a fairly high chance of it going on CUE and then a reasonable chance of your insurer finding out about it. If you have breached your policy by not informing them then this may cause you significant issues.

Blunders500

Thanks for the replies all -


In order of posts -
- Accident was a week or so ago, the third party chose the garage which I though was a bit suspect, however we did get a quote from our own garage and it was ballpark in the same area, so satisfied with them really.
- The part that failed was on a cast aluminium mount where the diff is attached to the car, its totally possible that it was simply cracked after the impact then the action of driving it caused the further damage. The mechanic had never seen this before and is willing to write a report to that fact.
- car is about 10 years old - MX-5
- As far as I know neither party has mentioned it to insurance, however I am advising my partner to do so as I now understand that it has to be done regardless of fault and fixture.

Fact still remains that we (and the mechanic) believe that the further damage which totals around £700 was the fault of the third party. How we get him to cough up after he's already paid £900 for previous work is the difficult part.


The car was and always has been super and never been at fault with very little having to be done to it with exception of regular servicing etc.

AdrianC

Blunders500 wrote: »

Fact still remains that we (and the mechanic) believe that the further damage which totals around £700 was the fault of the third party.

A quick google finds plenty of Mk2 MX5 diffs for a fraction of that - and fitting isn't exactly a big job.

Blunders500

AdrianC wrote: »

A quick google finds plenty of Mk2 MX5 diffs for a fraction of that - and fitting isn't exactly a big job.

There was a bit more to it than that - the diff failing caused other issues as well.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Rule No: 1 When Yuff skidded into my truck, I went through my insurance company, that is why I pay for it.

Saves hassle later.

If TPFT, then read rule Number 2

Rule 2. You save nothing on TPFT

arcon5

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

Rule No: 1 When Yuff skidded into my truck, I went through my insurance company, that is why I pay for it.

Saves hassle later.

If TPFT, then read rule Number 2

Rule 2. You save nothing on TPFT

For you maybe, not everybody is the same!

Rule 1 you pay them because your legally required to as much as anything else. And declaring minor accidents will often see premiums increase over the year.

Rule 2 - ridiculous, I saved about £300 on TPFT over FC and I'm not in a minority group who save significantly over the years as TPFF. Over the years this saving is significant