Admiral refusing to repair car to pre accident condition

diesel_dog

I’ll try and cut a long story short.

Our car (2004 BMW 325i coupe, automatic) was hit from behind by a driver insured by Admiral.

Driver admits fault.

Our car has damage to rear bumper along with warning lights now on dashboard. We contact a accident company online who supply us with like for like replacement hire car due to warning lights showing abs braking fault. We don't go through our insurers to avoid losing any excess's.

Admiral make contact to us and accident company confirming there fault, so lets get our car repaired to pre accident condition.

We agreed to use Admirals approved repairer as they will get fault codes read and sort out any problems on our car and replace new bumper and any damage behind the bumper. Car went into BMW for diagnosis and came back showing warning light code is for new abs unit at nearly £3000! Admiral also informed me that work had started to replace the bumper and car will be ready next week.

Admiral are refusing to replace this unit as they say the BMW garage state it is wear and tear failure and can’t be linked to the accident. I informed Admiral that our car had passed it’s mot just a few hours before. New mot rules state that if a car shows any warning lights, it will fail. I think it should be quite clear that having just passed an mot that this should provide evidence that the car was in an honest roadworthy condition.

Our car is due back to us next week sometime and the replacement hire car will have to go back the same day. Admiral say tuff luck, we’ve done our bit. This then leaves us with a car with a shiny new bumper, but also not road worthy as it needs nearly £3000 of work doing to return it to pre accident condition.

Not quite sure where to go from here so thought I’d post this on here to gain some useful advice to go forward.

bouncydog1

Your issue here is that the garage who did the diagnostic have confirmed that the Abs fault is not due to the accident, but wear and tear. I suspect your only chance would be to take the car to another BMW garage and see if they have a different opinion. If they do you could argue the point, but your car is 10 years old and faults do occur as they get older. One of the reasons why I sold my 3 series before this started to happen as BMW costs are expensive!

diesel_dog

Fair point.


I was under the impression that the car had to be returned to pre accident condition. If the unit was working fine before and having passed it's mot on the same day, this would show it was working as it should be.

I've not seen a copy of the report and only had the insurers read it down the phone to me. It would also depend what questions they were asked to give the answers they have given.

InsideInsurance

As an approved repairer it tends to be less onerous and unlikely a full report is done. Normally the garage can self authorise most work and obv it's generally in their interest to say as much as possible is accident related as they then get to do the work.

You need to commission your own independent engineers report to get their views on if it's been damaged in the accident or coincidence. I had a similar issue with the AC on my last car that stopped working after an RTA and whilst it seemed odd given the area of damage all I knew was it worked before and stopped afterwards. In my case the car was still under warranty so went down that route first rather than the engineers report and VW advised it was a faulty valve and so not RTA related

diesel_dog

Car back and rejected. It was agreed that a new bumper would be used and they have clearly repaired and repainted old bumper. Accident damage still visible and no other work carried out. Colour is also different to the rest of the car.

Bantex_2

The car is only worth a couple of grand. They will just write it off I suspect.

diesel_dog

Fair point but they haven't wrote it off.

Bantex_2

diesel_dog wrote: »

Fair point but they haven't wrote it off.

Chances are they will do if the bill goes over £1500 or so.

diesel_dog

I think your missing the point or maybe I'm reading your reply incorrectly or I failed to mention it in the first post.

Admiral agreed before they took the car to there approved repairer, that they would replace the bumper for a new BMW bumper and sort the other problems out.


All they have done is repair and repaint the bumper, that still shows signs of accident damage and the colour does not match the car. The repairers are blaming Admiral for not authorising the work that I'd agreed needed doing. Admiral are saying that is all there Engineers have signed off and nothing else. I'm saying I want my car back how it was before there customer hit us.


There is no mention from them about writing the car off or repairing any of the other problems which would put the car back to pre accident.


There basically saying here's your car back, we reckon it's now ok, now go away.

Quentin

You look to have a complaint against Admiral. Do you have it in writing they will authorise the repairs you mention?

If so put in a complaint (or leave it to your claims company to do) that they have not authorised the garage as promised.

spacey2012

There is no way of showing what caused the fault, it shows a basic fault code or it does not.
I would send them a letter by post informing them that you do not regard the repairs as satisfactory and you still hold the driver liable.
Give them 7 days to reply and then send the driver a LBCC.
the other driver has the contract, so you must go after them.