Car hit again! Not repairable this time

captainawsome

Hi everyone. Some of you may remember a post from late last year when my car was written off because somebody him me from behind. I bought the car back from the insurance and fixed it, got the VIC test done etc etc and all was good. Until last week...

..I was on a training course which means that I leave my car in a secure compound at work and take a loan car to drive to Reading for a week long course. While my car was parked up a delivery driver was dropping off In the night and reversed into my car, dragging it out of its parking space and pushing it into another car.

It was a car transporter that hit it and the driver was good enough to leave a note explaining what had happened. The next day my boss got in touch with the company and they admitted full liability but said they didn't want to go through the insurance, which I am fine with, and asked for an estimate for the repairs. Our on site body shop carried out and estimate which came to £8000 give or take as both sides at the front are damaged and the wheels have impact damage (suspension).

The company are sending out one of their engineers next week some time to have a look at the damage, but to be honest I don't want the car fixing now. I've seen the damage and know all too well that the £8k estimate will be ballpark to fix the vehicle properly and return to the standard it was previous, on a car worth £4k maybe a touch more it's obviously not worth it.

Im really just after some advise how to approach the situation? I generally don't complain much and tend to go with the flow but feel ill come off much worse if I don't play hardball in this case. I havn't had an 'offer' as such from the company yet but should know what they want to do this week, any tips on how to handle this? Thanks

forgotmyname

See what they offer and take it from there.

OddballJamie

On your previous thread a few months back your insurance valued the car at £3900.

It's now Cat C so the value will be greatly reduced, realistically £2600-£3000.

arcon5

Ask for a courtesy car or something then let them investigate and make their offer. If they want to repair it though to a good std not sure you have a choice.

Though I'm not surprised they want to look at it themselves if your telling them £8k to repair. It sounds a far fetched price to me - I've seen some real wrecks of cars restored for significantly less than that!!!

AdrianC

OddballJamie wrote: »

On your previous thread a few months back your insurance valued the car at £3900.

It's now Cat C so the value will be greatly reduced, realistically £2600-£3000.

This, with bells on.

You are entitled to the value of your car immediately before it was hit, no more. He hit a car that was worth considerably less than one that didn't have a write-off history. The effect on the value of the previous collision would have been part of your settlement from that claim.

Aretnap

OddballJamie wrote: »

On your previous thread a few months back your insurance valued the car at £3900.

It's now Cat C so the value will be greatly reduced, realistically £2600-£3000.

The Ombudsman reckons the deduction shouldn't generally be more than 20% (link) - so assuming the repairs were done to a good standard that would mean around £3100, less any depreciation which has occurred in the intervening months.

This might be a case where it's better to make the claim through your own policy, as you won't have the protection of the Ombudsman if you claim directly from the third party and they try to make a greater deduction.

Norman_Castle

The other company will send an engineer to assess the damage and to judge the pre accident condition for a write off valuation.

captainawsome

I know the repair could be done for less but I don't want a front end full of spurious suspension parts and mis matched items all over the place. Especially as I've maintained it using genuine parts in the past, I'll argue that point If they want to fix it as I think most of that 8k is for parts.

My argument is, the car was In perfect condition when I left it, it drove perfect and was faultless. regardless of it being a cat C previously it was repaired to a good standard with some effort. Now it is not repairable (economically) and I am due to be left out of pocket for a like for like replacement if valued at £3100. I understand this is how insurance works so tough, but I'm not dealing with insurance as the company don't want to. So if they're only going to pay me what an insurance company would I might aswel go through the insurance to keep everything above board and have the protection of the ombudsman as mentioned above. I will wait for them to look at the car and update with what they come back with

AdrianC

Don't even bother discussing the repair estimate. All it says is "dead". Anything above that is fine detail as far as the truck company are concerned. They owe you the pre-collision value of the car. Not one penny more. Concentrate on figuring out what YOU think a fair value for a CatC car of that age/type is. How you maintained it is irrelevant to that value, since values assume appropriate maintenance.

The cost of repair is only relevant once you've been paid out for it, whether you want to put that money towards fixing it, or whether you put that money towards replacing it.

Spicy_McHaggis

captainawsome wrote: »

I know the repair could be done for less but I don't want a front end full of spurious suspension parts and mis matched items all over the place. Especially as I've maintained it using genuine parts in the past, I'll argue that point If they want to fix it as I think most of that 8k is for parts. I will wait for them to look at the car and update with what they come back with

Really?

Labour is usually the biggest cost in a repair.

captainawsome

Spicy_McHaggis wrote: »

Really?

Labour is usually the biggest cost in a repair.

I havn't seen the estimate, but from what I was told by the body shop the cost of parts was more than the value of the car alone, so I'm assuming before any labour was added the writing was on the wall.

I didn't even find out about it until I was on my way home on Friday night! It happened on Tuesday! Lol