Hit and run on parked motorcycle

livetoclimb

Evening all,

Today I left my motorcycle parked safely and diagonally on the end of a row of parking bays (alongside the road) for a few hours.

When I returned, it was in the same place, but damaged having clearly been knocked over. The damage is reasonably bad, but mainly cosmetic - scratches and clear damage to left hand panels and windscreen, and completely bent clutch lever which definitely needs replacing. It runs fine and steers true.

The bike is less than a year old, and I have kept it immaculate until today. It's (it was) kind of my pride and joy.

There was no note left, and I can see no sign of any CCTV nearby. If there were any witnesses they haven't made themselves known. When I parked it there was a pretty new Mercedes estate parked a couple of meters in front of it, with rear parking sensors (I always check this) but I don't know the plate. There were quite a few empty parking spaces nearby so I doubt anyone arriving after the merc had left would have bothered to park there.

If I get it fixed myself it'll run into the thousands (maybe £1500?) due to the time needed to replace a bunch of panels and parts, so I have either the option of sorting the clutch etc and leaving the scratches (devalues the bike and ruins it's looks) or going through insurance (financial hit of excess and increased premiums) and fix the lot. The bike is worth about £6k.

Any advice on proceeding is much appreciated - what do you wise people think I should do?

neilmcl

Insurance, it's exactly what you pay it for.

Strider590

Chances are the same car will park in the same sort of spot on a regular basis, you could potentially figure out who it was, BUT still not much you could do about it.

bigjl

I adopted a habit of parking nowhere near parked cars (bike bays) if possible or parking in such a way that cars were unlikely to hit the bike.

Though it's possible that vandals pushed it over and a Good Samaritan picked it up.

Annoying but a fact of life when you use a motorbike as transport

BeenThroughItAll

What bike is it? It's often cheaper to repair cosmetic damage yourself than claim in your insurance, especially if it's not something exotic.

facade

You can buy new panels from the manufacturer pre painted & stickered and fit them yourself, then sell the scratched ones on eBay, or you can remove them and get them repainted at a good paint shop if they are one colour.

A fancy paint job and they will need the 'bike to match both sides, so you will have to pay labour to dismantle & reassemble.

When I dropped my 'bike it cost about £600.
1 new fairing panel painted & stickered
Second hand pedal hanger
Brake lever
Tank de-dented and resprayed* (brittle paint had flaked off so it wouldn't push out)
tank stickers
Polished & resprayed bar end weight myself.

*This is when you realise that that nice paint job, with the silver sparkle base and candy lacquer is very difficult (expensive) to match.
(Always buy solid gloss black or white if you must)

TIP: Do NOT fit helibars or other clip-ons as there is nothing to stop the weight of the bike pushing the bar straight into the tank, and turning £250 of damage into £600