Advice needed-parking accident

Vereniki · 11 March 2019 at 5:39PM

Hi.

I am a new driver, only 6 months in passing and the other day I accidentally slightly scratched another car's front bumper.

Obviously I did the right thing and let the driver know. It is a small scratch and superficial but she quoted me £500 to fix it by sending me an invoice from the garage she took it to.

I'm not sure if it would be best to pay it or go through our insurers.
My fiance passed only just over a year ago and until I passed and went on the insurance my fianc!e was paying nearly £90 a month. When I went on it went down to £50 a month.

Is it best to pay the garage £500 or go through my insurance? I'm at a loss as a newbie and seeing as I'm on 13k a year £500 is not money I have spare to hand out so would have to borrow.

I do have photos of the damage. The car in question is a 2015 VW.

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Any help is much appreciated.

DUTR · 11 March 2019 at 5:57PM

Go through the insurance, you have to inform them anyways, the £500 is probably more than the excess, and at that price, I guess it's more than a slight scratch on a fancy paintwork car.

Vereniki · 11 March 2019 at 6:09PM

DUTR wrote: »

Go through the insurance, you have to inform them anyways, the £500 is probably more than the excess, and at that price, I guess it's more than a slight scratch on a fancy paintwork car.

Sadly it's not more than a slight scratch. I have the invoice. It's for removal, paint and refit of the bumper. £245 alone is for labour costs.The mark was very small and there was no other damage to the car.

DUTR · 11 March 2019 at 6:34PM

Vereniki wrote: »

Sadly it's not more than a slight scratch. I have the invoice. It's for removal, paint and refit of the bumper. £245 alone is for labour costs.The mark was very small and there was no other damage to the car.

That's still a good rate, often it can be around £2k if there are parking sensors and other ancillary items to remove/refit, plus if it's a metallic/pearlescent paint there is the time to match it, I guess at a 2015 , it's still not a beat up runaround and the owner wants it looking as it was prior to the accident.
Someone went into my friends car, at 1st it looked like a small scratch, but bumper is actually cracked , initially the 3rd party wanted to pay cash but then were dilly dallying about the price (which was less than what you have been quoted) in the end he got the A.M. company to deal with the case.

Vereniki · 11 March 2019 at 7:07PM

I do understand this and I felt really bad. However, like I said before I've got the invoice and the only job is paintwork. I've also seen the car and it's plain white. I will probably go through my insurance as I think that garage is trying to rip me off.

debtdebt · 11 March 2019 at 7:19PM

Why do you thunk £500 is a rip off price for a bumper repair and respray? Do you have previous experience of bodyshop rates? Just because you think the price is high doesn't mean it's not unreasonable.

I think £500 is a fair figure.

If you're not happy, let your insurance deal with it.

Aylesbury_Duck · 11 March 2019 at 7:23PM

Just go with insurance, it's what you pay them for. If you start to quibble over the bill, the other party will probably just claim from your insurance anyway because they won't trust you to pay up. You have to declare the accident anyway, whether you claim or not. If you risk not doing so and the other party notifies their insurer, you'll be in a world of financial problems if your insurer cancels your policy because you've breached the Ts and Cs.

angrycrow · 11 March 2019 at 8:25PM

Last time I had a bumper repaired and sprayed it cost me £350. No labour in that as I removed the panel and supplied it fully stripped down. I also rebuilt the bumper and refitted it. There can be a surprising number of trim parts to remove. That was prices 10 years ago.

missile · 11 March 2019 at 8:48PM

When I scratched my own bumper, I was quoted £680 to repair it. The scratch was barely noticeable.

Arklight · 11 March 2019 at 10:26PM

As ever there's what it costs, and what it costs someone to do it. A small scratch isn't much cheaper than a larger one in this case.

EdGasketTheSecond · 11 March 2019 at 10:41PM

Why not use chips-away? They won't need to remove the bumper; that's overkill. Anyway its stupid to spend £500 on a scratch; why can't people be more reasonable and just live with a few scratches; my car is covered in them. Sometimes, when I feel like it, I fill and respray the worst ones from a rattle can; costs no more than £12