Fix Up, Look Sharp

GeorgianaCavendish

Thank you!  

GeorgianaCavendish

Bad day yesterday, DH's car caught fire while he was driving it to it's MOT appointment. He's ok - he was a bit shaken up but ultimately ok.
It was an electrical fault behind the dashboard - just one of those things but it is so annoying. It was an old car but had been looked after so well and we were hoping to get another few years out of it. Luckily we've got my little car (which is also quite old now that I think about it!) so we aren't completely stranded or and faced with having to buy another car right away to be able to get around.

We've been running the numbers and don't think it is worth claiming on the insurance - at best we would only get the value of the car, which is about £1000, and we've got quite a high excess anyway. It doesn't seem worth the increase in price of insurance premiums to go ahead with the claim. 

It could have been much worse and we've got something to keep us going. But annoying because we've got to factor in replacing a car to our mid-term plans. Grr! 

Merlin's_Beard

Oh no - I'm glad your DH is okay but what a weird thing to happen.

savingholmes

Glad your DH was ok. Quite scary from the sounds of it. Seems a reasonable call on insurance unless you have protected no claims 

GeorgianaCavendish

Merlin's_Beard said:

Oh no - I'm glad your DH is okay but what a weird thing to happen.

Thank you! It was such a weird thing to happen, and the timing was spooky as well - about 10 mins away from dropping it off for the MOT. 

GeorgianaCavendish

savingholmes said:

Glad your DH was ok. Quite scary from the sounds of it. Seems a reasonable call on insurance unless you have protected no claims 

Thank you! Yes, he was pretty shaken up but luckily it was a quiet road with a good place to pull in and get away from the car. 

Sadly we don't have protected no claims - something to consider for the future! Luckily the garage have been in touch and they have a couple of scrap merchants to call to see if they can salvage some of the newer bits of the car that haven't been damaged (engine was replaced about 6 years ago and the gearbox was replaced last year) - that should give us a bit more cash than just scrapping it for the metal. 

We've also filled out a claim for the remaining road tax, we paid this at the beginning of the summer so we should get back 10 months worth which I'm planning to use towards the road tax on my our car.  

powerspowers

Oh how scary!! Probably a sign it shouldn’t have passed MOT anyway 😉 
good luck with the savings- we’ve recently started saving for house Reno work rather than OPing the mortgage. It’s important to be happy in the house you are in! 

South_coast

At least it was on the way to the MOT and not back, having paid to get it through the test 😱!

savingholmes

Good luck with the selling for parts thing. That sounds like you should get something at least. I once got £95 scrap for my car - sad day.

GeorgianaCavendish

powerspowers said:

Oh how scary!! Probably a sign it shouldn’t have passed MOT anyway 😉 
good luck with the savings- we’ve recently started saving for house Reno work rather than OPing the mortgage. It’s important to be happy in the house you are in! 

That is so true @powerspowers ! We drove past the garage at the weekend, the car was still sitting in their carpark - I won't lie, I had a tear in my eye! 

Good luck with your savings too I agree, it is so important to be happy with the house you are in. Our electrician is starting work on a full re-wire next week, and we've got a tree surgeon coming out this weekend to give a quote for removing a tree that is in a precarious position right next to our house and cutting back all the overgrown bushes etc. It feels like things are starting to come together