Mercedes car insurance / Admiral - Courtesty car windscreen.

TheGadge

Hi all.

I have a Mercedes GLC in for warranty repair.
They've given me a courtesy car (QLC 400) for a week while doing the work on my own car.

3 days in I've woke up to find a massive crack on the windscreen, expanding with the window heat of course. I can see three tiny impact points weirdly very bottom right near the seal.

I've called Mercedes who insist it's £1k excess for ANY work, so "you're better claiming with your own insurer". Spoke to admiral, "yes fine just ring autoglass".

So I rang autoglass and a very helpful lady insisted that "no, you claim through aviva, I can see it's insured with them from the cars reg', and it's £140 excess for a full windscreen" So I said OK and we booked it in for tomorrow at 8am.

I've had a call today from autoglass that her colleague was wrong, there's no such Aviva insurance for windscreens, they don't know where that excess figure came from, and they're looking into a (hopefully) recorded call. The lady on the call today said you'll have to claim on your OWN insurance, and I said I tried to do that, but your colleague insisted otherwise. "Well, she was wrong I'm afraid."

So Merc dealer says £1000 excess even if it was a £200 small repair?!? She even spoke to legal and called me back confirming this.

Autoglass are "getting back to me" but it looks like the repair is getting cancelled.
Mercedes don't want the courtesy car back until I've replaced the windscreen.
Admiral now don't want anything to do with the repair as it's not MY OWN car, on which I'm fully comp with windscreen cover.

A thousand pounds for a windscreen to be replaced under mercs insurance??
I could have rented a Ferrari for a week instead of a courtesy car!

I don't know who to turn to here. Anxiously waiting on autoglass ringing me back to decide if there's anything that can be done, but it's looking like cash purchase of a windscreen on a 1 month old electric car with all it's alignment needed for sensors etc (It couldn't be done from home). That will not be cheap!

Any advice as to rights here. I'm really astounded that Merc have confirmed even if the repair on a mud flap or something was £200, I'd have to pay £1K excess??!?

DullGreyGuy

Have you read your Admiral Insurance policy book? Anything suggest that they'd cover a courtesy car from a warranty claim? Wouldn't expect them to, some policies automatically cover a courtesy car for an insurance claim under your policy but not heard one that does warrant claims off another policy. 

 What does the paperwork you signed for the courtesy car? Normally it'd say you pay for repairs up to a maximum of the £1,000 policy excess unless its a deliberate act or possibly some carve outs for glass or grounding the vehicle.

Why not just pay to replace the windscreen yourself if you say it's £200? 

jefaz07

Did Mercedes not offer you to pay extra for the extra insurance. The both times my car has been in for warranty I’ve paid around £15 so none of this would ever happen. 

TheGadge

jefaz07 said:

Did Mercedes not offer you to pay extra for the extra insurance. The both times my car has been in for warranty I’ve paid around £15 so none of this would ever happen. 

I've asked them about this, and their exact reply was "That's not something we normally offer".
Admiral I can understand, I was never given a copy of the documents for the courtesy car.
I have heard around £15-£20 excess waiver from other dealerships. I wish mine had offered that.

So admiral can't help. Autoglass can't help, quoting me £1,152! Mercedes have come back with an 'offer' of £675.
When I was given the courtesy car is was verbally explained to me the excess was £1k "if you have and accident and it's found to be YOUR fault". This is not my fault, and not an 'accident'. 

I'll next time transfer my admiral policy over to the courtesy car, IF they will even do that without a ton of fees and hassle over me not owning the courtesy car.

DullGreyGuy

You'd add the courtesy car as a temporary additional vehicle rather than transfer the policy to it. 

£675 is better than £1k and is below the cost of repairing it yourself so seems the best option.