Discovered car repairs on a non fault insurance claim were bodged, any recourse?

layhar

December 2020 I was pulled out in front of on a 40mph roundabout damaging the passenger side front corner of my vehicle. Fast forward to now and I am having some issues with another part which required the removal of the front bumper. I have discovered that the headlight is cracked, was hidden by the bumper and as of the last few years has been fogged up on that side but I never thought to put 2 and 2 together. Also the glow plug relay fixing is bent, the bolts were fixed to the bent frame but the loops holding the relay were snapped off and instead of replace it they just held it in place with a cable tie! The fact that it has been cable tied says they knew about it but just made do with it. Surely this cannot be acceptable repairs? I am annoyed at myself for not investigating the cause of the fogging headlight before but it was only ever minor and it was a year before I noticed it fogging up and so didn’t think it was related to the accident until now. 

I don’t expect anything to be done about it so long down the line but I’d still like to make a complaint, if only to stop insurance companies from using this shoddy repair company. To who would I make this complaint? TIA 

molerat

Who did the repair - your insurer or the third party's ?

It will though be tough to prove anything 4 years later

layhar

My insurance did the repair and billed the other insurance company. The only thing that’s occurred on the passenger side since was a child on a scooter came off the curb and into my stationary vehicle hitting the front passenger door. Otherwise there’s been no accidents that could have caused that damage. It does make me wonder how often this happens and how many people are blissfully driving around unaware that their cars are not in fact repaired to pre accident standards? 

DullGreyGuy

layhar said:

My insurance did the repair and billed the other insurance company. The only thing that’s occurred on the passenger side since was a child on a scooter came off the curb and into my stationary vehicle hitting the front passenger door. Otherwise there’s been no accidents that could have caused that damage. It does make me wonder how often this happens and how many people are blissfully driving around unaware that their cars are not in fact repaired to pre accident standards? 

I'd argue probably less than the number of people who directly ask a garage to do some work on their car and the garage take short cuts, bodge it etc. 

It was a non-fault accident so if the repairs cost £500 or £5,000 there is no motivation for your insurers to ask them to cut corners. In fact there is more motivation for the bill to be higher given volume discounting and various activities. Your insurer will have paid for your losses and recovered their outlay from the third party insurer, to use the correct language.

How many people get someone to check the repairs they had done by a third party? Insurers typically will audit a proportion of repairs by their network, they similar monitor the volume of complaints about particular garages. Big household name insurers can represent a massive proportion of the work a garage gets, it's a big risk to try and scam them and potentially instantly lose 30% of your business.

Ultimately however people are doing the job, people make mistakes, people trying to cover their !!!!!! etc and given we all want insurance to be as cheap as possible no insurer inspects every single vehicle after repair to ensure its done right. 

Contact your insurers who dealt with the claim and register your complaint with them.

XRS200

Can you say for certain that the cable ties were done by the original repairer?  Have they not been noticed before now?

flaneurs_lobster

I'm rather surprised that there are roundabouts where you can legally do 40mph.

DullGreyGuy

flaneurs_lobster said:

I'm rather surprised that there are roundabouts where you can legally do 40mph.

Technically on many roundabouts off of motorways or on dual carriageways the legal speed limit is 60mph so doing 40 wouldn't be speeding but certainly may be considered driving without due care or dangerous driving.  Really depends on the size of the roundabout... the one just outside Farnham is 0.5 miles circumference, even has a pub in the middle (one of the only places in the UK that you legally drive on the right) and a 50mph speed limit, its certainly possible and safe to hit those kinds of speeds.