Advice on motor insurance claim

boots_babe

anna42hmr wrote: »

it depends on the insurance company, for instance if you are insured by one owned by rbs insurance, it is the engineer that assesses the vehicle who places the value, and then notify the claims department of the value.

The insurance company is Privilege if that makes any difference.

lisyloo

Good luck and keep us up to date.

In your case the recovery guy could be right, but I've certainly had situations where their initial assemen of a breakdown has porved wrong on more detaile inspection from a garage.

boots_babe

Thanks lisyloo. Well we've now got booked for an assessor to come on Friday. Still don't know if we will find out the result then or not. I will keep you posted.

lisyloo

Still don't know if we will find out the result then or not.

It really depends.

It can sometimes be blindingly obvious to the assesor that it's a write off.
This might be the case if either the car is low value or the repair is going to be a very expensive one e.g. brand new engine.
In some cases it may not be so obvious and they may need to go back to the office and look up the value of the car and get estimates for the parts and labour.

In the cases that I've had personal experience of - it's been blindingly obvious that the car isn't worth repairing - having said that they have been quite low value cars and quite serious damage.

I don't know much abut water damage and cars, but if your recovery man is right and the engine is irretrievably damaged then it won't be worth repairing, it'll be cheaper to get one off a production line in a cheap country than try to fix it.

boots_babe

I think you're probably right. It's a 51 plate Mercedes C class, and as soon as the recovery man looked at the plate, he said that if it needed a new engine - which it prob does by all account - it would be written off.

Very sad to think that I might never drive it anywhere again I will post the results of tomorrow's assessor visit...

vaio

boots_babe wrote: »

I think you're probably right. It's a 51 plate Mercedes C class, and as soon as the recovery man looked at the plate, he said that if it needed a new engine - which it prob does by all account - it would be written off……

Can you fill in some more about what happened? Was the engine running? Does it turn over? How high was the water?

boots_babe

vaio wrote: »

Can you fill in some more about what happened? Was the engine running? Does it turn over? How high was the water?

Hi...yes sure. Engine was running, I was going along at about 5-10mph, something like that - if that really. Water was only a few inches deep - when I rang recovery people they asked me the same, so I leaned out of the car and put my hand in, and it didn't quite cover the length of my hand.

It wasn't so much the depth of the water - all other cars got through just fine, even 2 hrs later when water had risen way higher by then - it was actually up over their headlights by that point. It was the 4x4 that came along in other direction. Seeing as he didn't wait for me to complete my trip through the water - which every other single person did whilst I was waiting to be rescued just out of interest - when he came past me he complete covered my car with a wave of water.

I couldn't see for a second or so due to a waterfall of water coming down my windscreen, just as I started to be able to see again as it was clearing the engine just died. I could never start it again and that was that.

I guess the fact that I was then sat in the water for nearly an hour, with lots of cars going past swishing more water around my car, probably didn't help. After nearly an hour a kind van stopped and helped push me out of the water, so hoped it would drain out and dry off a bit.

Oh, and no it won't even turn over.

custardy

what kills engines in this scenario is when the engine draws water in through the air filter.
water gets in the combustion chamber where air is compressed.
unfortunatly water doesnt compress like air and it just buckles engine components

zappahey

Wig wrote: »

It is actually illegal to keep a car in such bad condition on the highway,

Illegal to keep a car on the highway when the engine's ruined? How do you figure that one?

vaio

boots_babe wrote: »

Hi...yes sure. Engine was running, I was going along at about 15mph, something like that - if that really. Water was only a few inches deep - when I rang recovery people they asked me the same, so I leaned out of the car and put my hand in, and it didn't quite cover the length of my hand………I couldn't see for a second or so due to a waterfall of water coming down my windscreen, just as I started to be able to see again as it was clearing the engine just died. I could never start it again and that was that……I guess the fact that I was then sat in the water for nearly an hour, with lots of cars going past swishing more water around my car, probably didn't help. After nearly an hour a kind van stopped and helped push me out of the water, so hoped it would drain out and dry off a bit.

Oh, and no it won't even turn over.

If the engine sucked in water it’s hydrolocked and will probably need to be replaced. If it dies because the electrics got flooded then it could be repaired reasonably cheaply.

If it’s hydrolocked then the engine will not physically turn over, what I would do is put it in first gear (assuming it’s a manual), take the hand brake off, and get a few adults to push it. If it moves then it’s not hydrolocked and you can start to look at the electrical system

Do all the dash lights come on as normal? Lights, fans etc work? Do the lights work? Interior light work? Try and start it….does the dash look normal? Interior light dim unusually dramatically?