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Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: oryx3dr on 24 February 2024, 15:48
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So unfortunately just had an incident with a deer, sadly it jumped out almost immediately in front of me with no chance to avoid it. Car dropped all of its coolant and destroyed most of the lower part of the front bumper. Might be a silly question but is it worth claiming for the repair on insurance or paying for it myself? Never been in any kind of situation like this so slightly unsure on the best course of action.
(https://i.postimg.cc/13S2XR43/IMG-2178.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/D8CBYTq9)
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That's a real shame for both you and the deer. I'd go straight down the insurance route as it could be a sizeable bill.
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If you have “protected” no claim bonus, I agree you prob want to go straight to insurance.
If not, it’s difficult to calculate the financial effect which will stretch over a few years premium wise.
Without “protected” you will drop back two years bonus and if you are not currently on maximum bonus at the moment, the step- back will cost you over a few years until you build back up.
No such thing as a low cost repair these days.
It’s very galling when it is “no fault” but without another party to recover from it’s just rotten luck.
Hope all goes well whatever your final choice.
Oh, and remember you will probably have a reasonably chunky excess on your policy. Mine is £500.
By the way, I am an insurance broker of (too) many years standing.
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I'd honestly pay for it yourself depending on the damage. Could just be a coolant hose got clipped by the bumper, and then the bumper itself isn't bad and the plastics trims are actually very cheap, £20 x 2 + £60 for the middle one.
With insurance going up I'd definitely look into the price yourself first. Just depends on your current situation as you have just purchased the car as well and your excess as you could potentially get away with a £1k repair bill. By no means cheap but better than affecting your premiums.
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I'd honestly pay for it yourself depending on the damage. Could just be a coolant hose got clipped by the bumper, and then the bumper itself isn't bad and the plastics trims are actually very cheap, £20 x 2 + £60 for the middle one.
With insurance going up I'd definitely look into the price yourself first. Just depends on your current situation as you have just purchased the car as well and your excess as you could potentially get away with a £1k repair bill. By no means cheap but better than affecting your premiums.
Yeah I've been thinking about doing this, I know it might seem like it's more upfront but it could potentially be cheaper in the long run.
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If you have “protected” no claim bonus, I agree you prob want to go straight to insurance.
If not, it’s difficult to calculate the financial effect which will stretch over a few years premium wise.
Without “protected” you will drop back two years bonus and if you are not currently on maximum bonus at the moment, the step- back will cost you over a few years until you build back up.
No such thing as a low cost repair these days.
It’s very galling when it is “no fault” but without another party to recover from it’s just rotten luck.
Hope all goes well whatever your final choice.
Oh, and remember you will probably have a reasonably chunky excess on your policy. Mine is £500.
By the way, I am an insurance broker of (too) many years standing.
Sadly I do not have protected NCB. I don't know why as I was always under the assumption that I did. Definitely something I will be doing next time!
My excess is £450 so say it is a £1k bill to pay then it may work out better just to pay it myself. Time will tell but we'll wait and see what happens.
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Thanks all really great advice all around. Annoying situation but certainly could've been a whole lot worse.
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I meant to ask, how's the actual condition of the bumper? It doesn't look to have any cracks in it, a heat gun could get the lower section straight again and would save you having to replace and spray the bumper.
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I meant to ask, how's the actual condition of the bumper? It doesn't look to have any cracks in it, a heat gun could get the lower section straight again and would save you having to replace and spray the bumper.
I can't really say as I didn't take any other pictures to be honest. I think from looking at that image though the bulk of the damage is definitely on the grills so hopefully it shouldn't be too expensive. Radiator did look somewhat bent however so could be pricey to replace that. Although without looking at parts online I wouldn't know.
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Catching up with thread, without protected bonus, insurance is just the solution of last resort I think.
Take hold of the situation and manage it yourself.
If you report to your insurer it is difficult to reverse and you lose control of the repair costs and more importantly the cost of insurance for some time to come.
Happy to give you more advice any time you need.
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Incidentally, living in Scotland and using the A9 in particular, deer incidents are my constant dread.
No matter how you drive, they are and extra risk.
Those thoughts have encouraged me to slow down, especially evening/night many times.
I have had a few very close encounters but never a hit.
PS : you don’t want to hit a fully grown red deer!!
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I hope I'm wrong but it might be more expensive than you think, if the rad is bent its likely everything in front is bent too (AC condenser, Intercooler) even small Muntjacs make a big impact.
Hopefully you'll get off lightly but lots of cars that hit a Deer have more damage than initial inspection, so many parts link and connect its crazy once you start taking them apart.
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I hope I'm wrong but it might be more expensive than you think, if the rad is bent its likely everything in front is bent too (AC condenser, Intercooler) even small Muntjacs make a big impact.
Hopefully you'll get off lightly but lots of cars that hit a Deer have more damage than initial inspection, so many parts link and connect its crazy once you start taking them apart.
Yes, I can vouch for a small muntjac causing quite a lot of damage.
A few years ago, my brother had one jump out of a hedgerow on a country road into the front nearside corner of his car; new front bumper, new front wing and a repair to the front nearside door required. My brother’s a named driver on my policy so I had to declare the incident to my insurance company as well and my premium went up at the next renewal. How much of that increase was due normal rating / claim inflation and how much was due to my brother’s incident with the muntjac, I’ll never know……… :whistle:
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Catching up with thread, without protected bonus, insurance is just the solution of last resort I think.
Take hold of the situation and manage it yourself.
If you report to your insurer it is difficult to reverse and you lose control of the repair costs and more importantly the cost of insurance for some time to come.
Happy to give you more advice any time you need.
Yeah currently trying to do this, in the process of getting the car recovered back to my house so I can then get someone to come out to give me a quote on the repairs. Thankfully I'm able to get it recovered back to my house for free so saved some money there.
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Managed to get hold of some additional images - what do we think?
(https://i.postimg.cc/m2rdwg5r/IMG-8980.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/PNBzfThG)
(https://i.postimg.cc/FFpW3LGq/IMG-8981.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/Lhq3MhcB)
(https://i.postimg.cc/Bbmm0rXs/IMG-8982.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/QKWQgnQn)
(https://i.postimg.cc/C5hc9hMm/IMG-8983.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/dkfRyKyy)
(https://i.postimg.cc/9MtxxR2D/IMG-8984-2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/ftyjybJs)
(https://i.postimg.cc/X7DsD6Rk/IMG-8980.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/PPYbP9rC)
(https://i.postimg.cc/xdj7W3sK/IMG-8976.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/NKVpXmvM)
(https://i.postimg.cc/2S7McKxk/IMG-8977.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/sM1T1K8q)
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TBH looking at that, you'll be all for paying for it until you get an estimate, and then i think it'll be the insurance route.
Looks like a front bumper and all the associated grilles, front splitter, an air con rad and a coolant rad at the least.
Soon starts to add up.
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TBH looking at that, you'll be all for paying for it until you get an estimate, and then i think it'll be the insurance route.
Looks like a front bumper and all the associated grilles, front splitter, an air con rad and a coolant rad at the least.
Soon starts to add up.
Yeah sadly that's my feeling, I've been going over it in my head as many different ways as I can and honestly I think the easiest thing to do is just to go down the insurance route. Car is getting recovered back to my house tomorrow so I can do a more thorough inspection and go from there. Bloody annoying.
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Trouble is you want it putting back to exactly how it was prior, you don't want to be cutting corners here and there trying to save a few ££.
It looks a really, really nice example and you want it returned to how it was.
You've paid enough insurance over the years, time to have something in return.
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I hit a pheasant at 60mph on the A1 a few years back in my last GTi and it cost me near to £1500 to repair. The bumper itself wasn't damaged but if it had it would have been even more. Air con radiator was pushed back into the radiator and my Acc bracket snapped off completely. Front cross member needed replacing along with all the plastic lower bumper trims. It soon adds up unfortunately.
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Have to agree that's an insurance job unfortunately. Although maybe SRGTD can way in a bit more here, what are the odds of the car getting categorised with the recent hit to the car market?
Also I'd definitely check the headlights, think they're £1,200 a pop so any cracks would make a bit impact to self repair cost.
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Have to agree that's an insurance job unfortunately. Although maybe SRGTD can way in a bit more here, what are the odds of the car getting categorised with the recent hit to the car market?
Also I'd definitely check the headlights, think they're £1,200 a pop so any cracks would make a bit impact to self repair cost.
More than happy to weigh in if I can, but I’m not sure I understand the question. By categorised, do you mean @oryx3dr’s car possibly being written off by the insurance company as a Cat ‘N’ write off? (Cat ‘N’ = repairable with only cosmetic, non-structural damage, but cost of repairs makes it uneconomic to repair).
If so, then AFAIK most insurance companies work to a ‘repair costs to car value’ ratio of 50-60% for insurance write off purposes. Looking at the damage to @oryx3dr’s car, I’d be surprised if repair costs would run to 50-60% of the car’s value even allowing for falling used car values. That’s just my opinion though, and I don’t have any knowledge of the cost of parts / labour and materials that would be needed for repairs.
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@SRGTD it was what I meant. I've seen many cars get categorised for very minor damage, even with strong values. Namely an E46 M3 with similar front end hit but with less damage than @oryx3dr’s car.
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I spoke to my local VW and they indicated that I could be looking at around £4,000 if they were to do the work, this was based entirely on the pictures that I provided but seems absolutely ludicrous to me. So I've decided to go down the insurance route purely for simplicities sake. I managed to get the car back to me yesterday and it really doesn't look that bad but I just want it back on the road as soon as I can so seems the easiest and most cost efficient way.
Thank you everyone for your help and insight though, very much appreciated! Hopefully won't be too long until it's all sorted :cry:
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You'll be surprised quite how much that costs to repair.
The 4k doesn't sound unlikely tbh.
The bumper alone will probably cost upwards of 1500 quid once its been sprayed...
I'd use your insurance - sure your premiums will go up for 5 years, but I doubt if the increase over that time will amount to what this is likely to cost to fix.
Protected no claims btw won't help you much - the discount to the premium will still be applied but the actual claim will still be factored into the premium.
Its a pain in the butt and I feel for you :cry:
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Protected no claims btw won't help you much - the discount to the premium will still be applied but the actual claim will still be factored into the premium.
If you don't have protected NCD the claim is taken into account AND you lose two years of no claims. There is a benefit to it, but I take your point that it needs to be weighed up against the cost each year.
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Car has been with the insurance provided bodyshop for 2 weeks now and still 0 progress has been made. Repairs have been authorised over a week ago yet they claim to 'still be waiting for parts'. Chased them on this several times and are apparently due in either tomorrow or Thursday at the LATEST.
What a bloody nuisance. Given an MG3 as a courtesy car and I can honestly say it's the biggest heap of scrap I've ever sat in. I'd list everything wrong with it but it'd be easier to tell you what's right with it... nothing. Nothing is right with it.
Hopefully once parts arrive it shouldn't take too many hours to get it back on the road, has to be sent offsite for a radar recalibration for a day. Fingers crossed it should be returned by next week.
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Was thinking of you on Sunday as I passed a newly killed deer lying on the hard shoulder of slip road to the M9.
I try to put the risk of deer and other drivers to the back of my mind and get on with enjoying my GTI but there is no doubt we all drive around “on a wing and a prayer” as far as accidents are concerned.
Your experience with the MG is interesting. So many of them around.
How to defile the legacy of a once iconic name!
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Not much chance of Golf owners defecting to MG3’s then?! 😁
Hopefully the bodyshop get their arses in gear.
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Hit a deer a couple of years ago in my GTi. Luckily it was mainly cosmetic damage that I managed to rectify via eBay.
Had my second deer on the way home from a night shift last week. Was in the Up! this time though. There was a loud bang as it ran into the side of the car and I was expecting a huge dent. Checked later in the day and all there was was a chip on the rear bumper and a tooth in the tyre wall!
Hope you get it sorted soon
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Was thinking of you on Sunday as I passed a newly killed deer lying on the hard shoulder of slip road to the M9.
I try to put the risk of deer and other drivers to the back of my mind and get on with enjoying my GTI but there is no doubt we all drive around “on a wing and a prayer” as far as accidents are concerned.
Your experience with the MG is interesting. So many of them around.
How to defile the legacy of a once iconic name!
Thankfully I have an alibi for Sunday so I can't be held accountable for that one :grin:
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How are you getting on?
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Due to get it back next Thursday after endless chasing with the garage. I ended up getting £75 compensation out of them due to a very dirty courtesy car and poor communication from the garage, which I suppose is something
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Well the car is allegedly due to be returned this Thursday, I've just checked out the progress portal and it still hasn't updated since the 18th so I have 0 faith that I'll be seeing the car this week.
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Hang in there!
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The car is back at last, a day later than was promised with no apology given. Repair wise everything seems fine although there’s been no attention to detail. I was told the car would be machined polished before being handed back however it doesn’t look like this has been done. There is small white scratches in various places, these could’ve been there before but not to my knowledge. The driver side floor mat had moody boot marks from where it had been moved around, I would’ve expected these to have been cleaned and paper protectors put down.
All in all a really terrible experience, at least the car is back now but paying the excess was a bitter pill to swallow.
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Just caught up with this thread. Sounds like a bad experience all round, always annoying when you have a no-fault accident. The initial accident was just "one of those things" unfortunately, but the 'insurance approved body shop' clearly made it worse. Not the first time I have heard such stories of terrible communication and poor workmanship from approved body shops. I would always push for at least two approved centres, including the one used my the local main VW dealer. Then research both online if you have no info on them. Once you go insurance route, press for the one with the best reputation as it doesn't then matter to you whether the final bill is £3 or £4k. Glad you finally got it sorted anyway.