GolfGTIforum.co.uk
General => General discussion => Topic started by: mookie on 01 June 2006, 18:51
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So I was just writing in another thread this morning, about the charva idiots that seem to be attracted like flies to my car. And then this afternoon, one drove into it.
Awesome.
Sitting at the lights on Percy Street in Newcastle, not moving, lights go green and a guy behind me in his red Nissan Primera just drives straight into my rear.
(http://static.flickr.com/48/158096230_6a860e6a0b.jpg)
(http://static.flickr.com/61/158096229_a22c203ee9.jpg)
As you can see, the bumper is buggered, aside from the massive dent in it and small split, it's also now hanging on for it's dear life on the right hand side (he hit me more towards the left). What I'm more pissed off about is the large dent he's also put into the bodywork just above the bumper, below the H in my reg number.
Now this is where it gets complicated. Only a few months ago, a lady gently rear ended me (ooooer) outside the Metrocentre. I only went to the bodyshop yesterday and got an estimate of £340 for a new bumper and the sparaying of it to match the car underneath. The damage on that was almost unnoticable. Then today, this happens... But what has got me worried is that the insurance people at Norwich Union say it comes up as a possible 'Total Loss' due to the age and miles on the clock. Something about that kicking in, if the repairs amount to more than 65% of the cars value. Now I paid £1000 for mine, and I know they go on Autotrader for way less (and alot more too). So what I'm worried about is that the second repair estimate will be end up exceeding the originally quoted £340 for the bumper and put me seriously out of pocket as a result as the car gets written off and I end up having to pay extra to just buy a replacement. :angry:
Has anyone else had a similar thing happen? Any ideas how much an insurance company would value an H reg GTi with 132,000 miles on it?
Bugger bugger bugger bugger.
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You can ask them if they'll consider a quote from a repairer of your choice and some company's will allow the repair to be carried out using second hand parts to keep the cost down. If they do write it off it will be an uneconomical repair and you may be able to buy the car back as part of the settlement (I think its about 10 % of the offer they make to you) and get it repaired yourself. If it was me I'd have a good think about it because if it is safe to drive until you get the insurance money to pay for the repair it mite be less hassle than having to find another car, the only other thing to consider is that it mite by recorded as a cat C write off but I wouldn't let that bother me. Good luck I hope you get the result your after :smiley:
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Any ideas how much an insurance might value my car though? I suspect it will be way less than the £1000 I paid...
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That sucks man.. so he just drove right into you? What a pillock. Hope you gave him a mouthfull.
Also hope his cheap-ass nissan came off worse. :)
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His bumper was hanging off and both headlights were smashed. Not much consolation though.
What pissed me off was his knuckleheaded passenger who kept saying "Divn't worry mate. Them bumpers are only ten quid from a scrap yard." :angry: I sooooo wished I'd had the quote for £340 with me to replace the same bumper...
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Never trust a chavs cost estimation when it comes to bodywork... by "only a tenner from a scrapyard" he was talking about the petrol money to drive to the scrapyard and nick one.
Whats your insurance company?
shame Martin isnt around he could probably give you a good idea of how much they'll offer you... only a ballpark figure though i doubt he works at the same company you have your insurance with.
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They'll probaby offer you around £500 for it as a first offer. THey'll also take your excess of that when they pay it to you.
I had a similar situation with a mini some time ago. THey wrote it off for bent wing, broken grill and smashed headlight. I paid £3k for the car and they offered me £800. In the end I got the car and £650 off them. Got it repaired for half that money and laughed my way to the bank for once getting one over an insurance company without breaking the law.
I would really recommend buying your car back, you know the car and you know what's up with it. If you buy another one you're into unknown teritory again.
I offer this tips if you decide to keep it.
1) Get it checked out by a local garage you trust to find out exactly what needs repairing so you know what you need to do.
2) DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSATANES ACCEPT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES FIRST OFFER. It will be cheeky and it will be crap. Send the cheque back with a stroppy letter and examples of adverts of cars that are an acceptable replacemnt for yours. FIght them until you get your £1000K or your car back and some cash for your own repair.
3) DO NOT LET THEM HAVE YOUR CAR. They may try and take it away from. THe car is legally yours until you cash any settlement cheque. If they write it off don't let them get hold of it until you are happy with how the claim has been settled, if they take it sayingit's theirs they are lying and you could report them for theft.
4) Ask for help here if they give you grief, plenty of people round here have had to go through all this and can help you along.
Finally consider buying th car back even if you are getting another one. You will no doubt get more money from breaking the car and selling the parts than you will have to pay for it.
And lastly, it doens't look that bad. A second hand bumper, some good at panel beating and filler skimming and a quick blow over should see you sorted for only a couple of hundred quid.
NIck
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Cheers Horny, good reply that made me feel a bit better about it all. TBH at this point I'm half way between going on a mad murder rampage and crying me eyes out :cry: I was dead proud of it too, as I'd spent all day yesterday washing and polishing it up for a trip to see my girlfriend in York tomorrow.
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if you go on auto trader and print of some of the really expensive ones that are similar spec to your car if you think they are guna ovffer below value, obviously they can look for themselfs, but if u show them u know whqt ur talkin about you stand mroe chance, and push them for all they'r worth, they'lltry to get out of everyhing, i've been pushin mine for a year now!
Also, and idea would be to print off some threads, for immac show cars! least you can show them top end, they don't know!!! :smiley: good luck with it!!! :)
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ouch looks expensive.. hope you get it sorted!!
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I think I'm getting settled on the idea of getting my own bumper and sorting out the repairs for the rest myself if the only alternative is to write off the car. I'll have to see what happens at the bodyshop first, but it looks like a pretty realistic alternative at the moment. Fit it myself, get it sprayed the right colour and have the bent bashed out. I've already been offered one potential GTi bumper, but I may end up procuring one from these boards instead...
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you could always get the bumper from a scrappy and then get it sprayed, or just get a black one form the scrapp
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Forgive the stupid question, but whats the crack with scrap yards? Should I ring them up from the Yellow Pages and just ask if they have Mk2 bumpers or what? Or should I do a crawl round all the local ones and see what they have on offer. They seem like pretty scary places to me... :shocked:
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try ringing first as you could spend all day burrowing around in one, but then again, that is all the fun
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Assuming that your boot floor is still straight, and the gaps on the rear doors are as they were, then this is approx a 10 hour repair.. thats £250.00 at £25 per hour, £100 materials, and the price of a new bumper, plus VAT.. your going to be somewhere around £600 in total, thats allowing £200 for a new bumper (I don't know how much they are) that would put it beyond economical repair!
I would ask the insurance company, because of the type of car, and the problems replacing it for another one, if they could send out their engineer to view the car (speak to him personally) with the possibility of repairing it for a contract figure, as the damage is only cosmetic, and of course you locating a second hand bumper to keep costs down,. you may even be able to save the one you've got! just remove the bent steel backing, and replace with a straight one, after giving the plastic cover some heat to get it back into shape
Try and avoid the "buy the car back" route, you'll be buying back a write off!
90% of all the Insurance companies that I deal with, are very accommodating to this type of repair, ie, you should get somewhere with it! just be extra nice to the engineer, and the garage that the car would be inspected at!
Hope this helps!
Tom
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Went through the phone book on Friday and the closest I got to locating a Mk2 big bumper was a 20mile wild goose chase to a scrappy who couldn't tell the difference between a Mk2 and Mk3 :angry:
I'm pretty much resigned to getting the cheque and driving a Cat C/D write off. Ho hum. Car's due in on Tuesday for a check up so I'll know more then I hope.
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i really ope it works in your favour, luckily a yeasr ago tomorrow i wrote off my 106 (some guy in a scooby did) and it woked in my favour, cos the damage to car gave me enuff money cover car (was for sale at the time) and tey reckoned i'd get £125 for it to sell it cat C, i sold it Cat C for 525, plus the 500 insurance gave me for ca, i bought, taxed, mot, vic checked my current golf!
hope it goes i your favour!
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Sorry to hear of your troubles matey! Know how you feel :cry:
A new rear bumper from German Swedish & French Car Parts is about £45 inc. vat. They aren't a bad fit either. A VAG one will set you back over £200!
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(Famous last words, I know...) ...but I love my Golf so much I can't really see myself thinking about selling it so the write-off scenario is something I'm becoming less and less bothered by. Even if I decided to get another/better Golf, I'd just keep it and 'give' it to my girlfriend who has a rather tired Corsa at the moment. Aside from the buggered bumper and the odd tiny spot of rust in the usual places, it's a totally sound car (fingers crossed).
Just as you say *han*, if it does come to it and they do just send a cheque for the value of the car, I'll almost certainly buy it back, get it fixed for less (I'm sure I can find a bumper for less than the £200+ quoted by the bodyshop during the week), and spend the rest on doing all the jobs on it I want to but haven't the funds for at the moment (new backbox for one).
Of course I'd be chuffed to bits if they just cough up and fix it for me :smug:
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you can agree a settlement with the insurance cmpany in which they pay you, but do not take the car, this is what happened with me. Luckily (or unluckily) the guy who came to assess my car, was also dealing with my dads written off ww2 jeep which he rolled! :grin: so when i aske him, i was cheeky, i pushed him for more money (which he didn't do - but you should always ask) and i got to keep the car, even if u break it and sell it yoursellf, or restore it.
not that my opinion is overly important, but my 106 was cat D when i bought it, i don't think the cat d/cat c can deteriorate the value of a car that much, especilly on older cars. obviously you dont want something that is badly damaged, but a lot of t he time hey writ them ff cos it's easier than them paying for the repairs! make sure you get them for as mmuch as you can, i tod them i wasn't happyy with them repairing the car and that i wwanted to do it myself (sold it)
keep us informed!
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I don't know whether I'm being misinformed, but if I did decide to buy my car back as a write off, would the insurance premiums be higher, or would I struggle to get insurance at all when it needs renewed? I'm with Norwich Union, and they've offered to sort out the repairs/claim for me rather than me pursuing the other drivers insurance company myself - I pay my excess and then claim it back later on. A work colleague has mentioned that this will therefore go down as a claim on my own policy, and combined with a potential cat c/d write off I could end with a serious increase in my premium :sick:
Everything looked so rosy and fun when I passed my test. Reality seems a lot grimmer right now...
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The way it works with insurance is that it will be a claim on your policy until the bloke who hit your's insurance cough up and pay your company the cost of the claim, the last time someone hit me my insurance waved the excess as it was obviously not my fault and claimed it straight off the other blokes insurance. As for insuring a cat C write off it mite be worth asking your insurance what their policy is in cases like this but I wouldn't have thought it would be a big deal as the car would be an economical write off and not due to the amount of damage as a result of the accident. With the cost of repairs carried out by authorized repairers I would have thought that most company's insure cat C write offs, the fact is that the only thing that makes a car Cat C write off or uneconomical repair is the huge expense involved in using the insurance approved repair company's. I had a car repaired after being hit from behind and the cost of the insurance approved repair shop was more than twice as much as the price I had from a bloke I used to respray bits of the same car before the accident, if you really do want to hold onto the car then you've gotta stick to your guns and make sure your insurance know what you want from them after all you pay there wages :wink:
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unfortunatly with insurance you are seen as "guilty until proven innocent" so the claim will be held as fault until your insurers make a full recovery from the third patry's insurers.
Insuring a cat c write off does not normally incur any extra premium with us (although do check with your own insurer) but some of our underwriters may ask for a fresh mot and should the vehicle be involved in another accident it will be valued even lower having been declared as a previous write off.
Best of luck mate, as others have said, dont accept the first offer and send pictures/adverts of similar cars at enthusiast prices eg from magazines etc
I dont really deal with the claims side of things but let me know if you need to know anything else, hope this helps a bit..... :smiley:
Martin
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just looked into this a bit more for you and a cat c write off is described as:
"described as major damage (eg kinked roof), such vehicles can be repaired by a qualified repairer using a jig, specialist tools and full workshop facilities"
so looking at the pictures i cannot understand why they are classing it as a cat c. Most of our underwriters will actually require an engineers report when insuring a category C write off stating that the vehicle has been repaired to a good standard and is safe to use on the road. From the damage pictured i would expect it to be a Cat D write off which is described as:
"best described as DIY repair, vehicles in this category only require external panels. The chassis, front crossmembers and steering are all unaffected"
Sounds more like it to me, we would insure a cat D with just a copy of the V5 and MOT certs.
Hope this information is usefull/makes sense, keep me posted how you get on.... :smiley:
Martin
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Yeah that's really useful actually as the previous definitions and advice I've had has been a little more vague than that when it came to the various catergories of w/o's. The lady I spoke to at Norwich Union mentioned either C or D depending on the damage, but on this and one or two other things was extremely vague indeed.
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Quick Update:
Just back from the bodyshop/repair centre. Had a really pleasant chat with the assessor fella, who'd owned a couple of GTi himself in the past. Said mine was in good condition and quite a nice looking example to boot :smiley:
Bad news is that he estimated the cost to repair at around the £800-900 mark (sounds excessive to me) although he couldn't give any sort of exact figure due to the unknown cost of the bumper, and that based on the mileage and reg of the car it would be likely to be written off.
Good news was that he said it wasn't a foregone conclusion and that he has known companies to sometimes raise the boundary for repairs as high as 85% of the total value of the vehicle before writing them off. I'll find out within a couple of days he reckoned, so fingers crossed.
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Good luck mate, I hope you get the result you want :smiley:
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good luck!
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As I said in my last post, go for a "contract repair", making sure that the car doesn't get put on the hit list! basically they will offer you a max amount, that they are prepared to pay, its then up to you to get the job done.. they might also insist that the car goes for an mot test before paying the bill!!! so if theres anything dodgy that you might have on your car, make sure its sorted..
Tom
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iirc
Cat D is economic repair
Cat C is uneconomic repair
Its Cat C because its £200 for a new bumber and at least another £100+ for a new rear panel. Rear panel needs cutting out and welding back in (as long as the boot is stright as someone else said - which it probably is). Then a rear spray on the rear end which is another £300. The labour will be north of £300 as well. So you are looking at the thick end of a grand to get it done properly. Economic is worked out on 60% of the cars value.
I would get it done properly as well - not this banging it out and then sticking in filler rubbish. The reason is that the rear panel has a curve and you will never get close to what it was originally, and although no one else will notice it - you will notice a huge uneven shut gap where the new bumper meets the bodywork.
If you love the car, get it written off, buy it back, get the back sorted out properly and keep it for the rest of its life.
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iirc
Cat D is economic repair
Cat C is uneconomic repair
Its Cat C because its £200 for a new bumber and at least another £100+ for a new rear panel. Rear panel needs cutting out and welding back in (as long as the boot is stright as someone else said - which it probably is). Then a rear spray on the rear end which is another £300. The labour will be north of £300 as well. So you are looking at the thick end of a grand to get it done properly. Economic is worked out on 60% of the cars value.
I would get it done properly as well - not this banging it out and then sticking in filler rubbish. The reason is that the rear panel has a curve and you will never get close to what it was originally, and although no one else will notice it - you will notice a huge uneven shut gap where the new bumper meets the bodywork.
If you love the car, get it written off, buy it back, get the back sorted out properly and keep it for the rest of its life.
Tinman, Im not being funny, but you must know some pretty poor panel guys that cant repair a small dent like that! with a block of wood and some gentle tapping from the inside with a heavy rubber mallet would almost see that done!... without breaking the paint :laugh:
To suggest cutting out the rear panel, to replace with a new one is madness! to compromise the origional VW autolinked welds, and the sealer, grinding back the boot floor lip to re-spot weld, or even worse to migweld a new panel back, just doesnt make any sense.. you cannot beat VW originality
If Mookie can get the car repaired, without it being "written off" and the car kept as origional as possible.. surely that is the very best thing!
Tom
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Okay update time. Just got off the phone with four different departments in India somewhere... and finally a fifth transfer to a Welsh fella called Alan :laugh:
Anyway, its a mix of good-ish and bad news.
First off, the repair bill has been provided as a (staggering) £1161.51. This roughly breaks down to £220 for a new bumper, £497 for general labour, £171 for paint materials, plus VAT and misc costs. The panel at the back has been costed as requiring cutting out and rewelding a new one in - plus painting it. Seems excessive to me...
It is also now officially considered a Cat C write off - I had expected D instead. :embarassed:
After some haggling and pursuasion, the value of the car has been increased from £800 to £1000 - which is fair I suppose as I paid a grand for mine, and for the milage and age it seems about right I think (although I was lucky to find one like mine for the price I did pay, come to think of it).
Which leaves me two options:
- Take the £1000 and buy another car.
- Take £750 plus the car and get it fixed.
I really can't decide what to do. On the one hand I would like my car repaired and back to how it was, but the hassle that is likely to now be involved in getting it fixed for less than £750 seems offputting - as does the required list of checks and the additional MOT needed (not to mention apparent additional problems with insurance and it's future value if I did decide to sell it on).
My current car is far from perfect, it does have a number of areas I need to look at and sort out. But then again is that not just an excuse to go for a new-used car? :undecided:
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so what they r saying is that the car, as a Cat C is worth £250, so you could theoretically sell the car as is for £250, and ten you would have a grand to play with.
I wqould definitely be tempeted to purchase a new car. With my payou the deal was, the car was valued at £625, they said i could sell the vehicle written off, for £125, so there fore they would pay me £500, which i thought was reasonable, and sold the car for £525.
I'd be tempted to push for mor than £750 darl, and then break ur current golf to fund/fix the new one?
Ball is in your court! :)
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Although your estimate was to include a new rear panel, I very much doubt that it would ever get one fitted!! Its common practice to over inflate the cost of the work, and the amount of work required.. why, this type of repair on an older car is a nuisance to fast turnover body shops, to make up for it they want £500 for a days labour! nice work if you can get it!
personally, if they offered me a grand, I would stick out for another £125 then cut and run!! especially if I still had issues with the car after the work was completed
You can always find a better car, better colour etc
Tom
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Yeah I'm thinking the same way. I'm fairly set now on getting the grand and looking for something else. Basically that way I won't feel bitter and twisted when I look at it and know it's a write-off, I won't have to be hassled with getting it repaired on the cheap and tested/approved, a new-used car will be worth something if I sell it.
At the end of the day, bumper aside, it needs some lovin' anyway to a variety of relatively minor areas that would probably cost me a reasonable amount of money to sort and/or a fair slice of my spare time. Doing that to a kosher car is fine - doing it to a write off leads me to suspect I feel reluctant to part with the cash.
The hard part is going to be tracking down a car I like. 16v is preferred but there seems to be nowt available the right side of £1300 at the moment so I may go 8v instead.
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If it were me I'd buy it back and get it fixed with the money, mite be worth getting a few quotes for cash if you can so at least you'll have some ideal of the cost before you make your mind up :smiley:
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Well after spending the last few days trawling every VW related site and forum I could find on t'internet, I have tracked down and bought a car in record time. I won't be able to pick it up for atleast as week as it was registered on a private plate and it's being re-registered back to it's old one :rolleyes: but it seems to be a beaut so I can't wait. I'll post some pics when I get it, but for now it's a J-reg '91 8v, 3dr, in Tornado Red and I was drooling the moment I clapped eyes on it :laugh:
One last question based on this threads original topic: as my existing car is being written off, does that therefore absolve me of my obligation to my current insurer? I'd quite like to shop about as they're disappointingly sticking to my 16v's premium of £67 a month, despite the fact I'm buying a younger, less powerful car. I tried querying this with the chap in Bombay I got through to at Norwich Union, but I don't think he could understand my Geordie accent and I was probably confusing the poor chap :lipsrsealed:
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i'd ask them for a requote as they shd lower wuote for diff car, or atleast justify why its still the same!! some people wont let u change carson policy (in my case, so cab has to wait) so you may lose a year (or just not gain) 1yrs NCB. Coolie on new car!!
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Thanks, I can't wait to post some pics of it :smug: looks proper lush, like!
I just assumed that if you no longer have the car you are insuring, then you would have some means of ending your policy early. Hmmm. I need to summon up enough patience to brave the Norwich Union phone system and do it sometime tomorrow....
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Well done on the new "find" :smug:
You might find that the best thing to do as regards your existing policy is to let it run its course, this could be 10 months after you took it out.. check if you don't know! and renew your insurance starting from fresh with another company after this period, in theory if your paying monthly, you could cancel at any time, though they might penalize you for doing so!
Before jumping ship though, consider this.. did NU look after you! where you dealt with promptly, and did you think that you got a fair price for you old car, if so, then thats worth paying a few £Â£Ã‚£ extra each month, there are some real shark like companies out there.. you seem happy with the outcome!
Its also worth looking into an "Agreed value" policy, if your new car is worth it.. (no offence intended) it could save a lot of trouble in the future, if the same thing happens again!
Best of luck with the new wheels!
Tom
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I had soooo many probs with Norwich...fine when they want to get your money, the chap on the phone in wherever it was in the uk set it up no worries. As soon as I had a change to the policy, got re-directed to India where the person on the line didn't have a clue what to do, as did his supervisor...totally w*nk service :angry:
I'm with Adrian Flux on thier Beetle scheme, but have had quotes on the MK3 which is £84/year less than the Bug, and £600 less than HIC quoted as I need it for class 1 business use...well worth a try, I've had my Scooby and Fiat Coope through them as well...great service :smiley:
ps...glad you got the Golf sorted :smiley:
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i think there i a clause in your policy where you can end early, but you don't get a yrs NCB and you may have to pay part of the fee remaining! depends on what the clause says! There is a way round it!
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Oh feck me mate NU are bast4rds to get any kind of message across to. I did it like this:
Call the number, wait for the person to answer... Say "Can you put me through to your supervisor please?". When they ask why, say "Can you put me through to your supervisor please?". Repeat as many times as necessary. Eventually, you'll get through to a supervisor, then say "I need to speak to someone who's first language is English please". Again, you may have to repeat yourself a few times.
It's not that I don't like dealing with people who don't speak English as their first language, but I believe that to fully understand your predicament you have to converse with someone in the same country as you are. Good luck!
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new rear bumpers from GSF are like £50!
I'm sure you could pickup a 2nd hand good condition one from ebay or the forums. I'd be tempted to just swap over the bumper and leave the rest until you can afford to get it done. it could be tapped out from inside the boot and then a skim of filler to smooth it down. easy.