Danno, looked at the pic again and appears you took the pic on the ferry, so did this just happen when you were getting on?
OK OK. Here's the story:
I was setting off on a trip to the Le Mans 24 hour race, with a mate and 3 other Golf R forum members. I get to Newhaven Port, at 11pm. It's dark and rainy and I've never been there before (it's a sh!t hole, backwater of a south coast port).
We are queuing for passport control when my mate, who's in the passenger seat shows me his passport. He's an international development consultant and his passport is literally full. It's full with stamps and visas from Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc etc. I was thinking that was pretty cool. I've only got one poxy stamp from the Cayman Islands!!!
We get to passport control. They look at our passports, then say to us that they'd like a word in the customs shed. We duly drive into this tin shed. The police quiz my mate, actually it was a grilling. They look at my pathetic passport and hand it straight back to me. They want to continue questioning my mate, so tell me to reverse out of the shed and park up in lane 1, while they have a proper chat with my passenger. To remind you it's dark, pissing with rain. The car is full of camping gear and the port is a badly designed mess. I'm also slightly flustered as I'm now thinking we're going to miss this, the last ferry, and not hook up with the other R lads in France in the morning.
The police and port officials keep directing me to go back further. I'm checking my mirrors, wing and rear view, I see nothing. "Keep coming back" they say. "Back further", I lean out of the window and say "more?" They say "yes" and carry on nattering amongst themselves.....BANG! Hidden from my view in that small black spot that is the rear pillar (C pillar I think) is an open gate, only 2 inces wide. This gate is the port gate. It's quite large in height, but very narrow end on. It was completely invisible to me.
All the officers jaws were wide open. I heard one lone voice from the man on the gate as I was getting out of the car to inspect the damage "oh sh!t that's a lot of damage". Silence ensued. You could have heard a pin drop. I was genuinely in shock. I don't make frigging mistakes like that! I was told under duress by the police/customs to do this. I was F'ing furious. I said F@ck out loud as I looked at the damage, but managed to control my anger as it was very likely to make me miss my ferry, and get me arrested. I got back into the car and drove off. Needless to say they didn't stop us or insist on continuing to question my mate!
I phoned my insurance co to see if they could persue a damages claim, as I have legal cover with them and they told me that despite being told to reverse and being guided, it was ultimately my responsibility to check my mirrors! It wasn't in my frigging mirrors! I thought they'd be able to get the CCTV and use that as evidence. They werent bothered.
So here I am paying for the damage to be repaired myself so as to avoid another claim and lose my protected NCB (my mrs had a fault claim in 09 by letting strong winds bend my door back on the GTI)
So here's the good news. The local body shop have told me that they have managed to repair it. No bent bumper bar, and they managed to heat gun out the crease and fill the puncture marks. Apparently, and I'll reserve judgement on this till I've seen it myself, it looks good and it's all back in alignment, primed and ready to be sprayed today. I made sure that I'd cleaned the car spotlessly to make sure they knew it was my pride and joy and hopefully that will have instilled some pride in the people working on it. It looked showroom when I dropped it off yesterday morning ;-)
We shall see. Pics will be posted and the body shop will be named and hopefully praised, not shamed!!
