Motors Wo-hoo. I Could Be Looking At A Written Off Car. Joy.

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.





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 60% 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.

 

Dunno about the scratches, but you can go search around for a second hand bumper perhaps and push that dent out yourself? Might be worth a try, although Ive no idea how hard that would be.

If he rear-ended YOU, he pays for it and you just pay the excess, right? You could just try and get an agreement between you that he pays for most of it and you dont go through insurers since it was his fault?

 

Basically I'm getting it looked at and possibly repaired (depending on cost) asap, whereby my insurance company pay for it all minus my excess, and then it's all claimed back from his company later on - rather than piss about for weeks without getting anywhere. So provided the cost isn't considered 'uneconomical' then I won't be out of pocket.

However I suspect the quote I get from the approved repair place may be well over the 60% of it's value - even if the insurance company agree it's worth £1000 (which they won't) it will be dangerously close (since I already had one quote of £340 for just the bumper).

 

Do they have salvage yards over there? why no look there for both parts?

 

The bumper is a possible part to find, but it would need resprayed to the same colour as the bodywork.

The fact that the actual bodywork is dented however means it will need professional attention. Unfortunately it's not on a swappable panel.

 

pull a bumper and a tailgate at a scrappy and have it sprayed. sure it would come to far less than £300.

 

Yeah but it's not the tailgate. It's the actual car body, below the tailgate/boot. Not simply a case of getting a new panel and replacing it - it'll need knocking out and into shape.

 

If you sorted the bumper out I think the dent would be much less noticable anyway. But if you really love your car then I can understand wanting to get it seen to...

 

it mite nt just be a bit a damaged bumper and tail gate that it needs. it could have also damged the teh chassis it self which will mean it need to be streched which is very expensive rember when my dads astra had a rear ender it warped the chassis but teh repair cost was lower the car then value so it gt dne. it can be hard to tell.

 

right i know what you mean about the mark 2 golf...
where are you mookboy? i have a gti bumper YOU CAN HAVE!
i had a golf mk2 but wanted the gti red trim.. so nicked it.. i think its at my parents house in the shed.. ill have a quick check!
now.. if you look in the boot... theres the carpet etc... pull it away.. and if im right you should be able to knock most of the dent out with a bit of wood and a hammer....

its just a matter of filling it and spraying it.. a lot less than 1000 pounds.

edit: that is to say that there isnt a massive chunk of metal there (im going on what i can see in my golf mark 3 now.)

 

If it's a Mk 2 big bumper I'll snap your hand off for it. How much do you want?

As for the dent, I had a check earlier and it's basically directly below the bootlid once open. Looks pretty easy to bash out... for someone that knows what they're doing heh heh.

Seriously though, that bumper, let me know.

 

We have paintless dent repair people here in the US that do stuff like that for 150 USD, do ya'll?

 

It's easy mook, trust me. Get yourself a rubber mallet and just give it a GENTLE tapping and see if it'll come out.
After about half an hour's gentle caressing I got rid of a bump bigger than yours and in almost exactly the same place, on my Punto, it looks perfect.

 

Lighting some scented candles might speed the process up too...

Sorry, I'll go away

 

I've seen worse.
Someone I know had a small knock on his '93 BMW grill. Pushed it in quite badly.
The insurance company considered it a writeoff, but he loved the car so much he asked for them to settle it.

Somehow ended up with £800~ through the post, and no insurance claim/writeoff for him.
He's sorting it out now, as its nothing majorly hard if you can find the bit your after

 

Unlucky dude. At least you're OK at the end of the day, that's the important thing.

It doesn't look to bad from the outside. The paint isn't even cracked. The metal on those things is pretty thick so it might be a job to get the lump out but you should be able to do it.

some insurance companies will give you the option to buy the car back off them if they find it uneconomical to repair, and you get a wad of cash to get it sorted.

as long as the damage only extends to the bodywork and bumper, you should be able to get it sorted. Good luck with it.

 

Thats what I ment

 

first of all get to a doctor about your sore neck

if the insurance company write it off then ask if you can purchase the car from them using the money they give you and repair it with the spare cash you will have left.

 

If they say it is over the 60% price quote, then just get the bumper fixed and leave it.

Mate it doesn't look that bad, you see plenty of old cars with dents in them like that because it would of been a write off.

 

Fair enough, but although it's an old car, it's in far better condition than most cars a third of it's age. Basically I want it back to the way it was, and I'm pretty much accepting the reality that I'm gonna have to probably take a cheque and write it off to do that.