Pootling along yesterday round a very icy bend on a hill doing around 15mph, when my Octavia decided that it would understeer towards the edge of a kerb. If i'd been in the Fabia the ESP would have saved me!

End Result is a broken alloy and tyre, bent lower arm and a bent steering rack. Because the wheel moved so far back, it also wrecked the arch liner and even the front wing. Had to pay £350 quid excess and loose no claims. On the other hand I am glad I wasnt hurt.

I just had to pay £312 the other day for a new oil sump after a pothole incident, so this car isn't very lucky for me right now.

The man who recovered it diagnosed all of the above, but told me that there could be further damage.

Does anyone know if the car will be written off?

It's a 1.9TDI DSG Elegance estate with 17k on the clock. I would have attatched a picture but my phone is playing up too :(, but it seems worse since the guy loaded it onto the towing trolley and the wheel is straight. The wheel is so bent back, that when the front right wheel was resting in the trolley, the passenger side was back and raised in the air

I'm sorry to hear about your accident :(

I lost the back end on my new car (I think I over-estimated the weight of the car vs the camber on the roundabout).. I'd only had it 1 day (got it monday, this happened last night) and I nearly died inside.

Although I was lucky in that the roundabout was quite large so didnt hit any pavements.. and I corrected it with no problems

It won't be written off for that little damage.

For what it's worth I suggest you invest in a set of winter tyres for your car and also slow down in general in these conditions.

It won't be written off for that little damage.

For what it's worth I suggest you invest in a set of winter tyres for your car and also slow down in general in these conditions.

It should be getting a new tyre as the existing one was ripped to shreds when it was forced into the wing, should I make the garage put the same one on so they all match, they are Bridgestone Turanzas.

To add insult to injury, I left the parking lights on for one day and now the battery is dead, so I had go through the procedures in the manual for taking the car out of park without power :(

It's getting moved to be repaired shortly, im looking forward to the estimate. After a thorough look today it also looks like the suspension has been moved out of it's mounting also

Nightmare - glad you're ok though.

Doesn't sound like a write-off, especially not given how new it is - more economical to repair than replace so far as the insurers are concerned. Let us know the estimate - shared pain hurts less!!

FWIW ESP wouldn't have saved you as if the bend was covered in ice then ESP can't outdo ht elaws of physics. No grip and it can't save you.

Car got taken to be repaired today, I took some pics of the damage. Hope it doesent take too long as I dont have a courtesy car on my policy. Someone broke my wing mirror while it was parked up too:mad: , good time to get out my bicycle though:thumbup:

Mirror should click back to its original place i would have thought. Or has the mech fubard when it was hit?

Unlucky dude - I am feeling your pain!

Should be fixable though providing you aint bent the chassis, even then it's poss re-jig time before written off.

I've seen worse damage repaired.....

Just to let you all know, I did get my car back, but it wasn't quite right so it's had to go back again:mad:

After colliding with the kerb as described in the op, the following had to be replaced:

Front Left Wheel

Front Left Tyre

New Front wing and door

Sill Repair

Arch Liner

Re-spray of wing and door

Entire new front suspension assembly and Lower Arm

Full 4 wheel alignment

This took like two weeks to fix, and even now it isn't quite right. You always have to steer to the right to go straight and it vibrated on the side it was hit when braking. So now it's had to go back for a new driveshaft also, should get it back by the weekend

I will be avoiding hitting kerbs in the ice in future:D

Sounds like things are getting there.

Did they actually do a 4WA though, if that had been done properly then the car should run straight and need no steering input to go in a straight line.

Sounds like things are getting there.

Did they actually do a 4WA though, if that had been done properly then the car should run straight and need no steering input to go in a straight line.

Yes they did, and what concerns the reapirers with that is that if it's perfect aligned yet still not steering straight it could be chassis damage,

However they liased with both a Skoda mechanic and a direct line assesor and come to the conclusion that it's the drive shaft. Personally I beleive the vibration when braking could be a bent disk, seems to have all the symptoms.

Yes they did, and what concerns the reapirers with that is that if it's perfect aligned yet still not steering straight it could be chassis damage,

However they liased with both a Skoda mechanic and a direct line assesor and come to the conclusion that it's the drive shaft. Personally I beleive the vibration when braking could be a bent disk, seems to have all the symptoms.

I thought all discs were cast, cast doesn't bend, it breaks

I thought all discs were cast, cast doesn't bend, it breaks

I think that you could be right, I think the word or effect i was thinking of is warped like when they get overheated, it's very similar to that (The brake comes and goes as if the pad moves/further closer to the disc). I am just going to have to hope that the driveshaft fixes these problems

I don't know exactly what was done, but if the disc was off the hub, a few grains on the mating face would be enough to give you nasty vibrations under braking. Still, it'll probably have to come off again to change the driveshaft.

The disc could be warped although that would only happen usually through extreme continuous braking from high speeds in a short period of time.

If you were only doing 15mph (im not saying you weren't by the way) then i would be highly surprised that you had damaged the chassis. If the chassis bent at 15mph then i would be questioning Skoda as to why it was so fragile and claim a new car.

I did a similar thing to you a few years ago in a Puma (although not as much damage) and it took almost 4 weeks to get the car right.

Anyway sorry to hear about your mishap and hope all is rectified soon

Carl:thumbup:

The disc could be warped although that would only happen usually through extreme continuous braking from high speeds in a short period of time.

If you were only doing 15mph (im not saying you weren't by the way) then i would be highly surprised that you had damaged the chassis. If the chassis bent at 15mph then i would be questioning Skoda as to why it was so fragile and claim a new car.

I did a similar thing to you a few years ago in a Puma (although not as much damage) and it took almost 4 weeks to get the car right.

Anyway sorry to hear about your mishap and hope all is rectified soon

Carl:thumbup:

I would be suprised too, but tbh im suprised at how much damage has already occured. The wheel pushed into the body far enough to damage the wing and the door, not to mention damage to the sill. Is there some sort of crumple zone or something around that area that could easily have taken the force of the accident?

Is there anyway I can get an independant opinion on whether or not the car has any damage to the underside/chassis?

There are crumple zones etc around the wings to allow the force to dissipate through the car out towards the rear (in a front end accident). As to what extent of pressure they take to crumple i don't know.

You can easily get your car verified by someone else. However if your insurance is paying for this (i'm assuming they are) then they will send an assessor to look at the car if the chassis is damaged as that will write the car off and they will want to make sure they aint paying out unnecessarily

HTH

Carl:thumbup:

I would be suprised too, but tbh im suprised at how much damage has already occured. The wheel pushed into the body far enough to damage the wing and the door, not to mention damage to the sill. Is there some sort of crumple zone or something around that area that could easily have taken the force of the accident?

Is there anyway I can get an independant opinion on whether or not the car has any damage to the underside/chassis?

A good bodyshop should be able to check whether or not the wheels are all in the right places relative to each other by measurement.

Kens right, any good bodyshop should be able to assess it but at the end of the day its an Insurance job, if your not 101% happy just keep sending it back. If they are getting nowhere suggest to the Insurance company that you would like a second opinion at a bodyshop of your choice. (at their expense !!!!) If your part of Planet Earth is anywhere near Eastleigh, Hants I have a friend who runs a bodyshop with a Jig, paying him for a few hours to Jig it should answer all questions re alignment but it wont answer the brake vibration.

A true 4WA should have shown if all 4 driving wheels are in the correct place relative to the others and highlighted if there were any problems with the chassis.

A true 4WA should have shown if all 4 driving wheels are in the correct place relative to the others and highlighted if there were any problems with the chassis.

I thought most four wheel allignements just checked if the wheels were parallel, can it actually check if one wheel is a few mm further back than its opposite number ?

Pretty much likewise. I wouldn't have relied on an alignment check to pick up errors in wheelbase, track width (or cornerweights, but a bodyshop won't check those either).

Car Came back today, a day later than promised

Upon returning the car, the gearbox went funny (PRNDS flashed all at once), reckon the guy that returned it overheated the gearbox (maybe left in D with handbrake on)

The car has not been fixed in anyway, still need to steer right to go straight and the vibration when braking is worse than before.

To top it off now the car doesent start properly, takes about 20 seconds of pumping the accelerator to get the engine to start and the cruise control is intermittent

So, these people have had my car now for over three weeks and have only managed to make it worse than it was before by seemingly breaking it further

I'm sick of this garage:mad:, do I have a right to tell my insurance company that I want to get a proper Skoda dealer to take care of my car

I'm sick of this garage:mad:, do I have a right to tell my insurance company that I want to get a proper Skoda dealer to take care of my car

Yes of course you can. I assume this is one of their authorised repairers work. Tell them that they have already had several goes at sorting it and that you want it sorting elsewhere.