one week in and crashed it.

[spiderbarks]

One week to the day since I picked up my new VRS SE.

Washed, polished and detailed it. Got it looking immaculate inside and out.

Was in stop start traffic in a massive tailback on the motorway, and in a stupid lapse of concentration introduced it into the guy in front's tow bar. Was only doing about 4mph, so the damage isn't monumental by any means, just absolutely gutted that my new pride and joy got a battle scar so early on in our relationship.

Waiting to see if they guys going to claim massively and I'll have to put it through insurance or whether I can foot the bill sensibly, so my question is this:

Damage to mine is the lowest part of the bumper needs replacing, including the lowest part of the grill. All the rest is fine.

What's your best guess on how much that'd cost to get done, and if there's anywhere near Gloucester you can recommend through past experience.

Cheers in advance, and remember - if you're moving forwards, keep your eyes pointing the same way.

It's been years since I've had a knock in a car, my driving is normally impeccable. Grrrr.

[vzo25]

My local spray shop charges£60 for a door to be sprayed. So as its lower part of bumper i would say less.

Sorry i dont know anyone gloucester way

I cant imagine at that speed they wouldnt have any damage to their car esp if you hit towbar. So why the need to go through insurance?

[troggles]

ahh nightmare but accidents do happen and just shows you how easy

 

Did you manage to take picture of any damage to his vehicle, imagine tow bar took the biggest hit.

[spiderbarks]

Cheers for the reply buddy.

Annoyingly it creased the lower part of their boot. It was a Zafirra, and left a line just under their number plate. The guy shares a unit with a panel beater so said he might be able to sort something. We'll see.

As for mine, the towbar went through the lower grill, and bent the lowest, front most part of the bumper. Got no idea about bodywork so don't know if that's a repair or replace kind of deal.

[AshVrs]

£250 mate I think to put that right. Bit of fettling to the bumper and a respray. That price would be at what I would class as a reputable body shop that does body repairs for main dealers etc.

I recently had a rear bumper resprayed which I bought of eBay and paid just over £200. That price was echoed by 2 other repair shops in derby as well. The job was spraying a solid, tatty/quite heavily scratched, red VRS bumper, silver to go on my car. I had mine done at Wrights in derby that do a fair amount of jobs for mazda and subaru.

sent from my Galaxy Note 4

[spiderbarks]

Thanks Ash.

Sounds reasonable.

Quote shopping on Tuesday it is....

[vzo25]

Cheers for the reply buddy.

Annoyingly it creased the lower part of their boot. It was a Zafirra, and left a line just under their number plate. The guy shares a unit with a panel beater so said he might be able to sort something. We'll see.

As for mine, the towbar went through the lower grill, and bent the lowest, front most part of the bumper. Got no idea about bodywork so don't know if that's a repair or replace kind of deal.

Hes sounds a reasonable chap. tbf

Lets hope you can both come up with a sensible agreement.

Update this thread when you have a conclusion be nice to know the outcome.

[AshVrs]

No probs hope it is of some use for you gauge what a decent quote looks like.

Bit of a mine field I've always found when body shop hunting. A cheap job is not always a good thing where car paint work is concerned.

Without teaching you to suck eggs, make sure you are clear on what they are going to do in terms of the repair as they won't necessarily tell you.

If I were you I would want the whole bumper respraying off the car (especially for £200-£250). This wouldn't necessarily have to be done, they could do a more than good repair just by doing a smart (small to medium area repair technique) repair on the damaged bit. My preferance would be though to get the whole bumper done, as if there are any stone chips at all on the bumper, the repaired area will stand out like a sore thumb.

sent from my Galaxy Note 4

[FromTheDarkness]

Cant you get a used bumper, maybe check the parts for sale, usually few getting broken. I would be more concerned over the price they quote for theirs, and hope no whip lash claim 

[spiderbarks]

Will do VZO. He did seem like a perfectly reasonable bloke. No anger, no cursing, just wanted to get on his way. Felt worse that I'd got his week holiday off to a hit start.

FTD, I did have a shift or through the parts for sale section, and eBay but the only stuff and could find would also need spraying blue to match, so if a repair is possible to the one I've got I guess that'll be cheaper.

And yes, my plan was to wait and see what he comes up with (after he gets back next week). If he's looking to get a full repair and respray that'll cost loads, I'll just get mine done too on insurance and take the hit on my premium next year.... If he can get it done for around £200 then I'd look to get mine done as well, which is why I was looking to get a ballpark figure on how much to pay having never had to have work done before.

Ash, appreciate all the time you've taken to reply buddy. For no clue on this sort of thing, so it's good to have a basic grasp of what to expect, appreciate it.

[spiderbarks]

Excuse all the typos, autocorrect is a pig. English is my first language, honest!

[AshVrs]

I've been in a similar boat mate and we all have to start learning somewhere!

The main thing is don't worry about it, what will be will be and just put it down to experience. These things happen all the time, I commute up and down the M1 everyday and if it is any consolation I must see something like this happens at least once a week on my commute between derby and Milton Keynes.

sent from my Galaxy Note 4

[SEVrs]

One week to the day since I picked up my new VRS SE.

Washed, polished and detailed it. Got it looking immaculate inside and out.

Was in stop start traffic in a massive tailback on the motorway, and in a stupid lapse of concentration introduced it into the guy in front's tow bar. Was only doing about 4mph, so the damage isn't monumental by any means, just absolutely gutted that my new pride and joy got a battle scar so early on in our relationship.

Waiting to see if they guys going to claim massively and I'll have to put it through insurance or whether I can foot the bill sensibly, so my question is this:

Damage to mine is the lowest part of the bumper needs replacing, including the lowest part of the grill. All the rest is fine.

What's your best guess on how much that'd cost to get done, and if there's anywhere near Gloucester you can recommend through past experience.

Cheers in advance, and remember - if you're moving forwards, keep your eyes pointing the same way.

It's been years since I've had a knock in a car, my driving is normally impeccable. Grrrr

 

I live not too far away and can highly recommend the guys just off the A38 near Slimbridge for bodywork repairs. We had serious damage ot the rear offside of our Merc last year and they did an immaculate repair job for very reasonable money.  I think they were called Dursley Prospect Autobodies, and should be in the phone book.

[spiderbarks]

Not to give away too many personal details or owt, but that literally couldn't be any closer!

Smashing, I'll drop in and have a word on Tuesday. Cheers pal.

[ste372]

Same thing happened to me recently car rolled into car in front literally 1mph no damage to either car what so ever. Guy jumps out clutching his neck got a whiplash claim going on. Insurance are fighting it tooth and nail.

Thing is I see the guy regular I'm almost tempted just to slam on next time he's behind me and get my own back. So frustrating.

[spiderbarks]

For anyone that's interested:

 

Took it to the local indie bodyshop (cheers SEVrs), he wasn't confident of a repair looking decent so recommended a replacement of the bumper. After speaking to Skoda his quote for replacing/respraying the whole bumper (apparently it's one massive piece), and the number plate surround was £550.

 

With the expectation that the guy I hit would probably be looking at the same, the call the the insurance company was made :( Not looking forward to the premium hike in October.

 

It's been booked in for next Thursday to have the work done (as above), plus the chap at the insurer's repair centre said the a/c radiator needed replacing too as it was damaged (although I'm fairly sure this was old damage, but - not complaining).

 

Now the only decision is, do I pay an additional £450 and get the bonnet sanded back and resprayed, and all four wheels refurbed at the same time. With all that done, there'd be very little coosmetic damage anywhere on the car....... sorely tempted!

[giandougl]

One week to the day since I picked up my new VRS SE.

Washed, polished and detailed it. Got it looking immaculate inside and out.

Was in stop start traffic in a massive tailback on the motorway, and in a stupid lapse of concentration introduced it into the guy in front's tow bar. Was only doing about 4mph, so the damage isn't monumental by any means, just absolutely gutted that my new pride and joy got a battle scar so early on in our relationship.

Waiting to see if they guys going to claim massively and I'll have to put it through insurance or whether I can foot the bill sensibly, so my question is this:

Damage to mine is the lowest part of the bumper needs replacing, including the lowest part of the grill. All the rest is fine.

What's your best guess on how much that'd cost to get done, and if there's anywhere near Gloucester you can recommend through past experience.

Cheers in advance, and remember - if you're moving forwards, keep your eyes pointing the same way.

It's been years since I've had a knock in a car, my driving is normally impeccable. Grrrr.

If you declare this to your insurers then you become a statistic and that say's,  you are now a liability to have a second bump which may/could effect your premium, whether protected NCBonus or not.

Say nothing, grin and bear the financial burden, get the job done, and be more careful in the future, let this be a warning, eh?

[hutchysrs50]

Will the car not be insurance write off repaired then also?

Dropping the value of the car drastically.

As said, pay up and fix it yourself if you can, £500 is a lot of money and not everyone has it sitting around in case things like this happen. At the end of the day that's what you pay insurance for.

[DanHarper]

Will the car not be insurance write off repaired then also?

Dropping the value of the car drastically.

As said, pay up and fix it yourself if you can, £500 is a lot of money and not everyone has it sitting around in case things like this happen. At the end of the day that's what you pay insurance for.

 

It'll be a write off if they write it off, but they wouldn't write off a vRS for £500 unless it was galactic miles let alone an SE.

[spiderbarks]

Will the car not be insurance write off repaired then also?

Dropping the value of the car drastically.

As said, pay up and fix it yourself if you can, £500 is a lot of money and not everyone has it sitting around in case things like this happen. At the end of the day that's what you pay insurance for.

 

No, it won't be CATC or D if that's what you mean. It's just a standard repair. I'll obviously keep the documents and inform any new owner 'cos I'm an honest guy, but nothing will show up officially. I believe that's only the case if the insurers declare it uneconomical to repair, and give you the value of the car as settlement, rather than repair it. At that point you can offer to buy it back.

 

Regarding claiming - it would have been around £1k. although i could have covered it, my best guess is that the excess + raised premiums for three years won't come to that much. It was a fiscal decision, not one through necessity.

[hutchysrs50]

Yeah I mean cat D or C.

I'm a little confused then really. You crashed the car and are going through insurance to repair it, so it should technically be a cat D repaired car now?

That's just my thinking anyway, I know little to nothing about how it all works through insurance.

[spiderbarks]

I'm unsure of the technical difference between the two, but to be cat C or cat D the car must first be "written off" by the insurer.

What that means is that in their opinion, the car would cost more to repair than it's worth (ie you get panel damage to the whole car, and it's a 1994 fiesta with 300k miles on the clock.

Cost to repair = thousands.

Cost to replace vehicle like for like = 300 quid.

So in that case they'd write it off, and just give you the money to replace the car.

It would be registered as such.

However, say your mum gave birth to you in it, and it had huge sentimental value, you could buy it back, repair it, and put it back on the road (at huge expense).

It'd then be legal, but a cat c/d repaired.

In my case the cost of repair is less than the value of the car, so it's not written off, it's just repaired.

And that's pretty much it. They just fix it.

[DanHarper]

Yeah I mean cat D or C.

I'm a little confused then really. You crashed the car and are going through insurance to repair it, so it should technically be a cat D repaired car now?

That's just my thinking anyway, I know little to nothing about how it all works through insurance.

 

If the car is repaired by the insurance company then its just that, repaired.

 

If the car is written off it will be Cat A/B/C/D.

 

Cat C and D can then be purchased, either by the original owner or someone else through CoPart for example, and then repaired. These cars will be Cat C/D repaired, a fact that should be declared when selling the car.

 

The categories only apply to cars that are written off by the insurers, in the case of D/C because of cost (not always just the cost of the repairs, but includes hire car cost to date and future etc.). There is nothing for cars that are deemed economically repairable by the insurance and repaired.

[DRJ]

... if there's anywhere near Gloucester you can recommend through past experience....

 

I see you've sorted what you're doing now but I found my front bumper damaged (cracked underneath) just after buying the car so WInners, Cinderford arranged for it to be repaired at no charge. Good job done too though I don't know where.

 

Wave when you drive past me one day!