Learn from my mistake so you dont make it

[DSLiverpool]

Missus stuffed her car into a low wall round our garden, cracked a bumper and pushed a wing.
Bugger but ok these things happen will get a quote, on moving it the geometry was out so a slightly bigger job than thought but no drama.

Our insurance has a £1k excess, body shop quoted £600 and they took it to a garage who quoted £300 for new track road end and steering something.

Bodyshop went to collect it and its not right, o/s wheel pointing in n/s wheel straight on - garage saying could be leg, top mount, bottom mount or hub - £1500

Bodyshop call me and ask what do I want to do, I have been to see it today and its obviously sick, I tell the bodyshop to get a garage to say exactly whats knackered and we take it from there - the work the bodyshop has done is excellent but I cant drive it or sell it with knackered geometry.

I thought about selling it to WBAC or similar but my honesty gets in the way

Please learn from this as I have, next time its insurance all the way.

[mehball]

£1k excess?

I always go for £0 excess. It only adds like £30 onto the yearly premium which is nothing considering.

Edited by mehball on Monday 10th November 10:44

[liner33]

You can still claim on insurance if you wanted to.

I know its not a car but we had a water leak in the kitchen and started to sort out the repairs ourselves but found there was lots of extra work needed so contacted the insurers and they took the rest of it on with no problems at all

[RTBmotorsport]

Your mistake isn't not using your insurance company. It's not using the right bodyshop/garage. Geo checks should always be carried out first, before any bodywork is undertaken.

[DSLiverpool]

liner33 said:

You can still claim on insurance if you wanted to.

I know its not a car but we had a water leak in the kitchen and started to sort out the repairs ourselves but found there was lots of extra work needed so contacted the insurers and they took the rest of it on with no problems at all

Spent £1k then would need to pay £1k excess when it may just be a lower arm (£150) - they are getting a suspension expert to look at it - not paid anything yet.

[Sheepshanks]

I'm really miffed that LV= put mandatory £100 excess on my car (Merc) although it's £0 on wife's. Both have guaranteed NCB.

Who knows what the best thing to do is, but if either of us does have an at-fault prang, I don't want to be faffing around with it and I'd be miffed enough the bump without also having to lay out a chunky excess.

[DSLiverpool]

RTBmotorsport said:

Your mistake isn't not using your insurance company. It's not using the right bodyshop/garage. Geo checks should always be carried out first, before any bodywork is undertaken.

Your right, my mistake was trusting someone he bodyshop trusted now we have both learnt a lesson.

[mcflurry]

On the other hand, many people wouldn't make claim for less than a few £100, so it keeps the premium a bit lower.

[supermono]

High excess plus separate excess cover is cheaper. Risk being if your claim isless than excess won't get covered yet might be 1k

[supermono]

mehball said:

£1k excess?

I always go for £0 excess. It only adds like £30 onto the yearly premium which is nothing considering.

Edited by mehball on Monday 10th November 10:44

That's not true, hundreds can be saved on some car/age/values and excess insurance is circa 50 quid

[speedking31]

mehball said:

£1k excess?

I always go for £0 excess. It only adds like £30 onto the yearly premium which is nothing considering.

You think insurance companies offer that cover out of the goodness of their hearts? Or on average you would be better off with the lower premium and a high excess?

[DSLiverpool]

Ive told them to use breaker parts, swap the lot over - its only meccano right? and I will sell it to one of the car buying services.

[EU_Foreigner]

The excess on my policy worked out that if you did not make a claim in 5 years, you would have saved the £1k excess in premium savings.

The premium worked out at about 20% of the excess.

[Adrian E]

Even going through insurance approved repairers can be a nightmare - had a car come back from a minor-ish self imposed knock by the Mrs with the chassis leg pointing at the floor. A 4 page list of faults after 'repair' backed up by an insurance assessor visiting the car to confirm - resulted in it being stripped again by a different repairer to find school boy error of not jigging the car to check it was straight before fitting new panels. When original repairer realised all was not well they decided to cut the mounts off the panels rather than straigten the chassis leg.

Jigging any car before replacing bent panels should, as said above, be the default first task but not universally applied unfortunately.