Damage to car - what to do
Discussion
Hi all,
Hope this is the right place to ask this question. I could not quite think the best way to google this so I hope the combined knowledge here could assist!
Friend of mine was involved in a collision yesterday. They were at fault, no arguing about that. Other party will claim on his insurance and all was amicable and understood.
His car was recovered back to his drive as the steering and suspension mechanisms on the nearside front were damaged, which consists of:
-Bumper - Cracked and hanging off, but can potentially be fitted back temporarily.
-Nearside suspension - Ball-joint sheared from initial inspection.
-Nearside Wing - Twisted/broken.
-C.V Joint - Possibly more steering components, but does not have a jack available to lift and inspect currently.
- Airbags deployed. requiring new trim and replacement bags etc.
Potentially a bit more, as we haven't had a chance to fully inspect yet, I'm going over with a jack and a few stands to help at the weekend. From what he could see however, the chassis has not been twisted and the crash structures are still intact, due to the angle of impact and the relative low speed. Fortunate, but until we can confirm for definite that is still up in the air.
Of course, he will let his insurers know of the incident, which will ensure the other party is covered (ins. co shut at time of incident, I believe he has now done this).
From his side, he now has the car on his drive. It is perhaps worth £2500 maximum, so from an insurance perspective, I am assuming it could be a write-off due to the cost of repair. It's a good condition E46 320D coupe. High-ish mileage, but had a new MOT last week, with new tyres and rear dampers, so until yesterday, was in great shape and had the potential for a good few more years.
the questions I have are thus:
Can you record the accident with the ins. co, but simply not make a claim for any repairs through the company? I assume they may have to automatically perform an assessment of sorts? And if it is written-off, must the car be taken away to then either be bought back, or crushed?
Ideally if the damage is not too great, but too much for an ins. co. to repair, we would happily carry out the repair work ourselves, or alternatively strip the nice bits out, such as the wheels and the interior trim, which are worth a bit on their own and then scrap the rest.
The ideal situation would be that the incident can be registered (for the other party's claim), but no claim to be made for my friend's car; we could then repair ourselves or strip and scrap if the cost of repair is prohibitive. I appreciate that sounds relatively shady, so any advice on that would be really helpful! He wishes to keep the car and keep driving it, as before the incident, it was in excellent shape and has been in his hands for several years, so knows the car very well.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, I've never had an accident before, and neither has he!
Hope this is the right place to ask this question. I could not quite think the best way to google this so I hope the combined knowledge here could assist!
Friend of mine was involved in a collision yesterday. They were at fault, no arguing about that. Other party will claim on his insurance and all was amicable and understood.
His car was recovered back to his drive as the steering and suspension mechanisms on the nearside front were damaged, which consists of:
-Bumper - Cracked and hanging off, but can potentially be fitted back temporarily.
-Nearside suspension - Ball-joint sheared from initial inspection.
-Nearside Wing - Twisted/broken.
-C.V Joint - Possibly more steering components, but does not have a jack available to lift and inspect currently.
- Airbags deployed. requiring new trim and replacement bags etc.
Potentially a bit more, as we haven't had a chance to fully inspect yet, I'm going over with a jack and a few stands to help at the weekend. From what he could see however, the chassis has not been twisted and the crash structures are still intact, due to the angle of impact and the relative low speed. Fortunate, but until we can confirm for definite that is still up in the air.
Of course, he will let his insurers know of the incident, which will ensure the other party is covered (ins. co shut at time of incident, I believe he has now done this).
From his side, he now has the car on his drive. It is perhaps worth £2500 maximum, so from an insurance perspective, I am assuming it could be a write-off due to the cost of repair. It's a good condition E46 320D coupe. High-ish mileage, but had a new MOT last week, with new tyres and rear dampers, so until yesterday, was in great shape and had the potential for a good few more years.
the questions I have are thus:
Can you record the accident with the ins. co, but simply not make a claim for any repairs through the company? I assume they may have to automatically perform an assessment of sorts? And if it is written-off, must the car be taken away to then either be bought back, or crushed?
Ideally if the damage is not too great, but too much for an ins. co. to repair, we would happily carry out the repair work ourselves, or alternatively strip the nice bits out, such as the wheels and the interior trim, which are worth a bit on their own and then scrap the rest.
The ideal situation would be that the incident can be registered (for the other party's claim), but no claim to be made for my friend's car; we could then repair ourselves or strip and scrap if the cost of repair is prohibitive. I appreciate that sounds relatively shady, so any advice on that would be really helpful! He wishes to keep the car and keep driving it, as before the incident, it was in excellent shape and has been in his hands for several years, so knows the car very well.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, I've never had an accident before, and neither has he!
Most impacts that are hard enough to shear balljoints, damage suspension, break driveshafts and set off airbags will be enough to cause distortion to the chassis, which won't always be visible to the untrained eye.
The damage description makes it sound like a front corner impact from the side (did he pull out on someone?) - I'd be surprised if the chassis isn't bent
TBH, his no-claims is going to be hit anyway due to the third party claim, so he might as well claim for his own car while he's there.
The damage description makes it sound like a front corner impact from the side (did he pull out on someone?) - I'd be surprised if the chassis isn't bent
TBH, his no-claims is going to be hit anyway due to the third party claim, so he might as well claim for his own car while he's there.
Nigel_O said:
Most impacts that are hard enough to shear balljoints, damage suspension, break driveshafts and set off airbags will be enough to cause distortion to the chassis, which won't always be visible to the untrained eye.
The damage description makes it sound like a front corner impact from the side (did he pull out on someone?) - I'd be surprised if the chassis isn't bent
TBH, his no-claims is going to be hit anyway due to the third party claim, so he might as well claim for his own car while he's there.
Thanks for the feedback. Definitely, we can see if anything is broken physically, but chassis and such is not my specialism, which is what we wanted to get validated one way or another! From what I understand, he hit the car in front which stopped to avoid a car coming from the right on a roundabout. Error due to not looking and too close to the car in front. Due to the positioning of his car relatively, it hit the corner, at about (although cannot confirm for definite) about 15mph.The damage description makes it sound like a front corner impact from the side (did he pull out on someone?) - I'd be surprised if the chassis isn't bent
TBH, his no-claims is going to be hit anyway due to the third party claim, so he might as well claim for his own car while he's there.
You could be onto a winner there. A shame to write it off, but there's plenty of others about. I wasn't too sure of the process once the write-off (if the case) has been made, can he have the car back in its state, or must it go to a dismantler, and "buy" his car off of them? Thanks again!
gkw90 said:
His car was recovered back to his drive as the steering and suspension mechanisms on the nearside front were damaged, which consists of:
-Bumper - Cracked and hanging off, but can potentially be fitted back temporarily.
-Nearside suspension - Ball-joint sheared from initial inspection.
-Nearside Wing - Twisted/broken.
-C.V Joint - Possibly more steering components, but does not have a jack available to lift and inspect currently.
- Airbags deployed. requiring new trim and replacement bags etc.
It is perhaps worth £2500 maximum
E46 320D coupe. High-ish mileage
It's as dead as a dead thing if insurance gets involved.-Bumper - Cracked and hanging off, but can potentially be fitted back temporarily.
-Nearside suspension - Ball-joint sheared from initial inspection.
-Nearside Wing - Twisted/broken.
-C.V Joint - Possibly more steering components, but does not have a jack available to lift and inspect currently.
- Airbags deployed. requiring new trim and replacement bags etc.
It is perhaps worth £2500 maximum
E46 320D coupe. High-ish mileage
It's a lottery as to whether it goes C or B - I suspect it'd be B, because they'll suspect that there's structural damage. If it's C, he may be able to get them to pay out, less a salvage amount, so he can then kick it straight or break it himself. If it's B, then next stop Copart and he won't be able to bid.
His insurance is already taking the hit, so if it goes C and he can buy it back, then that's a financial no-brainer. Sure, the future value's going to be hit (and hard), but if he's planning on keeping it, that's not terribly relevant anyway.
So the question is whether he fancies playing insurance-assessor roulette. C-and-keep, C-without-buyback, B. Only one of those three outcomes sees him repairing or breaking, although C-without-buyback could see him bid on it at salvage auction. Does he feel lucky? (Obviously today's not a good day for him, but...)
If he's even remotely thinking of changing it in the short-to-medium term future, then save the hassle, and just hand it over now. At the end of the day, it's a leggy late-middle-age diseasel 3-series. It's not exactly unique.
No expert on this, but isn't cat B where the car must not be put back on the road - ie, there has been serious structural damage. It doesn't sound from the description as if this is the case. Cat C is uneconomical to repair damage and no doubt this is what the insurance will go (rather than Cat D). Unfortunately they will not always let you buy salvage back - but remember that the car is yours, they can only take it if you accept the payout (as I understand it).
To be fair even if a cat c it's not worth getting back to repair on the cheap
Worth £2.5k tops, airbags £££££, suspension/steering parts ££££££, bodywork ££££
It looks like it'll cost near as much as the value to fix to a decent standard even using second hand parts, without adding the cost of buying the salvage in the first place. You've then got a car worth £1500 on a good day (cat marker) so not worth it at all.
Best thing I can suggest is to swap all new parts off (if its actually worth your time) for worn equivalents (tyres, alloys if freshly refubed etc.) - wont affect the write off value but you've then got a stock pile to sell on and recoup some of the excess and or a pile of parts (if you can store them) to use if replaced with an identical model.
Worth £2.5k tops, airbags £££££, suspension/steering parts ££££££, bodywork ££££
It looks like it'll cost near as much as the value to fix to a decent standard even using second hand parts, without adding the cost of buying the salvage in the first place. You've then got a car worth £1500 on a good day (cat marker) so not worth it at all.
Best thing I can suggest is to swap all new parts off (if its actually worth your time) for worn equivalents (tyres, alloys if freshly refubed etc.) - wont affect the write off value but you've then got a stock pile to sell on and recoup some of the excess and or a pile of parts (if you can store them) to use if replaced with an identical model.
NiceCupOfTea said:
...but remember that the car is yours, they can only take it if you accept the payout (as I understand it).
Remember that he's claiming off his own insurance, so he's contractually bound by the Ts & Cs. They may say that they get the final say, that their categorisation is binding on the disposal, and that that disposal once it's been called is completely separate from the haggling over the amount.If he was claiming from the other party, then there may be a bit more wiggle room.
Thanks all for the responses! Too many to quote, so apologies if I miss any.
If the damage was such that it was a case of buying bolt-on bits to the shell (suspension etc), then we could do it. We have a few contacts in the industry that can source parts cheaply. However, completely agree that the cost could add up quite substantially. Combine that with the Cat C value of as TooMany2CV's put very well, a leggy old BMW it would make a bit of sense to perhaps get rid.
The only reason to keep it (even as a Cat C) is that it is a known quantity, has been very well kept and is very suitable for his needs. Providing of course there's not further damage.
That's good information regarding the buy back of the salvage. I was hoping it could be written off, get the money for it, and buy-back at a reduced rate to strip and scrap. As I understand from you, that most likely isn't the case. Please feel free to correct me however! The M Sport bits usually go for a reasonable sum. Basically just to make a bit of money on it.
Once again, thanks for the replies!
If the damage was such that it was a case of buying bolt-on bits to the shell (suspension etc), then we could do it. We have a few contacts in the industry that can source parts cheaply. However, completely agree that the cost could add up quite substantially. Combine that with the Cat C value of as TooMany2CV's put very well, a leggy old BMW it would make a bit of sense to perhaps get rid.
The only reason to keep it (even as a Cat C) is that it is a known quantity, has been very well kept and is very suitable for his needs. Providing of course there's not further damage.
That's good information regarding the buy back of the salvage. I was hoping it could be written off, get the money for it, and buy-back at a reduced rate to strip and scrap. As I understand from you, that most likely isn't the case. Please feel free to correct me however! The M Sport bits usually go for a reasonable sum. Basically just to make a bit of money on it.
Once again, thanks for the replies!
gkw90 said:
I was hoping it could be written off, get the money for it, and buy-back at a reduced rate to strip and scrap. As I understand from you, that most likely isn't the case. Please feel free to correct me however! The M Sport bits usually go for a reasonable sum. Basically just to make a bit of money on it.
The insurers aren't stupid. If they know it's worth £x in bits, then they know it'll fetch £y at salvage auction, and so the buy-back will be pretty close to that.Look at Copart auctions for similar vehicles, and you can see where bidders are based. Notice the large number of flags indicating people in some of the - umm - less salubrious corners of Eastern Europe, the further shores of the EU and beyond. Write-offs are going out there by the transporter-load to feed the lower end of the motor trade, either as breakers or simply as identity-donors for nicked LHD cars. A battered E46 is at the lower end of that trade now, but it'll still not be cheap on buy-back, I wouldn't have thought.
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