what's your most expensive driving mistake
what's your most expensive driving mistake
Author
Discussion

big bloke

Original Poster:

1,607 posts

193 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
what mistake while driving proved to be your most expensive?

mine was changing gear from 4th to 1st in my transit while going downhill, goodbye engine, hello £800 bill

uncinquesei

918 posts

206 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Driving to my wedding....
whistle

Soovy

35,829 posts

300 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all


Twelve years ago. Driving a mate's new car on my "driving other cars with owner's permission" policy. He was with me in the passenger seat.

Wrote it off on black ice.

Thing is, he was lying, it wasn't his, so I wasn't covered as the owner didn't give permission.


£40,000 night out.



Zp

16,085 posts

218 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Soovy said:
Twelve years ago. Driving a mate's new car on my "driving other cars with owner's permission" policy. He was with me in the passenger seat.

Wrote it off on black ice.

Thing is, he was lying, it wasn't his, so I wasn't covered as the owner didn't give permission.


£40,000 night out.
laugh
(I know, it's not funny really....but for a lawyer....)


mrmr96

13,736 posts

233 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Soovy said:
Driving a mate's new car on my "driving other cars with owner's permission" policy.
Doesn't that normally only cover 3rd party damage? So whether the car belonged to your mate or not you'd have to pay to fix the car? (Obviously if it had been your mates car then your DoC cover would have paid for the tree/wall/house/car/pedestrian you unfortunately hit.)

Shaw Tarse

31,888 posts

232 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Soovy said:
Twelve years ago. Driving a mate's new car on my "driving other cars with owner's permission" policy. He was with me in the passenger seat.

Wrote it off on black ice.

Thing is, he was lying, it wasn't his, so I wasn't covered as the owner didn't give permission.


£40,000 night out.
Is that TWOCing?

Laird

26,140 posts

243 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Soovy said:
Twelve years ago. Driving a mate's new car on my "driving other cars with owner's permission" policy. He was with me in the passenger seat.

Wrote it off on black ice.

Thing is, he was lying, it wasn't his, so I wasn't covered as the owner didn't give permission.


£40,000 night out.
Ouch.

What kind of ball bag lies about that sort of thing though?

Soovy

35,829 posts

300 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Shaw Tarse said:
Soovy said:
Twelve years ago. Driving a mate's new car on my "driving other cars with owner's permission" policy. He was with me in the passenger seat.

Wrote it off on black ice.

Thing is, he was lying, it wasn't his, so I wasn't covered as the owner didn't give permission.


£40,000 night out.
Is that TWOCing?
I was charged but it was dropped. Long story. But of course when it's not theft then the owner's insurance won't pay either.




Edited by Soovy on Tuesday 31st May 17:36

Shaw Tarse

31,888 posts

232 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Soovy said:
I was charged but it was dropped.
Hello Daily Mail

Soovy

35,829 posts

300 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Shaw Tarse said:
Soovy said:
I was charged but it was dropped.
Hello Daily Mail
All a very long time ago hehe

anonymous-user

83 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Going on a sales course in chester area. Leaving the course on the friday afternoon, decided to pull into the services for a packet of cigarettes. Lass in front waiting for traffic to clear the roundabout, then went, i edged forward, looked, looked ahead, only to see her stopped in the middle of the road. bang, and £200 a year on my insurance.

TDS86

496 posts

186 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Reversing a mate's Freelander into another mate's Punto outside a Chateau in France.

I was on the Freelander's insurance so we could split the driving around Brittany and in England while we were on a cricket tour.

Ended up costing me £950 to repair the Punto, €100 in France for a get me home repair, and another £850 in England to make it as good as new.

Cost to the Freelander, a new rear light, waived as that friend thought it had already cost me enough.

Pannywagon

1,044 posts

215 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Mine was falling in love with a 3 year old Peugeot 607.

£10k to buy up at Watford.

Within a week it was in my local Cornish dealer having the tyre pressure sensor/valve replaced (they wouldn't honour the warranty as it was another dealer's) as it was cracked and leaking. £180 in total.

Then, just after the dealer's warranty had run out, the climate control stopped blowing cold, followed by the fan not turning at all. In total it cost over £2000 to get the climate control working again. (Much of that was diagnostics, as there are 23 onboard computers, and any one of them could have been at fault)

The car always drove fine, until one day I stopped and went into a shop. Came back and tried to start it to find that nothing happened. Cue the RAC coming out. Starter motor relay still worked, starter motor worked and the car started fine when the mechanic gave the starter a direct feed off the battery. I ended up spending about £200 getting an electrician to wire in a fused bypass with a starter button mounted where the front cigarette lighter should go. To start the car you put the key in, turn to position 1 and then push the starter.

Then I got driven into by some chav in a Saxo. It was totally his fault, so the insurance sorted everything, except for the leaky steering rack which they argued could have been leaking prior to the accident. That was another £2400. I had two front brake discs replaced at the same time at which was another £200 odd.

Had the car back for two weeks and some dozy pillock pulled out and T-boned me in a Transit as I drove down a dual carriageway.

The car was a write off.

I had that thing for two years and it cost me over £5,000 on top of the cost of buying it. To add insult to injury, I got a payout after it was written off of just over £4,000. So that thing cost me about £11,000 in two years.

Gah!

skilly1

2,902 posts

224 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Going flat out around the Millborok high speed bowl (pretty nerve racking at 145+). Blew up the engine which cost over £10k and 1.5 years to sort out.

Riknos

4,701 posts

233 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Just got new alloys and tyres on my 1.25 Fiesta (I was 17, it was my first car.. give me a break..) and it was such an improvement on the grip that I could drive everywhere a lot faster than before. My dad was down visiting for Christmas, so on crimbo eve I took him for a drive in my car to show him how well it gripped. Went round a corner that I have driven 100 times before when fine, but there was spilt oil on the road I didn't see. 80mph combined speed between myself and the family of 4 I hit in the Vectra. My car was a complete write off; Dad had to be air lifted to hospital due to breathing difficulties and his broken chest bone etc. Hospital later scared me with suspected brain damage due to oxygen starvation.

That was emotionally expensive. And I learnt an important lesson.

Dan_1981

18,098 posts

228 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
I managed to get a Suzuki Jimny stuck on Easter Island on a rather steep off road area. Quite a long way from anywhere.

It may also have been a section where the poxy little hand drawn map they hadned out when "renting" the vehicle said "Do not go"

A 4 hour walk back to the town, a rather nervous explanation to the guy who'd rented it to me, in broken English / Spanish a worrying drive out with him the next monring to try and find it, several hours trying to find the bloody thing, including threats of having to get a helicopter up.

Once found - fair bit of damage to the underside, couple of tyres that probabaly wern't bald when I took it out and a transmission that wasn't as good as it was 24 hours earlier.

We came to an agreement of a couple of hundred quid. - Probabaly not my most expensive mistake but my most memorable and rather worrying at the time.

crashley

1,574 posts

209 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Buying an old, cheap M3. When it comes to them, if you buy cheap, you definitely buy (at least) twice!

Puddenchucker

5,850 posts

247 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Buying a Renault.

craig2003

1,209 posts

235 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
Puddenchucker said:
Buying a Renault.
+1

tucks

558 posts

193 months

Tuesday 31st May 2011
quotequote all
falling asleep at the wheel in the late 90s. i blame the whole rave cultue. drive to a sodding field in the middle of nowhere...then to anothour...then to anouther. christ, the people in the car should have expected id need a nap at somepoint.