Damage to lease car - fix it or leave it?

[interstellar]

Normally I’d leave a smart repair or similar type damage and not get it fixed and let the lease company charge me but at what point do you fix something before you hand it back?

Our younger driver just scraped Mrs interstellars car which is due back in 3 months. Fix it or leave it?


Nissan Juke - It’s dented and scraped and caught both panels

It’s no smart repair

[Auto810graphy]

Depends if you want to claim on your insurance. If not expect up to £800 in damage recharge

[interstellar]

That’s the tricky bit. Fix it and the lease company don’t like the repair, they charge you to fix it again and you pay twice. Difficult to know what to do?

[Dave Hedgehog]

There’s a local dent master type place to me that does small repairs like this, a car hit my AMG whilst stationary crushing the corner of the bumper, insurance repair with new bumper was 3 grand, they pulled it out and patched it for £350 (car was being sold anyway)

In my experience lease companies charge a fortune for repairs

[Glassman]

The dent will pull out. Much of the scraping will polish but might still need a localised blow in. The plastic can be repaired, or is easily replaced.

I'd leave it until the final couple of months.

[AddyT.]

I did very similar damage to this a couple of months into a PCP. I got it repaired by a very well regarded local bodyshop and paid out of my own pocket. Got it fixed straightaway more than anything because I had just got the car and would have annoyed the hell out of me looking at it for the next 3-4 years. Think it cost around £650. The repair was flawless and was not noticed when the car went back. To temper that I have heard that the likes of WBAC run a device over bodywork and can tell if you have had an accident in the past…anything to get the price down.

If it were me, I’d sort it now (unless the damage to look at doesn’t bother any of you) and pay for it yourself rather than on insurance.

[ilikejam]

My missus caved the passenger door in on her Q5 lease ("didn't see" the massive 100ft floodlight in the shopping centre car park...)

New door was fitted and painted up and you really couldn't tell, but at lease return time the inspector ran a paint thickness indicator over it and it showed a discrepancy in thickness between it and the other panels, so we got a charge for it. It had gone through insurance so wasn't too bothered, but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for a repair twice.

[maz8062]

Fix it. But to a good standard. A lease agreement doesn’t say that a car can’t have an accident and be repaired. If it is written off they get the payout, if repaired and still road worthy, and the repair is a to a good standard, I wouldn’t pay any surcharge.

The cars go straight to auction, so if there’s a delay while it is repaired they charge you and keep on charging you. Not worth the risk.

[AddyT.]

ilikejam said:

My missus caved the passenger door in on her Q5 lease ("didn't see" the massive 100ft floodlight in the shopping centre car park...)

New door was fitted and painted up and you really couldn't tell, but at lease return time the inspector ran a paint thickness indicator over it and it showed a discrepancy in thickness between it and the other panels, so we got a charge for it. It had gone through insurance so wasn't too bothered, but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for a repair twice.

Out of interest, who was the inspecting company who checked your car over? Was it BCA? Mine was BCA and they didn't do this. Or if they did, the repair I had was so good it didn't show up but suspect it's perhaps which company it is who does the inspection.

[sixor8]

It was through the insurance, perhaps they were aware of this.

HPI covers insurance write offs, but is there a database covering insurance claims of any kind by registration?

[g40steve]

Local dent guy will get that dent out.
A local kid neighbour with a buffer would remove most of that mess improve the plastics.

[ilikejam]

AddyT. said:

ilikejam said:

My missus caved the passenger door in on her Q5 lease ("didn't see" the massive 100ft floodlight in the shopping centre car park...)

New door was fitted and painted up and you really couldn't tell, but at lease return time the inspector ran a paint thickness indicator over it and it showed a discrepancy in thickness between it and the other panels, so we got a charge for it. It had gone through insurance so wasn't too bothered, but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for a repair twice.

Out of interest, who was the inspecting company who checked your car over? Was it BCA? Mine was BCA and they didn't do this. Or if they did, the repair I had was so good it didn't show up but suspect it's perhaps which company it is who does the inspection.

It was BCA - have had several inspections by them previous to that and not noticed them doing that check, but we'd never had anything painted before either.

Just looked back at the email and we got charged £150 for "repair and repaint"

[AddyT.]

ilikejam said:

AddyT. said:

ilikejam said:

My missus caved the passenger door in on her Q5 lease ("didn't see" the massive 100ft floodlight in the shopping centre car park...)

New door was fitted and painted up and you really couldn't tell, but at lease return time the inspector ran a paint thickness indicator over it and it showed a discrepancy in thickness between it and the other panels, so we got a charge for it. It had gone through insurance so wasn't too bothered, but I'd be annoyed if I'd paid for a repair twice.

Out of interest, who was the inspecting company who checked your car over? Was it BCA? Mine was BCA and they didn't do this. Or if they did, the repair I had was so good it didn't show up but suspect it's perhaps which company it is who does the inspection.

It was BCA - have had several inspections by them previous to that and not noticed them doing that check, but we'd never had anything painted before either.

Just looked back at the email and we got charged £150 for "repair and repaint"

Ah OK it sounds like they don't have continuity with their checks then. Kind of rings true to when I asked on here a while back about what they check for as some had the BCA guy with them for just 10 minutes or less and off they went no questions asked. Mine was there for 30 minutes so knew he would pick up most things which he did. He did tell me they are contracted and from the chat I took it that if they miss something then they are on the hook for it. Hence some are presumably more thorough than others.

[ilikejam]

AddyT. said:

Ah OK it sounds like they don't have continuity with their checks then. Kind of rings true to when I asked on here a while back about what they check for as some had the BCA guy with them for just 10 minutes or less and off they went no questions asked. Mine was there for 30 minutes so knew he would pick up most things which he did. He did tell me they are contracted and from the chat I took it that if they miss something then they are on the hook for it. Hence some are presumably more thorough than others.

Yeah I wondered if they got paid a flat rate and lose x% for anything they miss at inspection.

I've had a few leases with BCA as inspectors as well as Manheim. BCA tended to be much quicker than Manheim (like 10-15 mins), except this one guy who took about 30 mins. Maybe he was just a stickler or maybe new and not wanting to make any mistakes. Maybe he had just bought himself a new toy and was wanting to test it out! It was a Q5 so not like a 'luxury' car that would warrant any longer inspection I wouldn't have thought.

Either way, given the entire door had been replaced I didn't want to invite any further scrutiny over £150 so I just paid it!