Accident repair Advice
Discussion
In Mid June I was involved in an accident where the other party admitted fault on site. I had been on a roundabout and the other party had pulled onto the roundabout without looking. She drove straight into the rear corner of my car (F31 3 series). She damaged the rear wing, the rear light and the bumper. Her insurer called me soon afterwards and offered to take over the repair and the excess which I agreed to.
Soon after that the car went into a large national body repair shop which is reputedly BMW approved and I was given a 'like for like' replacement car by the other party's insurer (at first an A5 S line but after I noticed all 4 tyres were illegal due to side wall damage I was given a Mercedes S class to smoke around in for the week the car was in for repair, result!).
I picked the car up on a Thursday afternoon on my way back from a business trip to South Wales, I did a cursory check of the car and drove it home. The next day I noticed that the lines between the bumper, wing and rear light cluster were all over the place so on the Monday I called the insurer and the garage and they agreed to take the car back in for remedial repair. I have nothing but praise for the insurer as they told the garage to hire me a like for like car at their expense through Enterprise and on the Tuesday afternoon, to my surprise, I picked up a sparkling new (15 miles on the clock!) S class AMG line with lots of toys on it! Little was I to know that I would be driving the car for the next 6 weeks!
Over this time the garage called me after a week and dropped the car back to my house, I rejected it on site as the repair looked no better. After ANOTHER week I was called again and this time drove over to the garage and inspected the car again, only to reject it as again there was little or no improvement. At this point the estimator who had originally been handling my car inspected the car and agreed that the repair was sub standard and agreed to get another technician to try and repair again.
After this I did not hear from the body shop for 2 weeks, after which time the estimator called me and told me that they would be getting the repair inspected by an independent engineer. He called me again after another few days and told me that the inspector had failed the car and asked them to repair AGAIN!!! A week after this I was told that the repair had been completed again and the inspector had visited again and was happy with it. Indeed the estimator emailed me a copy of said report. I then received the car back last Monday morning. On first inspection the join between the bumper and the wing still looked a little wavy but as the car is on a business lease I decided to keep the car and the report and show it when the car is returned in 2019.
However on Tuesday I drove up to my company's head office in the North West for a couple of days of meetings. One of my colleagues who I had related my tale of woe to came out into the hotel car park to look at the repair, as I looked at the car again with him, I realised that the repair was looking the worst it ever had! The bumper looks like it has been put on completely crooked, the trim around the rear window is almost at the point of hanging off and when you open the boot there is overspray around the opening, irregular gaps around the trim and where the passenger side rear light is fitted as well as orange peel effect on the paint. Now I accept that perhaps some of this may have been visible when the car was delivered back but I do wonder if some of the misalignment in the rear panels had not manifested itself until after I drove 240 odd miles up to the North West.
So up to present day, I have notified the insurer who will apparently be sending another independent inspector out from a different company. Also for my peace of mind I took the car into my local BMW dealer this morning, the body shop manager was very helpful and after inspecting the repairs and agreeing that it's a complete dog's breakfast took some photos and asked me to send him the run down of the parts and labour.
I guess after all this my question is this; is there anything else that I could have done, or indeed can do now to get this rectified. Also I am worried that maybe when the initial pre repair inspection was carried out they've missed some structural damage somewhere, which is causing the panels to misalign, is it at all possible this could be the case?
Soon after that the car went into a large national body repair shop which is reputedly BMW approved and I was given a 'like for like' replacement car by the other party's insurer (at first an A5 S line but after I noticed all 4 tyres were illegal due to side wall damage I was given a Mercedes S class to smoke around in for the week the car was in for repair, result!).
I picked the car up on a Thursday afternoon on my way back from a business trip to South Wales, I did a cursory check of the car and drove it home. The next day I noticed that the lines between the bumper, wing and rear light cluster were all over the place so on the Monday I called the insurer and the garage and they agreed to take the car back in for remedial repair. I have nothing but praise for the insurer as they told the garage to hire me a like for like car at their expense through Enterprise and on the Tuesday afternoon, to my surprise, I picked up a sparkling new (15 miles on the clock!) S class AMG line with lots of toys on it! Little was I to know that I would be driving the car for the next 6 weeks!
Over this time the garage called me after a week and dropped the car back to my house, I rejected it on site as the repair looked no better. After ANOTHER week I was called again and this time drove over to the garage and inspected the car again, only to reject it as again there was little or no improvement. At this point the estimator who had originally been handling my car inspected the car and agreed that the repair was sub standard and agreed to get another technician to try and repair again.
After this I did not hear from the body shop for 2 weeks, after which time the estimator called me and told me that they would be getting the repair inspected by an independent engineer. He called me again after another few days and told me that the inspector had failed the car and asked them to repair AGAIN!!! A week after this I was told that the repair had been completed again and the inspector had visited again and was happy with it. Indeed the estimator emailed me a copy of said report. I then received the car back last Monday morning. On first inspection the join between the bumper and the wing still looked a little wavy but as the car is on a business lease I decided to keep the car and the report and show it when the car is returned in 2019.
However on Tuesday I drove up to my company's head office in the North West for a couple of days of meetings. One of my colleagues who I had related my tale of woe to came out into the hotel car park to look at the repair, as I looked at the car again with him, I realised that the repair was looking the worst it ever had! The bumper looks like it has been put on completely crooked, the trim around the rear window is almost at the point of hanging off and when you open the boot there is overspray around the opening, irregular gaps around the trim and where the passenger side rear light is fitted as well as orange peel effect on the paint. Now I accept that perhaps some of this may have been visible when the car was delivered back but I do wonder if some of the misalignment in the rear panels had not manifested itself until after I drove 240 odd miles up to the North West.
So up to present day, I have notified the insurer who will apparently be sending another independent inspector out from a different company. Also for my peace of mind I took the car into my local BMW dealer this morning, the body shop manager was very helpful and after inspecting the repairs and agreeing that it's a complete dog's breakfast took some photos and asked me to send him the run down of the parts and labour.
I guess after all this my question is this; is there anything else that I could have done, or indeed can do now to get this rectified. Also I am worried that maybe when the initial pre repair inspection was carried out they've missed some structural damage somewhere, which is causing the panels to misalign, is it at all possible this could be the case?
Edited by JaymzDead on Friday 21st July 14:54
Madness. Brutally, it does not matter whether someone is an OEM approved repairer in some cases these are the worst of the worst ironically (although I am not saying all of them are bad I have had some approved ones where the work is top notch).
Get it to someone that knows what they are doing to get it fixed properly and let the 3rd party insurer pick the tab up. Mine would have been somewhere else after the 1st or 2nd time it was screwed up.
Incidentally, my MX5 got nudged by a neighbour recently new front bumper, all came back really good job and has not had to return for any remedial work at all, because the job was done well and not rushed. People simply do not care, cars are just another number to be rushed to the next insurance job....despite my experience my insurers one did a good job.
I have had similar issues before, but in the end I could not be arsed with the hassle and resolved the multitude of sins by myself - for example a rear light cluster not tightened properly and leaking water.
Get it to someone that knows what they are doing to get it fixed properly and let the 3rd party insurer pick the tab up. Mine would have been somewhere else after the 1st or 2nd time it was screwed up.
Incidentally, my MX5 got nudged by a neighbour recently new front bumper, all came back really good job and has not had to return for any remedial work at all, because the job was done well and not rushed. People simply do not care, cars are just another number to be rushed to the next insurance job....despite my experience my insurers one did a good job.
I have had similar issues before, but in the end I could not be arsed with the hassle and resolved the multitude of sins by myself - for example a rear light cluster not tightened properly and leaking water.
Did you ask the main dealer if they would be happy to do the rectification work for you instead of it going back to the insurer's repairer? You have the right to choose your own repairer, I'm not certain that extends to recification work but I would think it does, particularly when the approved repairer has had more than one opportunity to put it right and failed. If the main dealer isn't willing to take it on, you might find a good indy that is.
The insurance companies can be very forceful in getting you to use their approved bodyshops but in the end the choice is yours and they know this, if they deny it ask them to put it in writing, or threaten to report them to the competion commision for anti competitive behavior.
Best of luck getting it sorted this time and if you are in the situation again, insist it goes somewhere you feel will take care for your pride and joy properly.
The insurance companies can be very forceful in getting you to use their approved bodyshops but in the end the choice is yours and they know this, if they deny it ask them to put it in writing, or threaten to report them to the competion commision for anti competitive behavior.
Best of luck getting it sorted this time and if you are in the situation again, insist it goes somewhere you feel will take care for your pride and joy properly.
Update: after 2 hours (!?) on the phone with the insurance company's claims management company, they have agreed to get ANOTHER independant engineer to come out to fo a structural report on the car. The engineer has also just contacted me to arrange. In the end they agreed that this will be done at my local BMW dealer, who have a body shop. The dealer has kindly agreed to host the inspection and carry out the repairs afterwards. The engineer did say they'd like to inspect at the garage that originally did the repair but I told them that the car would not be going anywhere withn a 100 yard radius of the place again and I insisited it be done at the dealer! Apparently they will be inviting a representative from the body shop to attend which could be interesting although I have my doubts they'll turn up!
The insurer has also agreed to get me another like for like courtesy vehicle straight away, so hopefully that will turn up tomorrow. All in all I have nothing but praise for the claims management company they have stepped up to the plate and got things sorted.
Oddly, as soon as I put the phone down from all this I had a call from another bloody ambulance chasing company, I won't post my response but it went along the lines of go forth and multiply....
The insurer has also agreed to get me another like for like courtesy vehicle straight away, so hopefully that will turn up tomorrow. All in all I have nothing but praise for the claims management company they have stepped up to the plate and got things sorted.
Oddly, as soon as I put the phone down from all this I had a call from another bloody ambulance chasing company, I won't post my response but it went along the lines of go forth and multiply....
JaymzDead said:
Update: after 2 hours (!?) on the phone with the insurance company's claims management company, they have agreed to get ANOTHER independant engineer to come out to fo a structural report on the car. The engineer has also just contacted me to arrange. In the end they agreed that this will be done at my local BMW dealer, who have a body shop. The dealer has kindly agreed to host the inspection and carry out the repairs afterwards. The engineer did say they'd like to inspect at the garage that originally did the repair but I told them that the car would not be going anywhere withn a 100 yard radius of the place again and I insisited it be done at the dealer! Apparently they will be inviting a representative from the body shop to attend which could be interesting although I have my doubts they'll turn up!
The insurer has also agreed to get me another like for like courtesy vehicle straight away, so hopefully that will turn up tomorrow. All in all I have nothing but praise for the claims management company they have stepped up to the plate and got things sorted.
Oddly, as soon as I put the phone down from all this I had a call from another bloody ambulance chasing company, I won't post my response but it went along the lines of go forth and multiply....
Good result. Is the claims management company part of the insurer or sep?The insurer has also agreed to get me another like for like courtesy vehicle straight away, so hopefully that will turn up tomorrow. All in all I have nothing but praise for the claims management company they have stepped up to the plate and got things sorted.
Oddly, as soon as I put the phone down from all this I had a call from another bloody ambulance chasing company, I won't post my response but it went along the lines of go forth and multiply....
Of course this incompetence is why premiums are where they are - and S class is probably a grand a week......
I feel for you OP. Luckily for you, you noticed the issues straight away. My experience with the VW approved garage that repaired my vehicle was horrendous. They never kept me in the loop of how long it would take and it took them 3 MONTHS for them to repair it. Long story short I noticed a couple of months ago the brackets that hold the rear bumper on are still bent from the crash and that the bumper is not held on properly.
I had a very similar experience with one of these repair centres. Someone reversed into the side of my car while it was parked and the insurer insisted the car went to their "approved" repairer. They delivered the car back to me and the paint was nowhere near a match, the interior had filler paste and dust all over and even the guy who brought it back admitted the repair looked terrible And he offered to take it back. I said there was no way I was accepting it like that.
I then got a phone call from the boss of Mickey Mouse Motor Repairs saying he would only sort it if I agreed to email their office stating that I wouldn't complain again. I did no such thing and escalated the situation to their head office.
The car then came back a week later with a deep scratch on the other side of the car. By this point I was absolutely spitting feathers and complained to anyone who would listen. They then took the car to another branch of the same company where it was finally sorted.
This general quality of the repair isn't very good and you can see the car has been repainted. I hope I never have to deal with such idiots again. Next time I will choose my own repairer.
I then got a phone call from the boss of Mickey Mouse Motor Repairs saying he would only sort it if I agreed to email their office stating that I wouldn't complain again. I did no such thing and escalated the situation to their head office.
The car then came back a week later with a deep scratch on the other side of the car. By this point I was absolutely spitting feathers and complained to anyone who would listen. They then took the car to another branch of the same company where it was finally sorted.
This general quality of the repair isn't very good and you can see the car has been repainted. I hope I never have to deal with such idiots again. Next time I will choose my own repairer.
There is a deep irony here.
The insurance companies are battering their "approved" repairers to do a job for a crap price. They cut corners, and then end up doing the job 3 times, at their cost so they (the repairers) are losing money and the insurers are running up bills for hire cars, and then as in this example the insurer is having to pay more in indi inspections and then finally paying AGAIN a main dealer to do the work. And guess what it would have cost way less to get a decent bodyshop todo the job in the first place.
Now the bodyshop are losing money, and trying to recoup it and the insurers are doing the same so the premiums are going up.
Vicious circle!
The insurance companies are battering their "approved" repairers to do a job for a crap price. They cut corners, and then end up doing the job 3 times, at their cost so they (the repairers) are losing money and the insurers are running up bills for hire cars, and then as in this example the insurer is having to pay more in indi inspections and then finally paying AGAIN a main dealer to do the work. And guess what it would have cost way less to get a decent bodyshop todo the job in the first place.
Now the bodyshop are losing money, and trying to recoup it and the insurers are doing the same so the premiums are going up.
Vicious circle!
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