Will this car be written off?

[mikeouk]

Step daughter was involved in a minor shunt yesterday, not her fault, a van pulled out on her.
Damage is minor, but it’s a 2007 Mini Cooper with 90k on it. Bonnet damaged, side wing bent, door and mirror scraped. It’s possible there’s other damage as driver front wheel took some impact. The car is worth under £2000 and I’m guessing the repair bill would be over 50% of value, but I’m no expert.
Anyone here with experience willing to guess the outcome?

[Algarve]

add in a hire car and a margin for error and its an easy write off.

[soxboy]

My mum bumped her 2017 Mini a few months ago, turned out the minor-looking damage necessitated a new bonnet so with a few other bits it was £1500. Guessing yours would be definitely be a write off.

[Sheepshanks]

Algarve said:

add in a hire car and a margin for error and its an easy write off.

They don’t take those things into account (at least officially) but having been through a fairly recent non-fault write off of my daughters car I think the OP will be amazed how much the repair estimate is. Daughter’s car was written off without even going into the detailed cost. There was a suggestion that as her insurer guarantees repairs for 5 years they’re less keen to do significant repairs once a car is few years old (hers was 2011).

Having said that, the daughter of some friends of ours had her car t-boned and the other party’s insurer insisted it was repaired even though the estimate was the value of the car. It’s like they do it on purpose as she wanted it written off. Took 6 weeks to fix, all the time in a hire car, then she p/x’d it straightaway.

[Zetec-S]

Is the damage structural or just cosmetic?

If the latter (and a write off) then buy it back off the insurance company and arrange your own repairs?

[mikeouk]

Zetec-S said:

Is the damage structural or just cosmetic?

If the latter (and a write off) then buy it back off the insurance company and arrange your own repairs?

I did consider that but to be honest, it’s not been a particularly reliable car, I’d rather wave goodbye and find her something better.

[Heaveho]

It'll be the total cost. Hire car, loss of earnings, injuries, cost per hour of repairs, cost of new replacement parts. More than two thirds of the current market value, wave it goodbye.

[paintman]

Parts & panels required will be new genuine items priced at full MRRP (Manufacturer' recommended retail price). BMW bits aren't usually cheap!
Plus paint plus labour etc.

[mbwoy84]

It can vary between insurance companies. Some will add all the costs on, others won't. Some will ask the repairer to split their bill differently between materials and labour to get around having to write it off (how that works I don't know, but as an owner of a bodyshop I've been asked to move figures around on bills for that purpose).

I would say that it is highly likely that it will be written off in this instance though.

I actually bought a MINI Cooper as a runabout for myself which had just been written off Cat D (would be Cat N today). That was 51 Reg, but when I bought it, it would have been the same ago as an 07 today. It also had around 90k on the clock, and at the time they were selling for around £2500. Very clean car otherwise.

The damage that wrote it off?



A minor dent in the side of the bonnet. I thrashed it out purely to get the headlight aim back correct and took it for MOT (was still MOT'd anyway) and it flew through. Used it for a few weeks like that and then repaired and repainted the bonnet, job done. Realistically, some insurance companies wouldn't have written that off, but shows how little it can take on a car like that.

[soxboy]

^
The damage on my mum's Mini wasn't much worse than that, however as the bonnet was double-skinned the dent couldn't be pulled out but was too big/ in wrong place to be filled so new one required.

[mikeouk]

Thanks for the replies everyone, looking at the damage, I recon it will definitely be written off.

[Emmaryauto99]

It's deffo a goner