my sl has been driven into, advice please
Discussion
awoke on tuesday to find my 1985 sl had been banged into by a lorry. driver left his card and we shall be going through his insurers. the damage looks minimal, basically he has shunted into the front merc emblem, bending the bonnet and with a slight bend to bumper and the inside where the bonnet catch is. car perfectly fine to drive around in. brought it to local merc garage and the qoute came back today, 6.5k! now, me thinks that insurer will probably write car off at this kind of price. car cost me 7.5k but was subject to almost 15k of body work restoration 2 yrs ago so in all other respects is in A1 condition. any thoughts on how one would come out of all this smiling given that i'd be perfectly happy carry on driving the car with the damage which truth be told is only cosmetic.
Tough one.
Guess you never insured it for "replacement value" and went for "market value" i.e former is agreed with insurer beforehand and latter whatever you will find in eg Autotrader.
If you have spent restoration funds to this level - I would just drive around as is. Contact offender and see if they are happy to pay for the cosmetic repair (logic is that it will only be ~£2K). Need to let insurer know that you have done this.
Guess you never insured it for "replacement value" and went for "market value" i.e former is agreed with insurer beforehand and latter whatever you will find in eg Autotrader.
If you have spent restoration funds to this level - I would just drive around as is. Contact offender and see if they are happy to pay for the cosmetic repair (logic is that it will only be ~£2K). Need to let insurer know that you have done this.
I agree with the above - having crashed my 190E earlier this year (my fault, into the back of another car) I was faced with a bodyshop quote of £1k+VAT.
The damage sounds similar to yours - bent grille, kinked bonnet and lightly twisted slam-panel.
The bodyshop would use only brand-new Dealership-sourced panels and promised me the car would measure up like new.
Had my policy been Fully Comp, I would have expected my car to have been take from me and declared a write-off (it's insured for £1200).
Instead I was TPFT so my insurers took care of the other car and left me to sort my own out.
I certainly couldn't afford to drop £1k+VAT on bodywork into a £1200-1500 car that still drove perfectly and hadn't even suffered so much as a damaged radiator or headlamp.
Through the wonderful owner's club attached to my particular Mercedes, I got all the advice I needed and even managed to source a used, straight bonnet in the same colour as my car.
The chap I bought it off was happy to break out the bits of 2x4 and start straightening up my headlamp bucket
and slam panel before helping me fit the replacement bonnet. A cup of tea later, I'm on my way home, feeling really bloody lucky.
There were of course some new parts I had to source, but overall the crash ended up costing me £200 instead of nearly £1200.
I think your next move depends on how you value your SL.
They are immensely desirable with slow depreciation, and yours sounds like it was a true cherry before the accident.
If you can get help from any other SL owners, do so.
Good luck fella
The damage sounds similar to yours - bent grille, kinked bonnet and lightly twisted slam-panel.
The bodyshop would use only brand-new Dealership-sourced panels and promised me the car would measure up like new.
Had my policy been Fully Comp, I would have expected my car to have been take from me and declared a write-off (it's insured for £1200).
Instead I was TPFT so my insurers took care of the other car and left me to sort my own out.
I certainly couldn't afford to drop £1k+VAT on bodywork into a £1200-1500 car that still drove perfectly and hadn't even suffered so much as a damaged radiator or headlamp.
Through the wonderful owner's club attached to my particular Mercedes, I got all the advice I needed and even managed to source a used, straight bonnet in the same colour as my car.
The chap I bought it off was happy to break out the bits of 2x4 and start straightening up my headlamp bucket
and slam panel before helping me fit the replacement bonnet. A cup of tea later, I'm on my way home, feeling really bloody lucky.
There were of course some new parts I had to source, but overall the crash ended up costing me £200 instead of nearly £1200.
I think your next move depends on how you value your SL.
They are immensely desirable with slow depreciation, and yours sounds like it was a true cherry before the accident.
If you can get help from any other SL owners, do so.
Good luck fella
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