12 years, just got to 140k miles, and then a prang..(now saved from the scrapyard!)

Which might lead to 'the beast' as we refer to it being a write off.
No one hurt, my fault, but I am absolutely gutted. It feels more than just metal and a car, believe me!

Its a hazard of running an older car that something not worth much (say £12-1400) is susceptible to this kind of thing. We have had it since new (September 2002) and given its age it was still going strong and doing us proud.

Happened yesterday, just about calmed down today, awaiting information from garage and insurance company tomorrow. An initial thought was it was probably over the 70% threshold they use to write off. Obviously how much will then lead to the insurance view, and the 'buy backability' of him. I need to know the extent of the damage I couldn't see to the steering. Steering wasn't 100%. Obviously I need the insurance company view first. Changed tyres last week, 2 coil packs last month and it has 3/4 tank of fuel ffs!

I hope to get a line by line costing tomorrow from the assessor and take it from there.Its a shame that something like this leads to potential write off, but I won't be the first..

Cheers Mate. Its an option yes; I just need the detail of the damage, and then apply my 'what needs fixing' and how/whether it can be done in a different way, to see if its worth the hassle. Obviously financial information from the insurers too.

There was something wrong with the steering, so something (at best) was bent which could be 'simply' replaced. Like a strut. If it is worse, then we'll have to wait and see. Right wheel which took a bit of the impact. Car took it well though.

I'd love to keep it on the road. But I'm trying to keep my sensible head on, to allow the detail from the assessor on all the damage to in part 'drive' what we do. I'm hoping to get that tomorrow and be able to reflect on that, get folks thoughts on here, as well as my local garage who I've used for years.

Not looking good from what the garage has told me.

New Bumper (told is unlikely to be able to be repaired given the impact)
New drivers headlight (whilst it looks fine, the brackets which form part of holding in the light I'm told are all shot.
New wing/ wing bracket.
The painting and blending in.

The bit I couldn't see and feared most was the steering. So the steering knuckle is damaged, as is the bearing and the hub. All need replacing. They would then need to do a geometry check and then check the strut and bottom arm. Alloy refurb and new tyre are iun the quote (which approaches £2k inc VAT) which could, of course, be omitted if doing it myself.

All of that gives me little wriggle room as it is likely well over what I believe the value for the car. Yes, I could get a bumper cheaper second hand, and avoid things like the Alloy refurb and new tyre. But that would still likely have a bill for £1k for that kind of work. The car is 80 miles from home so I'll factor that into anything.

I've spoken to my garage who I've had the car service with for years to get a sense check on the non visible damage. They agreed with the pricing for the knuckle etc, and also what they would need to do, mentioning they would probably only be able to get stuff like the knuckle parts officially for those. Yes we can try to find stuff like hubs from scrap yards, but there is no guarantee they can be found or they would be working.

So awaiting the Insurance folk and take it from there. No doubt they'll offer me £50 and a pickled egg as the value for the car.

Any thoughts welcomed. Bugger!

747_727 said:

I would get a second hand hub etc plus a new wishbone and ball joint and fit it myself then get tracking done to make sure everything is ok. Then I would get a second hand bumper and headlight,if it actually needs one, and then get a local bodyshop to give you a quote to fit and respray the parts.
If you did the suspension work yourself I can't why you couldn't get the body work done for £500-600 including parts.

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Thanks for your thoughts. it has been classed as a write off. £2.2k of damage.

Managed to stop it going to the salvage folk who were coming for it tomorrow. So have some thinking time. But doing anything to do with cars more than the absolute basics of adding oil is beyond me, believe me. So I am at the behest of those with the skills who can do this. Also I am horrendously busy in December so investing any significant time hunting second hand parts is very difficult. But I'll find enough to get some more information.

So I need to see if we can get it on the road for no more than half that, using those means. Then I can see if it is a bit more than a pipe dream. I will be speaking to a couple of other garages local to where it is at tomorrow, to see if they provide me with a quote on the 'not insurance company' basis (The car is approximately 80 miles away at the moment). Can the bumper be fixed good enough, we live with the light that kind of thing. I'll aim to have a look at it, at the garage on Saturday. See the damage underneath for myself. The current garage have been excellent, but wouldn't be able to do the work.

Also at a similar time I can get the value they will offer me for the car, and then have to make a decision by Monday.

gavin.garner.12 said:

I agree with the above, also look on eBay for a wing and bumper in black and that will half the cost as u won't need to do anything but fit them and buff the whole car to blend them in

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Thanks for that - I had a quick look last night and couldn't see any bumpers on ebay that fitted the bill. But I'll have another look and also look for full vehicles being broken before the weekend.

747_727 said:

Could you fix it in two stages? Get the suspension sorted first then you can drive the car and then you can look out for the second hand body parts needed and save up a bit of money too if needed.

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Good point - I'll see if they can tell me what definitely needs doing to get it on the road, and what doesn't need doing. Its a Cat C so it will need an MOT and I need to find out what else. Also want to grasp any issues with it being a Category C should I want to sell it in years to come.

In some respects the amount of money isn't too much of a problem in terms of affordability with this. We are not loaded but ok and this is not big bucks. I just don't want to overspend/ 'throw good money after bad' so to speak. Which the quote clearly would have. But as a Yorkshireman I like the idea of doing it on the cheap, without it compromising too much the quality. Within the confines of my skills and abilities. I've spotted a black bumper for £100 on ebay.

The insurance garage (as you would expect) knows other local repair outfits. Who, of course know, it is worth their while to have a professional relationship with the insurance garage. I imagine an amount of work goes their way, and why not, given the nature of the costs in the Insurance world leading to uneconomic to repair situations.

So I have spoken to another garage that is very close to the insurance garage, who was recommended by said insurance garage. They will visit and look over the car tomorrow am. Give me a quote/ supporting information around about lunchtime. With the 'getting it back on the road' and solutions different to the insurance world approach. So I have conveyed some of what has been mentioned on here, so thanks for your input.

It will at least give me some figures to make sensible decisions. There are other factors (which I won't bore you all with here) which I and my good lady need to consider on this. So it wont purely be on a how much to get it on the road and if its cheap go for it. But its one of the key ones.

Much obliged Ross. I can understand the basis on how Insurance companies cost things and how that differs to our expectations! Appreciate your thoughts.

The non insurance repairer has come back with a price similar to yours - a little lower but it may end up at that if one or two other things need doing.

Essentially we have 48 hours to make a final decision. We may only be keeping the car for 6 months anyway, as we've planned for my good lady to have a car she has always wanted. But even on those terms it is looking appealing. Though I appreciate an ex Category C car will probably be worth very little on resale. But its not worth much anyway.

Still awaiting the insurance folk, which should be Monday or Tuesday.

Has anyone got any views/thoughts on what a 140k good nick FSH Cupra 52 plate value would be valued at? I mean to my satisfaction, as opposed to what the Insurance Company might think!

Glass' free guide, not adjusted for mileage has the following:

Trade in price from £655.00 to £1,045.00
Private sale price from £1,345.00 to £1,785.00
Dealer retail price from £1,820.00 to £2,400.00

So based on that I was thinking £1500 would be ok.
I would have thought they were thinking about £1500 (or below...)

Well everyday is a school day, when dealing with the insurance industry.

I was offered £1013. Apparently they use Glasses Guide. And the above Glasses guide information I got is in no way applicable to their Glasses Guide information. In true car industry style, they lived up to being able to spout bs impressively by suggesting the information I had is wholly irrelevant and their special glasses guide data is 100% accurate. And mister.c. the amount offered is them being generous and entirely fair. Taking into account the full service history and excellent quality of the (pre- crashed) car. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if it was a bad car then I would have been offered that £50 and a pickled egg!

Of course there was no science to their quote. I asked them to explain >once. And the quote differed by 50% from the £1500 which was (I guess from their side inadvertently) mentioned as the figure from Glass' guide I got the impression from them they were using last week to measure the 65-70% level of damage against. I'm sure they are no better or worse than any other insurer - I just find people who talk such poo to me as being tiresome and dishonest. It's not the individuals fault I guess; everyone has to earn some corn.

That quote - excess - scrappage would not give me enough to get it repaired.