crash - insurance advice please

[declasm]

Last tuesday as my girlfriend was driving the rex to come pick me up from work, she was joining the A3 at ripley and the car spun across 3 lanes of the A3 coming to rest on the central reservation. She never drives stupidly and it seems like it was possibly caused by a blowout or a patch of diesel on the road. Fortunately she was not badly hurt but the car has suffered some rear quarter and bumber damage.



I am very keen for the car not to be written off - it\'s a completely stock \'92 type R, it was imported 3 years ago and had a full engine rebuild at that time and has done approximately 15k on the new engine with oil changes every 3K, also the turbo pack has recently been reconditioned and the suspension bushes replaced - basically it\'s in fantastic health and the crash has only affected what you can see in the picture. I spoke to the insurance approved garage on friday and they said they thought it was probably a write-off after their assessment and I would have to talk to the insurer (Bell). Bell told me I would have to wait until monday to talk to someone after the report has been processed.

I\'m looking for some advice because if the car is borderline, I really would like it to be repaired. What do you guys think?

[chris]

Last tuesday as my girlfriend was driving the rex to come pick me up from work, she was joining the A3 at ripley and the car spun across 3 lanes of the A3 coming to rest on the central reservation. She never drives stupidly and it seems like it was possibly caused by a blowout or a patch of diesel on the road. Fortunately she was not badly hurt but the car has suffered some rear quarter and bumber damage.



I am very keen for the car not to be written off - it\'s a completely stock \'92 type R, it was imported 3 years ago and had a full engine rebuild at that time and has done approximately 15k on the new engine with oil changes every 3K, also the turbo pack has recently been reconditioned and the suspension bushes replaced - basically it\'s in fantastic health and the crash has only affected what you can see in the picture. I spoke to the insurance approved garage on friday and they said they thought it was probably a write-off after their assessment and I would have to talk to the insurer (Bell). Bell told me I would have to wait until monday to talk to someone after the report has been processed.

I\'m looking for some advice because if the car is borderline, I really would like it to be repaired. What do you guys think?

I have no doubt they will write it off, see if you can buy it back, you can then transplant your good bits over to another shell

[RobbieRX-7]

It dont look too bad, but will more than likely be written off. Looks like you will need a used rear subframe, door and rear quarter panel.

[Rzla]

you shouldnt have reported it to your insurance company as they will almost certainly say it is a write off
you should have tried to get it repaired instead as the damage does not look too bad
im sure some good bodyshops could have fixed that for you

[Grizzly]

Yep that will get Written off, a mate of mine had similar damage but just the quarter, They where really on the boarder line then.

As others have sugested, you want to buy the car back off the Insurance (depending on how much they want for it) then you can ether buy a quarter panel and get the repair done privetly (would be allot cheaper) but you would have to go through all the agro of getting it off the register or just buy another Fd with a Blown motor and swap the good stuff over and sell the rest.

[Grizzly]

you shouldnt have reported it to your insurance company as they will almost certainly say it is a write off
you should have tried to get it repaired instead as the damage does not look too bad
im sure some good bodyshops could have fixed that for you

That all depends on what sort of No claims he has, if its full protected then there is no problem but i can see your point if its Not protected (loosing your No claims is not good in this day and age)

That looks like about 1k to repair if you paid cash (not insurance) Bodyshops don\'t charge high Labour rates so they will put as much on an Insurance job as poss to get some money from the job.

[RobbieRX-7]

Personally if it was me driving, i would have put the spare tyre on and drove it back home, not bothering going through the insurance. I would only get the insurance involved if i smashed into another pretty expensive car. I got 8 years ncb to loose and that saves me hundreds on insurance prices.

[declasm]

Personally if it was me driving, i would have put the spare tyre on and drove it back home, not bothering going through the insurance. I would only get the insurance involved if i smashed into another pretty expensive car. I got 8 years ncb to loose and that saves me hundreds on insurance prices.

The car ended up facing the wrong way in the outside lane of the A3, the police were called and the rush hour traffic had to be stopped to move the car across the 3 lanes to the recovery truck - I was still at work at the time so couldn\'t do anything and my girlfriend was pretty shaken up.

From what the police said, the damage doesn\'t seem so bad - I really just wanted some advice from someone who had had a similar incident where their car was borderline and they\'d had some influence in convincing the insurer to repair rather than write-off the car. It would be really impractical for me to keep the car as is and arrange repairs so if it is repairable I want the insurer\'s garage to do it.

[banned advertiser]

I had a car that got spanked a bit worse than that.
It had not done any other damage than bend the rear wing. It has now been pulled out and looks and goes as good as new.
Providing you have had it checked, and no other damage has been done to sub frame, susspension etc, you should have no problem

[TonyC]

Gary is right as I bought his car with the wack. You will be suprised what little there is under that to get damaged. Unless the wheel took a thump I\'d be suprised if the suspension is damaged.
This was Gary\'s car as I bought it:


And this is it repaired:

[DC-TYPER]

bell aint a helpfull company either!