modo

Hi folks,I would really appreciate some help/ advice.
While my car was parked someone crashed into the front side.
The guy who crashed into my car has accepted full blame and provided me with his insurance details.
I went to a local garage and they uplifted my car(managed to drive it)and got me sorted out with a courtesy car and actually dealt with everything.
I received a letter saying that my car had been written off and was offered £1,700 for my car,a 2004 Ford Fiesta.
I have phoned the garage where my car is to ask what to do next and they told me that even though my car has been written off they will repair it for me if I take the cheque to them directly under a category D?
Does this sound ok/legit?
Any help/advice would be much appreciated as I have no experience with this sort of thing.
Thank you.

james kiely

iTrader: (5)

i would take the cheque and sell your car for salvage ,and buy something else.

thats what i did with my bm 520 a couple of month ago,to save any hassle as you will always have to inform someone of its status when you come to sell it

STeve

iTrader: (11)

as above wins

natehall

iTrader: (2)

personally id take the money, buy the car back and put it on ebay spares / repairs and get a bit more for it...

then buy a new car!

modo

Hi.How can you buy it back?When you accept the money is that not you giving ownership to the insurance company?

modo

Does this sound questionable or is this practice all above board?I'm just wondering if the garage are "ripping me off" at all?

XRT_si

iTrader: (2)

Doesn't sound legit to me at all! Never had a garage offer this either.

Have you accepted the offer from the insurance company yet? If not, tell them you want to buy the car back. They will tell you how much that costs.

fordnut

The other point worth mentioning is to never accept the insurance companies first offer.
Depending on what model your Fiesta is/damage to car/how much you like the car, you can normally come to an agreement on the payout which will let you keep the car, (if you want to).
With the above arrangement, you can normally repair the car with 2nd hand parts and pocket the difference.

natehall

iTrader: (2)

when you accept the offer, you sell the car to the insurance company, who then sell the salvage on to recover some of the money.

When you buy the car back or agree to retain salvage, you get the car back and the cost of it comes out of the settlement and can either fix it or sell it on for someone else to fix it.

furry

as a accident management engineer i do this all the time for our clients Third Parties. the quote for the insurer would have been compiled using the prices for genuine new parts which will be enough to total loss the vehicle. 2nd hand or non genuine parts would have probably saved it.

if the vehicle holds sentimental value to you take the cash and repair if not do as above and find a replacement.

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

as furry says. Its the lunacy of the current insurance industry. Of course you would write off pretty much any normal car over 5-6 years old with the most minor of bumps if you use brand new OEM parts that are often price inflated (even over prices for parts of the current model) due to being older parts and OEM.

It is a silly situation and i wonder how many pay offs the insurance industry get from car manufacturers to do it that way as getting rid of anything over a few years old by deliberately rigging the repair costs is good for the insurers and good for the manufacturers.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

your first mistake was to let them take the car
your second mistake is going to be accepting the £1700 for it
the next mistake is going to be trying to buy it back off of them

for an easy life, reject their first offer and then accept their revised offer if it's more, don't forget that you will be without a car for a few days/weeks until you can find a replacement so you want to get as much as you can for your current one so look on the net for the same car and see how much they are selling for and go back with a "this is what the car is worth on average from what i can find looking for a replacement" bit of paper

don't forget that you will also now be the winner of a "non fault accident" award, which you will have to disclose for the next 5 years which will bump your premium up even though it's not your fault which makes getting as much money for the car as possible even more worth while

modo

The car obviously had to be moved?It's a local garage who has the car.My insurance didn't cover recovery from RAC and would have cost me to have it moved.I also needed a car and this garage got a courtesy car sorted out but what are they getting out of it?I've not accepted the offer yet?How do I go about buying the car back?If I do this wil t then cost me to have the garage that has it fix it?

modo

From what I can see the same model seems to be going for around the offer price?The thing is the damage doesn't look that bad.It's just the front wheel that's buckled at the bottom?
I would like my car back as it is in good condition and a good little runner!

bigdel

Same thing happened to my son's old Corsa. Stupid tart over the road reversed into it and stoved all the door in. Because the damage also went into the rear quarter as well (only a bit), the cost of the repair outweighed the car's value so it was written off.
They offered us 1250 for it. I refused that and supplied them with a list of cars for sale of the same age and condition, all for much more than they were offering.
We eventually settled on 1650.
They offered it back to us at salvage (£121), so we bought it back, fitted a 2nd hand door, and it's still going now 2 years later being used by my youngest.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

in my experience the garage will charge you a "storage fee" which will outweigh any savings when you buy the car back

they also don't really care how it's stored because the insurance company will pay them, then there's the recovery fees etc and it soon works out cheaper to simply take the money and run

what i always advise is that you should get your breakdown company to recover it back to your home address and then the assessor will come out to asses it and you can see what they say, after that, once you've accepted the offer they can take the car from you OR they will make you an offer whereby YOU retain the salvage and they simply make the cheque a bit smaller to cover the cost

happened to me when i wrote of my 24V granada when someone went into the back of me at some lights, they dropped of a courtesy car and wanted to take the granada for "storage" and i said "nope, i'll be waiting for the guy to come and have a look at it"

bloke came out and said that the car was worth £800, it would cost me £300 for the salvage, i got a cheque for £500 and the car wasn't recorded, and then i got another £1250 from the other insurance for being without a car for the duration as when they write your car off there will be a clause in the insurance that says "no hire car if it's written off"

modo

Hi
Yes this is pretty much what is happening.As we had never been in this situation before we didn't know what to do and didn't want to leave the car where it was.RAC were going to charge £150 to move it as I was only covered for breakdown.
The thing is this garage has organized the courtesy car,and dealt with the 3rd parties insurance.They also got the car valued and I received a letter stating what the pre accident value was.
So am I going to end up owing this garage the majority if not all of the money that was offered?
Has this been done properly do you think?

dojj

iTrader: (3)

It's the industry standard to do it this way because they'll make more money from the insurance company they are billing
The courtesy car will rack in the most money, I had one for 2 months and they charged £6k for it!!!!!

cossynut2

Sounds like a bad deal for you in my opinion. How come the repairs come to exactly £1700? Even if it is repaired to a good standard it will always have the cat D against it and it will make it hard to sell in the future and people will want it for peanuts. Take the £1700 , scrap the car and sell any good parts and buy yourself something else. There are a lot of decent small cars around at the moment and I am sure you will find another one. Good luck.
Cheers Richard from Southampton.

modo

This whole this has me really worried.I have just found out that the "company" who has valued my car is an insurance company that is affiliated with the garage that has my car.My car also hasn't moved from the same spot in the garage?
Is there any way I can question the value of my car as I believe it is worth more?
Also should I have contacted my own insurance company?
I thought as I wasn't involved and the person who crashed into my car provided all his details and admitted responsibility that it was only his insurance company that would need to be informed.
This has caused me so much stress and I have done nothing wrong.
I also have been told that if I remove the car from the garage then I will be charged for the courtesy car personally as it was they who provided it to me.
My car is in really good condition and I really don't want to commit it to the scrap heap as I believe it has years left still.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

You should have called your own insurance company mate, it's not too late to do so now but they may not want to know now that someone else had got the ball rolling

Berty84

Iv seen some really nice looking motors on auto trader that are cat d and they probably have been repaired better than what they was before but at the end of the day its a category D...

Berty84

This happened to me then the insurance company had my log book, sold my car on and didn't inform the dvla... had a letter sayin someone is taking ownership of your car and I needed to confirm it wasn't mine anymore so yes they can be bought back

modo

The repair work is costing just under the pre accident value of the car which is valued at £1.730.It has been deemed a "Total Loss" I really don't understand what this means though?
Another thing do I actually get the pre accident value?Can I have my own insurance company conduct a second opinion o the value of the car?
Thanks for all the advice folks.

cossynut2

Couple of points here, still seems convenient that the the car is valued at £1730 and hey presto the repairs come to £1700 ? That sounds fishy to me. Insurance companies will only repair a car if the cost of the repairs are below the value of the car . I believe they work on a percentage of the value versus repair.
Unfortunately for you when you are involved in an accident regardless of whose fault it is you need to inform your own insurance company. They will work on your behalf to make sure you are treated fairly. I am not sure if you inform them so long after the accident happened if they will be willing to help you but you should inform them now and see what happens. Did you have fully comprehensive insurance?
Most Insurance Companies will let you buy the car back off them for a small amount if it is a write off. You then have a choice to get it repaired or scrap it for parts. It will always have the cat D against it though.
A friend of mine has a Mercedese 190e in good overall condition, it was keyed right around it and the cost of the full respray it needed was more than the value of the car. It was written off by his insurance company, they paid him more than he bought it for, he bought it back from them for a small amount , he got the paintwork sorted out cheaply by a mate and he is still driving it, a happy man !
Keep us informed of how you get on.
Cheers Richard from Southampton.

modo

Thank you for your reply Richard.I'm a bit suspicious about the value given to my car as the company who valued it is affiliated with the garage who still has it by the way.
Is there anyway I could have my own insurance company or someone else value my car as it really is in good condition.The damage that has been done doesn't even look that major.I think it's being exaggerated!
I can't believe the stress and inconvenience this has caused and my car was parked at the time.I've been lef to deal with all of this while all that will happen to the driver who crashed in to my car is his insurance will increase a bit?
Thanks.

cossynut2

As I said you have to tell your own insurance company what has happened as they will try to assist you with your claim. As for the value of your car the insurance company will try to pay out as little as possible, that again is why you need somebody to help you from your insurance company. Contact them asap is my advice and see if they can help you.
Cheers Richard.

modo

Hi folks.This has been a long drawn out process.Decided to take the money and buy back the salvage as the damage really wasn't that bad.Cat D.The car has been repaired at a cost of (£1,200)
Does it now need an MOT?The garage that done the work is also an MOT station.Can they do the MOT or is it best to use another MOT station.They're not going to charge that amount and then say it's not roadworthy?Probably wouldn't even put it through it's MOT?

cris

MOT is not an inspecton of the repair
If the current MOT is valid as its was a CAT D you just fix it and drive it.
Ask the garage to help, say it needs an MOT and they can check it over for usual failure points

CAT C requires an inspection at DVLA/VOSA type place perhaps this is what you mean.

You can agree a contact repair with some places where a car it likely to be written off but repairable with eithier used parts or aftermarket parts.
I'm not sure if your explaination was a bit vague or if they were initially being cheeky but you can certainly get insurance payments factored by a 3rd party company to make sure the garage gets paid etc I've entered into similar agreements with a couple of 1st time customers

getting the right money out of insurance comps is like getting blood from a stone!

modo

Hi Cris.Thanks.
I thought as it had been written off it needed an MOT to be but back on the road again.There was damage done to the wheel under the chassis as someone drove in to it while parked but it's been repaired now.So is it ok to be drivven now?Don't need to inform DVLA if it is a cat D?
Basically when the accident happened my girlfriend went to this local garage/MOT station and they "took care of it" Organized a courtesy car,dealt with the other persons insurance.Even though it didn't look that bad the car was written off.The garage got their insurance people to value the car?My girlfriend wanted it repaired and took the first offer that was made which as far as I'm concerned was quite a bit below.She just wanted her car "back to normal"
Thanks.

clairendave

My old mans mondeo got cat D'd. as part of the process the current mot had to be surrendered. then a new mot after repair.

cris

I've not had to do the new MOT after a cat D before but I've not done recommision CAT D salavge repair in a year.
Perhaps it's a coincidence the last cat D's I've had the MOTs had run out anyway.
But my Cayenne One was a still valid (last year) and I taxed it without getting a new MOT maybe it's a new thing or certain insurance firms do this.

Safe bet is to ask the firm that paid you out
Sorry I may have unintentionally got it wrong

Oranoco

To be fair one of the neighbours hit my car outside the house a few months ago. Estimate to repair was £800 I was certain they would try and write it off but they didn't even quibble and although there was a bit of mucking about the car was sent to my chosen bodyshop and the repair was very good. Got a nice BMW 1 series to mooch about I'm too for the week and a bit my car was in for.

Also had my old XR2i totalled by a clown a fortnight after the shoot for a Grudge Match in Performance Ford. Cheeky sods offered just £500 for the car, declined an offer of £700 and another for £900. Took several months and a threat of the insurance ombudsman before they finally paid up just over £2k. I also sold a lot of the decent kit from it, Recaro seats etc.