I hope you're sat comfortably, as I've literally grown a beard in the time it has taken me to write this!
As some of you may be aware, my zed was recently involved in an accident that *had* caused bad damage to my rear quarter panel.
My neighbour reversed into it causing a substantial dent as well as fairly superficial scratches starting on the rear bumper corner, on the quarter panel itself, and a couple on the top corner of the skirt (annoyingly on the part that isn't protected by my skirt stone chip guard!).
The neighbour very kindly knocked on my door and told me about it, if she hadn't I wouldn't have known who did it as I didn't see/hear anything. In light of this, I offered to get the work done privately as I know of people in the trade - thereby hopefully saving her an insurance claim.
I was quoted £350 to completely bring it back to perfect condition (dropping rear bumper, spraying and blending across from bumper into quarter panel, skirt, and door; as well as filler etc.). Putting it into context, BMW quoted £2,211.
At this point I found a panel on eBay for £120, so drove a couple hours to pick this up in case it worked out cheaper to replace and bolt on instead of spraying.
I went back with the quotes I had and she decided to put it through her insurance instead (presumably her excess was less than this).
Having been in touch with her insurers, I told them that I'd prefer to take the car to the garage of my choice for the repair as I'd previously had very bad experiences from their two chosen garages that they normally use. I also advised them that I could get the work done for less than half of the price of their garages (having earlier obtained quotes from them too) and would be able to get a free courtesy car - ergo saving the insurer even more money and hopefully reducing the impact on my neighbour... Or so I thought...
They insisted that they'd have to send out an engineer to assess the damage before they would approve me using a garage of my choice. No problem. In the meantime I went back to my garage with the panel I had bought to book it in, in anticipation and whilst there they had their paintless dent removal guy in doing work. He saw the damage and told me that he'd be able to get most of it out straight away for a smaller fee than the garage. I agreed, and sure enough he got the dent out with only a VERY minimal crease along the natural line of the arch left. The job was amazing.
So, by this point I had spent £140 for the panel off eBay + around £40 fuel + £80 for the dent to be taken out...
Fast forward a few days and the neighbours insurance assessor arrives. I'm chatting to him and he said that aside from the slight scuff remaining (and I mean slight) he genuinely would not have spotted the crease straight away had I not have pointed it out to him.
He then proceeded to tap away into an iPad all of the work that would need to be done to do a complete repair...
Once done, he said that either I could take the cash amount or he could authorise the insurer to allow me to take the car to the garage of my choice... The amount he said was £813!
I couldn't believe it, as we both agreed the damage on the car is only noticeable if pointed out, but he was adamant that figure would be the going rate for repair (which was correct as 3/5 quotes I got were between £700-800).
Aside from the immediate urge to want to accept the cheque, what do I do as I doubt my neighbour would be too impressed seeing that amount as the cost of the claim?
(Before and after pics to follow)
As some of you may be aware, my zed was recently involved in an accident that *had* caused bad damage to my rear quarter panel.
My neighbour reversed into it causing a substantial dent as well as fairly superficial scratches starting on the rear bumper corner, on the quarter panel itself, and a couple on the top corner of the skirt (annoyingly on the part that isn't protected by my skirt stone chip guard!).
The neighbour very kindly knocked on my door and told me about it, if she hadn't I wouldn't have known who did it as I didn't see/hear anything. In light of this, I offered to get the work done privately as I know of people in the trade - thereby hopefully saving her an insurance claim.
I was quoted £350 to completely bring it back to perfect condition (dropping rear bumper, spraying and blending across from bumper into quarter panel, skirt, and door; as well as filler etc.). Putting it into context, BMW quoted £2,211.
At this point I found a panel on eBay for £120, so drove a couple hours to pick this up in case it worked out cheaper to replace and bolt on instead of spraying.
I went back with the quotes I had and she decided to put it through her insurance instead (presumably her excess was less than this).
Having been in touch with her insurers, I told them that I'd prefer to take the car to the garage of my choice for the repair as I'd previously had very bad experiences from their two chosen garages that they normally use. I also advised them that I could get the work done for less than half of the price of their garages (having earlier obtained quotes from them too) and would be able to get a free courtesy car - ergo saving the insurer even more money and hopefully reducing the impact on my neighbour... Or so I thought...
They insisted that they'd have to send out an engineer to assess the damage before they would approve me using a garage of my choice. No problem. In the meantime I went back to my garage with the panel I had bought to book it in, in anticipation and whilst there they had their paintless dent removal guy in doing work. He saw the damage and told me that he'd be able to get most of it out straight away for a smaller fee than the garage. I agreed, and sure enough he got the dent out with only a VERY minimal crease along the natural line of the arch left. The job was amazing.
So, by this point I had spent £140 for the panel off eBay + around £40 fuel + £80 for the dent to be taken out...
Fast forward a few days and the neighbours insurance assessor arrives. I'm chatting to him and he said that aside from the slight scuff remaining (and I mean slight) he genuinely would not have spotted the crease straight away had I not have pointed it out to him.
He then proceeded to tap away into an iPad all of the work that would need to be done to do a complete repair...
Once done, he said that either I could take the cash amount or he could authorise the insurer to allow me to take the car to the garage of my choice... The amount he said was £813!
I couldn't believe it, as we both agreed the damage on the car is only noticeable if pointed out, but he was adamant that figure would be the going rate for repair (which was correct as 3/5 quotes I got were between £700-800).
Aside from the immediate urge to want to accept the cheque, what do I do as I doubt my neighbour would be too impressed seeing that amount as the cost of the claim?
(Before and after pics to follow)
By the seaside...
