Bash!!

[gupsterg]

Hi Mark,

Shame about the car... but like said in thread before it's the people that matter... I just hope it's less aggravation getting it sorted than last time...

WOW! can't believe how the C1 looks AOK... looks like your car absorbed all the force of the impact...

ATB
Gup

[belly buster]

C1 looks better than I would have expected looking at your damage.

I hope your car can be fixed in quick time. You mention a lease company - is it a lease car or your own?

[MFGF]

Hi Mark,

Shame about the car... but like said in thread before it's the people that matter... I just hope it less aggravation getting it sorted than last time...

WOW! can't believe how the C1 looks AOK... looks like your car absorbed all the force of the impact...

ATB
Gup

Thanks Gup - very much appreciated! After the trials you have been through, this is trivial in comparison.

C1 looks better than I would have expected looking at your damage.

I hope your car can be fixed in quick time. You mention a lease company - is it a lease car or your own?

If you look closely at the C1, you can see the driver's side headlamp is displaced and there is damage to the bonnet and front bumper. Looking from side-on, the damage is much more apparent. Red paint from the C1 has transferred to the top of my rear bumper, disappearing into the panel gap under the bottom of the bootlid. That gives you an idea of how far my rear bumper was pushed in. To be honest, I am amazed the Citroen doesn't show more damage too. I think I will call the woman tonight to see if she is ok - she said she had chest pains after the accident.

It's a company car, leased via LeasePlan. Their Accident Management team handle incidents like this, which in theory takes all the hassle out of sorting things. In practice, I found last time that they sent my C6 to a repairer staffed by 3-year-old blind, uncaring layabouts (or so it seemed). They "repaired" the driver's door of my car and the panel ended up undulating and wavy, with patchy mostly-matte paint finish. On the third attempt they fitted a new door and "blended" the paintwork in by spraying down the whole side of the car, ruining the pristine Audi paintwork with patchy rough paint and introducing lumps in every panel finish and getting overspray on the door handles, window rubbers, chrome trims, door seals, sill kick plates, wheel arch liners and inside the fuel filler aperture. I think it ended up costing more to rectify the damage they did than the original repair estimate! The overspray had to be removed which meant a lot of dismantling and cleaning, and every panel on the driver's side of the car had to be sanded, smoothed, prepped and painted to remove the lumps. I *really* don't want my C7 to go to those cowboys!

Cheers!

MF.

[fernar]

The problem is that Leaseplan will keep insisting on using these dimwits to repair their lease cars....my previous car had it's bumper ripped off in a car park by a lady who was trying to reverse out of a space - she was honest and let me her details so made the hassle a little bit better - buy Leaseplan insisted on usine a cowboy to fix the car - the front of the car was never the same, even though the dimwits tried to fix the mistakes three times.....

[bwoody]

Ouch, that is a sore one. Hope it all get sorted and the job is done well. Glad everyone was ok that was involved too.

[JimC64]

Mark mate, it seems if you didn't have any bad luck you'd have no luck at all with cars this past wee while.

I feel your pain mate as I know how you look after your cars and hope all goes as well & as smoothly as possible to get it resolved for you.
Obviously a massive plus that no one was injured.

Just proves even more that with todays drivers being what they are ( in general ) we have to use defensive driving tactics every time behind the wheel to stand a chance of getting from A - B in one piece.

All my best Mark

[MFGF]

Thanks for the flood of good wishes! I really appreciate your kindness and concern!!!

I have taken some more detailed pics of the damage today, and got under the back of the car with my phone camera to get some ideas of how things look behind the bumper and diffuser.

Here is the paint transfer on the top of the bumper. This gives you an idea of how far it must have deflected inwards:



Here is an overview across the back of the car:



I think my car was slightly angled left when she hit me - I had tried to get as far out of the way of the oncoming reckless woman as possible, and stopped with the nose of the car angled in towards the kerb. The left side of the diffuser and the exhaust seem to have taken the biggest hit. Here are a couple of pictures up under the diffuser by the exhaust pipes:





These next two are the damage I am most concerned about. These are pictures of the rear of the boot structure and spare wheel well up behind the diffuser. I think the panel should be flat all the way across, but mine has sustained damage:





The exhaust back box is pushed forwards and is pressing against the wheel arch liner behind the left wheel. You can see it bulging out a little in this picture:



I also took some alignment pictures of the bumper where it meets the rear wing by the wheel arch each side. There is slight misalignment on the left (1st pic) but the right is ok (2nd pic)





The rear bumper cover has sprung back into its approximate shape, but is looking a little the worse for wear:











The exhaust has been pushed in quite a long way, and shunted off to the right a little:





Looking up under the bumper cover in the gap where the diffuser is pushed in, I can see the metal bar behind the bumper cover. The C1 appears to have ridden beneath this as it's mostly intact:





Here is some more damage to the body around the exhaust area:





Finally, some overview shots again. From the driver's side, it doesn't appear too nasty:



On the passenger side, it looks a little less normal





And to give you an idea of how far the exhaust has moved, here is a shot looking down where you ought to be able to see both tail pipes clearly:



Have fun looking, and be happy your A6 looks in rather better shape than mine.

Cheers!

MF.

[kite]

Good to hear you're OK.
Shame about the car though, such a lovely spec too.
Get your daughter out of the Ka and into an A1, well once uni has finished.
let's hope it's repairable.

....If only I was as smart as this bloody phone

[DR_A6]

Hi,

From a couple of those pics i reckon it could be a cat d. amazing how much energy is transferred round the car when hit at 40 mph, and I am pretty certain the C4 will be the same!

Glad everybody was ok!

Peter

[MFGF]

Good to hear you're OK.
Shame about the car though, such a lovely spec too.
Get your daughter out of the Ka and into an A1, well once uni has finished.
let's hope it's repairable.

....If only I was as smart as this bloody phone

Thanks George! I have had myriad calls this morning from the leasing company accident management service, the garage allocated for the repair (the Ashbourne place I was hoping for), a company arranging my "like for like" hire, and the insurer of the woman who ran into me (offering to repair my car as their driver was at fault). So... My car is being collected and taken to Ashbourne for repair. My "like for like" car turns out to be a Mercedes C220 CDi. They tried to claim it was the same size as mine, but I pointed out it was the same size as an A4. Their response was "That's all we have". It is supposed to be arriving any time now, but no sign yet.

I emptied the valuables out of the A6 this morning before it gets carried away. I had to get into the boot for some stuff, and I'm happy to report it opens and closes as normal. The story underneath isn't good, though. I struggled to take the spare wheel out - the boot floor has been pushed forwards and molded itself around the tyre, so it was a really tight fit. I managed to get it out eventually and take some pictures...

The paint transfer on the back bumper - you can see more now the boot lid is open:


This is looking down into the left side of the boot with the spare wheel removed. Notice how it is pushed in around the rubber bung - this is the rear of the boot floor aperture.


Here is a closer shot showing the distortion and buckling:


There is less damage on the right, but you can see it begins as you look towards the centre of the car where the spare wheel was sitting.


Here is the equivalent view on the left - far more damage there!


As I was writing this, the guy from Ashbourne turned up to collect my car, and while I was outside with him the delivery guy arrived with the C Class. It is a C220 CDi SE - nothing at all like my car. I took the driver to the railway station, and it seems very gruff and noisy in comparison with my A6, plus the ride is very floaty and wallowy. At least it's not a Nissan Micra!

Cheers!

MF.