Accident damage - door skin

[phope74]

Got driven into today by a woman driving a Ford Focus

She was in the wrong lane completely at a roundabout, and turned into our nearside rear quarter - I'm positive she would have been charged with driving without due care and attention had I called the police

Our door all bashed in at the bottom, and rippled near the top underneath the swage line, rear arch and wheel scraped, with her damage being the offside front wing, bumper and headlight smashed. No airbags off for either car thankfully

Will be pressing for the Audi bodyshop to do the repair to keep the paint warranty intact

Question: Are the door skins removable? Would prefer a new door skin than trying to repair the damaged one



IMG_2777_zps2a7d5a55.jpg

[morski]

Sorry to here about your incident. Doors come in bare shells only. No skins available. The doors are aluminium anyway and any decent bodyshop will prefer to replace rather than attempt repair, Rear quarter is steel so can be bashed back into shape. just make sure they get the lower arch repair looking correct

[phope74]

Thanks for that

I'm sure I'll hear in due course - car was uplifted today to go to the Audi bodyshop

We've been given a BMW 520d Touring M-Sport as a loan car...will be interesting to see the differences

[phope74]

Car received back today after 17 days away

I've not seen the panels after getting home late tonight, but the Audi bodyshop appears to have done a great job

New door, new sill, new rear alloy wheel and the rear arch repaired - will have a proper look in daylight

Cost for parts, labour and materials was supposedly £3300 inc VAT, plus 17 days car hire at £240 daily makes the cost just shy of £7400, plus whatever the costs of her repairs are

I have to say that the Accident Exchange company that Dundee Audi use for this service have been great and easy to deal with - we've not even had to pay any amount of excess, as it has also been recovered directly from the third party insurer

The BMW 520d we had though is not what I thought it would be - heavy and lethargic, the iDrive controller is not as good as the Audi MMI, interior quality definitely less, and to top it all, the halogen headlights on ours were absolutely dire

[Justinos]

Word of warning about Accident Exchange. I had a loan car from them. Car needed a new front wing and paint to door, simple job, but garage managed to drag it out for 3 weeks. Repairs were circa £2,500, Car hire £8,000. The car sent was a brand new 330d BMW with 80 miles on the clock. They had bought it in especially.

Other side insurance co who were at fault refused to pay, so it went to court. When you sign the papers for the car, you agree to offer what ever help is needed. I had to take a day off work to attend court. They sent me to the wrong court, Derby instead of Nottingham, so was adjourned. I refused to help anymore, as I agreed with the other side, the hire cost was ridiculous - we all pay for this through our premiums. They politely reminded me that if I didn't, then they would invoice me the full cost. It was settled in the end before it went to court again, but it took 2 years and was a lot of hassle.

The next time I had a non fault claim, I accepted the insurance companies offer of a hire car from Enterprise, rather than a car from a rip off Accident management company. I got quite a nice 2,000 mile old Skoda Estate with DSG, and cost insurance company £40 a day - not £240. I could have had a merc or anything if I'd made a n issue of it, but was fine for a few days in something different.

I will never entertain an accident management company again. I think we should all think carefully about this. At the time I thought it was great having a brand new car for 3 weeks, but it was only the legal action that brought the cost into perspective. We are quick to complain about rising insurance premiums, but we are partly causing this.

[ukgroucho]

phope - glad you got the car back OK .. looks fine in the pics have you had a chance to do a close inspection?

I have to agree with Justinos on the cost of the hire car. Good grief £240 a DAY... who did it come from? I would not be surprised if it is owned by Accident Exchange - buy it at trade price (maybe £36k?) send it out on a few jobs and after 6 months it has paid for itself so sell it on. Really nice little earner.
And yes we're all picking that up in our insurance charges - someone getting very 'fat' of our premiums.

[Justinos]

They own the cars, and I think you have hit their business model on the head. When I queried the cost they said that they might have cars paked up for months, but it sounded like a well rehearsed rebuttal script to me. Any way you look at it, you can'y justify it. Enterprise will hire you a premium car for at most £100 a day, the Skoda I had was £40. I'm not criticising phope as I did it, but now I know the costs and the system, never again.

[fest0r]

Justinos, was the other insurer Aviva? Had a similar situation myself a few years back albeit only £850 rental charges (Enterprise) and it was settled just before the court date. I was told by my insurer that Aviva had started challenging every courtesy car charge over a certain amount. Although at £8000 I would have though every company would challenge it.

I’m sure there was meant to be an enquiry into these excessive charges:

BBC News - Car insurance facing Competition Commission study

[Justinos]

I can't recall now. It was a scam. The repair centre passed my details to AE, so no doubt were on commission, so dragged work out to 3 weeks, ordering parts, waiting for paint to dry etc.

[phope74]

I never had a chance to look at it yesterday, as was up in Inverness, and got back late

I did have a quick look with the torch, and there are a couple of very minor buffer trails from the body shop, which will polish out easy enough myself

I do agree the hire charges are excessive, and whilst it is their business model, I'd only ever use them again if it was a 100% clearcut that the other party was at fault (as it was this time), as otherwise it could be a long drawn out affair. If I was at fault, I'd just go through our own insurers directly