Headlamp wash jets

[kesselrun]

Bear with me, this is a bit long winded.

My wife had a small accident recently in the A4. She's ok, no injuries even though the accident was on a 60 limit road -another driver ran into her (from opposite direction) while she was driving home.

There wasn't too much damage - it's all down the offside, wing replaced, both doors replaced, wing mirror destroyed and rear quarter resprayed - shows how well the audi can stand up to impacts like this.

Anyway, my question relates to the headlamp washer jets. They were working fine before the accident (like 2 days before when i used them) but now they don't pop up, although i can see the water draining out of the bumper when I try to use them, so i guess the plumbing is ok.

The initial point of impact was the offside front wing and i'm wondering if the impact has 'compressed' the front bumper in some way, preventing the jets from popping up?

Does anybody know if this system is pump driven (ie electic pump) or pressure driven (ie water pressure)?

The other party has accepted full liability and the car has just come back from the body shop (audi dealership repair shop). The dealer has said that the insurance company had only allocated enough time to check the wash system, not repair it.

Cue insurance shenanigans!

My argument is that the system was working before the accident, therefore it should be working now that the car has been 'repaired'. Dealer agrees and I accept he can only do the work he's been told to do.

Insurance view is that the system may have been faulty before the accident hence the "check first" approach.

I don't think it was (is) faulty, but does anybody know if there are known issues with these systems? Car is a 2003 A4 (B6) Avant 3.0 Quattro.

The problem is that now the car will have to go back in and if it turns out that the system has a fault not caused by the accident, I can imagine I'll probably be liable to pay for the investigation, or so it seems.

Any ideas anybody?

Again, apologies for the long post!

[kite]

As you can see water running from under the bumper when these are used I would think a pipe has come off.
They are water pressure driven.
Would the bodyshop have removed the bumper and not put it back properly

[kesselrun]

Thanks for the reply, Kite.

According to the body shop, they didn't remove the front bumper because they hadn't been allocated enough time to do it.

I think the problem has been caused as a result of the accident, so I guess it probably wouldn't make any difference if they'd removed it or not.

[kite]

If the problem was caused by the accident then the insurance should pay to get them fixed.

[kesselrun]

Yep, I agree completely.

The problem seems to be some sort of breakdown in communications between the garage doing the repairs and my insurance company. I don't think it should be up to me to be chasing them both to try and resolve the situation, but that seems to be how it is at the moment.

I gave them both all day today to get in touch with me and I heard squat from either so tomorrow is fireworks day...

It's really not on.