Section : General

Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

Posted By : Andrew Lewis, 17-Mar-2004, 03:07pm

• Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

  Posted By : Chris Mills, 17-Mar-2004, 03:12pm

  were you agreed value with FJ ? and if yes, what was the last valuation ?
  
  

  • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

    Posted By : Nathan Gabbott, 17-Mar-2004, 03:37pm

    Have you asked how much to buy it back? You can always swap the engine etc. to a better body (or maybe one of the nice fibreglass cars I saw at stonleigh...... Woth thinking about!
    
    But bad lluck
    
    Nathan

    • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

      Posted By : Nigel Gibbins, 17-Mar-2004, 05:36pm

      Whether you can or cannot buy it back from your insurers will depend on the class of right-off. I'm not an expert here but if it is category A or B then the car has to be destroyed or broken up by law
      
      Check it out yourself, and give your argument a bit of 'edge' when you ask to buy back your car...
      http://www.abi.org.uk/Public/Consumer/Codes/MotorV...

      • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

        Posted By : Andrew Lewis, 17-Mar-2004, 06:00pm

        I believe if it's a C or D class write off that you can get it back on the road (uneconomical to repair/constructive loss)
        
        However it is 300 odd miles away from me just now, and without a garage it's just not practical to store it back up here, so I'm going to concentrate on getting as much of my hard earned back as I can.
        
        Unfortunately I didn't have agreed value with FJ as I was waiting to sort the offside rear wing before getting it valued. Doubtless that decision will come back to haunt me.
        
        My experience of insurers so far is not a positive one. FJ have been ok but you wouldn't believe the pervasive incompetence in the other companies I have dealt with
        

        • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

          Posted By : Chris Mills, 17-Mar-2004, 06:18pm

          I know it's after the horse....... and I'm sorry you've lost the car, it's always worth doing the initial valuation and having a re-valuation when a reasonable amount of time/money has been put into the car even if the 2 yrs have not elapsed.

          • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

            Posted By : Tim Willis, 17-Mar-2004, 08:31pm

            Andrew,
            
            5K buys an awful lot of repair work. Was it such a heavy smash?
            
            My experience during my time at MG specialist was that repairs were quoted for solely with the repairers in mind. ie the aim to get as much work as possible from the job. Now I'm not suggesting that you leave a bent chassis in place or anything dodgy but it is worth inspecting the car with your chosen repairer to make sure all the repairs are strictly necessary. It is also not necessary to restore the rear end to show winning condition, just to a safe, high standard.
            It could be that with the car so far from you, events are taking their own course and you are losing out.
            It is also worth trying to speak to the assessor as he may be able to suggest increasing your excess to cover it, or leaving out some less important aspects (for eg. new rear bumper) if it helps.
            
            Best of luck
            
            Tim
            
            Willow Triumph

            • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

              Posted By : Tim Everitt, 18-Mar-2004, 03:18pm

              Well, I have to say that Footman James have just tested my patience a bit on a claim. My TVR Chimaera incinerated itself whilst my wife was trying to park it. But the delay seems to have been down to the engineers report. He examined the car quickly enough and then nothing happened- for quite a long time. Then I was asked for V5, original invoice, service records etc. They really do need these if they are to come up with a fair valuation of the car - mine was too young to qualify for an agreed value. Once they had these (and were chased by a couple of calls), I have to say that their valuation was as fair as I could have expected and there was no need for any negotiation. Two months all in, of which about 3 weeks seems to have been down to the engineer. Apart from the time it took, I found them very straight and fair.

          • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

            Posted By : John Davies, 17-Mar-2004, 09:04pm

            Andrew,
            You should be able to buy the car back, even if it is an A or B class write-off. The point is that the car must NOT be repaired and returned to the road. For a modern car, this means the crusher. In the case of the modular Triumph, this means that if one major component is scrapped, all the rest may be re-used.
            This worked when I trashed my old Vitesse. All I had to do was to give my insurers (FJ) enough of the car to make a rebuild impossible and the logbook/V5. And I could keep the car as long as I needed to strip it, until I told FJ to send someone for the bits I didn't want.
            
            The guy with the car transporter lorry, with room for six motors, was a bit surprised to collect - one bent chassis.
            John

        • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

          Posted By : Adrian Lee, 17-Mar-2004, 11:39pm

          If you need it transporting give me a shout.......freebie..no strings............

          • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

            Posted By : Andrew Lewis, 18-Mar-2004, 02:50pm

            Thanks for the encouragement chaps, and for the kind offer Adrian.
            
            Tim - it was shunted into the car in front as well, towbar through radiator and pretty thorough crumpling of bonnet, rear valance, boot floor, both wings, so I wasn't hugely surprised by the estimate.
            
            I've decided to explore my options a bit farther and spoke to the insurer direct (I've been going through FJ thus far) and they haven't even received the engineer's report yet, so I'll give it another couple of days.
            
            It just shows you - FJ want me to send in my V5 etc which I think is getting a bit previous when no-one even knows what category of write off it is yet.

            • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

              Posted By : Nigel Gibbins, 18-Mar-2004, 03:38pm

              Andrew,
              
              Is this the car I recently saw on the ramps at canleys? the damage description matches almost perfectly. It was in a sad state I have to say. can't remember if it was a Mk1 or 2, but as I have one of these myself I had a little look over it (non-touchy). I did wince when I went round the front though
              
              

              • Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

                Posted By : Andrew Lewis, 18-Mar-2004, 04:09pm

                Nig
                
                Yes, almost certainly - it's the same one as in my profile.
                
                I'm certain the chassis is ok, but the body is grim. The real killer is the frontal damage as I suspect the bonnet is scrap, which must have added a lot to the estimate. Annoyingly, I saw a Mk1 bonnet on Ebay just a few months ago, v cheap.
                
                At the end of the day, whilst I am going to explore options with the insurer there is a limit to how much I am prepared to stump up myself, as it's money I'd put aside for other improvements (outer sills and paint, late swing spring, diff refurb principally) which I guess I would rather hold onto for another project.

• Accident saga reaches sorry conclusion 

  Posted By : David Styles, 17-Mar-2004, 03:39pm

  I lost a 2.5L MKIII spitfire with all the gubbins a few years ago.
  
  My insurers - Eaglestar (yes, I know... but they were cheapest and I was young and naive) offered me &163;3000.
  
  After valuations from Triumph specialists,... they eventually upped the offer to &163;7800.
  
  AND, they paid for the valuations.
  
  It took them 6 months of haggling... but I think they expected me to go away after their second offer of about 5k.
  
  I also contacted Practical Classics at the time, and they said they would back me.
  
  So make sure you get it valued at what your car was worth...
  
  and you know all those stories about insurance companies.... well I didn't believe them either till this happened... but, they are all true.