VIC, repair on not?

Yeabut I was asking if it *could* be repaired for that (IYO)? ;-)

That seems to make sense then.

Oh well .. :-(

I suppose how far it goes? People can't afford to run their cars so do go to garages (or don't get them serviced or the trivial bits done), garage lays off staff then approaches landlord for rent reduction (he might have to do something as there is little chance of getting anyone else in or selling the plot for flats etc). Garage reduces prices to 'get work in' so they have *something* to do or take on jobs they wouldn't normally and earn something rather than nothing? [1]

Oh really? No wonder we are pricing ourselves off this planet .. :-(

Cheers, T i m

[1] Every time I've walked into one local garage recently they are all sitting their drinking tea. Same with a local hand car wash place that used to have a queue round the building and the local tyre fitting places.

p.s. I have since remembered my stepdaughter doing some real damage to her o/s/f wing on her Astra a few years back (on a concrete block or some other immovable object). She didn't want her Dad knowing (he ran his own garage and had got her the car) so I picked up a sh wing, sprayed it white with rattle cans (in the back garden), fitted it in the road and she was off the next morning. He never knew and the car was scrapped (for rust) some 5 years later. ;-)

Peter Hill gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I'd have thought a car that badly damaged would be a re-shell, though - in which case, the extent of the damage is academic?

Someone smashes a £20K car it's worth £3k+ of jig work, repaired by insurance co so no cat issued. Someone does exactly same damage to same model of car but 5 years older when it's worth £3K and it's a cat B write off.

Peter Hill gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

£3k isn't going to go very far at all if there's a jig involved as well as panels, paint, labour etc etc.

It's unlikely that it'd be anywhere near CatB.

Cat C, I'd have thought.

Cat B would only be fit for the crusher and could never return to the road.

Luckily I have really good mates and all it will cost me (directly) is the wing and the paint (trade cost). ;-)

T i m

snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

...but with bits removed and sold for salvage...

CatA can't even have a wheeltrim removed for salvage. Must be crushed complete.

T i m gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've got a bonnet needs painting - and, if I can find one in time, a door. Whereabouts?

;-)

T i m gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I don't give a f*ck whether it's relevant to you or not. You bought insurance on the basis that if repairs exceeded the market value, the car would be deemed a write-off. Go and read the paperwork. If you didn't like those terms, you should have bought a different policy, with terms you did like.

Unless the terms you agreed to specifically state that it does, it doesn't HAVE to be done in an "approved" garage. I had the Saab repaired last Xmas on somebody else's insurance at a bodyshop of my choice. Yes, they tried to push me towards their approved garage - but I refused.

Yes, they will. That's the basis on which insurance-approved bodyshops and estimates are done. Because it's cheaper, all in, than fannying around spending hours on bodging old bits back into shape.

To do so would be fraud. Are you making an accusation of attempted fraud against the bodyshop you took the car to?

They couldn't have made it a D - because the cost to repair the damage exceeds the market value of the car. It's uneconomic to repair. That's the definition of Cat C. Go and complain to the ABI.

Maybe you could have negotiated a cash payment in lieu of repairs, with it not being written-off as a part of that deal - but it's too late for that now.

Fine. So everybody's happy. They're not insuring somebody who doesn't fit their profile of an ideal customer, and you've got a better, cheaper policy. You've got cash in your pocket for a dent you don't much care about.

Why, exactly, are you whinging?