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Gutted... Car written off!

1K views 17 replies 14 participants last post by  broadsword 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi,
Yesterday while going on the M11 I had an accident. I was on the inside lane when the traffic on the outside lane (there are only 2 lanes) slowed a lot. Suddenly a car on the outside lane swerved without indicating or looking into my lane when I was about to go past it. I pressed the brakes and swerved towards the hard shoulder but could not avoid the collision. Basically I think the other car's wing mirror got wedged between both cars and caused a lot of damage... The guy admitted liability but we shall see...he said he realised too late that the traffic was slowing down to a halt and in order to avoid a collision with the car in front, he tried coming into my lane but had not seen me.
My insurance has said that it looks like it's a write off and they offer me more than £500 of what I paid when I bought it so I am tempted to accept the offer and buy it back. At the moment I am currently waiting for my insurer to call me back tomorrow.
How much do you guys reckon it will be to repair?
The damage is: scuff marks/scratches on rear arch wing, creased dent across rear door/scuff marks, slight dent + scuff marks/scratches on the driver's door and wing mirror. The car goes really well mechanically so I would be gutted to get rid of it...






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#2 ·
Sad to hear u collided! On the pictures it looks like it's only cosmetical damages?
I killed a deer with my front of my other car, bmw e91 touring. And it got repairs for over 5000£ When it was worse than the looks of your pictures.

If you really like the car, see how far you can get with the 500£ to repair it?
 
#4 ·
it depends on the colour. if it's a metallic silver, grey, darker blue or the deep green you can get decent parts from a breaker and they'll mostly go straight on. If it's any red other than Proteo, it's likely the fading won't match so you'll need a good body shop to blend them in and laquer over as mentioned above, that will double the price or more.
 
#8 ·
I paid £1800 for the car. They're offering £2350. To buy it back I think it will cost around £250 (from previous experience) so I would have around £2100 to spare. However the car will probably be a cat d but I don't care much about that as my intention was to keep it until it self-combusted...

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#9 ·
Take the money, CAT D it and get a pair of second hand doors on. Is that a pre facelift (612/A paint) or post facelift (643 paint I think). 612/a colour is as common as muck out there. Swapping out a rear door is literally a 15 minute job, front is a bit fiddlier - you can't shim it properly without taking the wing off.
 
#14 ·
Agreed, there is a risk of preemptive ratting of useful parts or incidental damage.

I never relinquish a car other than to a trusted repairer. Even to the point where I will park it somewhere it cannot be found or uplifted. Every assessment, inspection, whatever - I am there.
 
#15 ·
You may not get the right colour on a door from a pre-facelift, and if you do use pre-facelift you'll want to change over the door trims, and possibly need to change the door wiring looms, too. But for the driver's door you'd need to take off the door trim to change over the door handle to keep the lock, anyway.......

Definitely worth doing, though :)
 
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#17 · (Edited)
Thanks for that. I have actually bought a couple of bare doors (just the windows and the doors with connectors) for a pretty good price on ebay. I will need to transplant all the bits and pieces from the old doors into the new ones, which I'm not looking forward to but it's a lot cheaper than repairing/respraying.






The blemishes didn't seem too bad, I can live with them and have a bit of touch up paint to camouflage, so I went for it. There were others on ebay which were cheaper but the seller could not give me the paint code so I did not take the risk.
I had asked for quotes for repairing and respraying and they were close to the £1000 mark!?, as to blend the colour properly they need to respray almost the whole side...
Regarding the transplant, one of the things that worries me is losing the white insulation film in the process as it looks glued in. Is there any way to keep it as intact as possible? Road noise worries me...


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#18 ·
Regarding the transplant, one of the things that worries me is losing the white insulation film in the process as it looks glued in. Is there any way to keep it as intact as possible? Road noise worries me...


Try using a heat gun or hairdryer to soften the glue, the insulation should peel away. Failing that duct tape is wonderful stuff...

Good luck.
 
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