The boss was on her way to her yoga class on Monday just before 9.30am, when an oncoming car swerved towards her and smashed off the offside door mirror. The impact, probably at 45mph + 45mph, must have practically vapourised the mirror which took countless chips out of an area of door and of side window. On inspection there is a dent in the door and collateral scuffs and chips to the back door and rear quarter panel.
Boss was shaken up of course, and stopped. So did the other party, who had swerved to avoid a pothole. Party took responsibility, full credit for that, and suggested we get a quote and she would pay for repairs.
This is a newish car with a bodywork warranty, so on behalf of the boss I took it to a proper repairer who is on several insurers' approved lists. Estimate was £1220 + VAT. Naturally, third party was shocked but I explained that there was no question of anything other than a full repair by an approved body shop as it is a newish car with a bodywork warranty.
I invited her to contact the repairer if she wanted to go through the quote (she did) and suggested that she asked her insurer to I deal with us directly, predicting that they would be very happy to deal direct and keep it away from the claims vultures.
She did, and they were. I got a call from Direct Line. Hire car offered and accepted, our choice of bodyshop. They offered a group C car, I accepted a group B as I am trying to keep costs to a minimum not to inflate them as no doubt our insurer's claims management agents would have done. Hire car from Enterprise is a Hyundai i20 which is fine.
Direct Line in a letter stated that they are paying £16.88 per day for the hire car including insurance, reminded us of our duty to mitigate costs and recommended we contact them immediately if we are approached by "any other hire company". Fair enough. When my son had a no fault accident in November, he went through Admiral whose claims managers provided a group A hire car at £60 a day, to be claimed from the third party insurer, which he had to indemnify.
All round, I can't believe how lucky we have been. It could easily have been an offset head on smash rather than just a mirror, the third party handled it with great integrity, and I haven't even had to fill a form in.
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I have become quite adept at fitting offside door mirrors to my wife's car, if you want to keep the costs down...I have all the tools now and everything... :-(
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I thought of contacting you, until I saw all the other damage:)
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...he could probably have removed that with the pressure-washer.......
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>> ...he could probably have removed that with the pressure-washer.......
Just as long as it wasn't the one featured in last weeks Top Gear.
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I was thinking of you Humph when I started reading this. We had an unexpected claim with Direct Line (House Insurance) - Mrs RP's watch was damaged by accident. Sorted by a third party company. It's due back on Saturday, effortless claim process.
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>> The impact, probably at 45mph + 45mph,
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Sharp intake of breath! Do you mean 90mph?
Are you sure? Isn't it 45mph against another object?
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90 mph closing speed isn't it?
Woulda thunk anyway.
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>> 90 mph closing speed isn't it?
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>> Woulda thunk anyway.
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Time for that perennial argument about energy and damage in stationary and moving vehicles?
(I've just made the interesting discovery that in marine parlance a collision is between two moving vessels, and an allision between one moving and one stationary vessel. )
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>> (I've just made the interesting discovery that in marine parlance a collision is between two
>> moving vessels, and an allision between one moving and one stationary vessel. )
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Should the thread heading be changed to "Minor coccident - honest third party", then ;-)
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>> Time for that perennial argument about energy and damage in stationary and moving vehicles?
I am out of my depth thinking about an offset head on in which both vehicles would probably continue at a reduced speed with a significant component in the original direction of travel.
In a plumb head-on, the Roomster would end going backwards vs. the 30% heavier Kuga which would be slowed down but would continue in the direction of travel. For the Roomster occupants that would be worse than running into a solid object, for the Kuga occupants, less bad.
Whatever, another few inches and it would have been a very bad accident.
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>> Time for that perennial argument about energy and damage in stationary and moving vehicles?
I will put my hands up and confess that when I mentioned a closing speed of 90mph, I had hoped that someone would run with the "Is that an impact of 90mph, or an impact of 45mph", argument.
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>> Are you sure? Isn't it 45mph against another object?
Pretty similar I think if the stationary object is solid and immovable, or if both cars are the same mass, but I implied nothing about the physics - I only meant to say they were both probably doing 45.
It was a Kuga which is probably 450Kg heavier than a Roomster.
Last edited by: Manatee on Thu 9 Mar 17 at 20:21
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Having said that name, I expect BBD to be along soon.....
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Minor accident - honest third party - Runfer D'Hills
