I don't feel too bad about it as I've paid through the nose for insurance for a fair few years, and £220 a day for a half decent vehicle is a bit much but if I had the money I'd hire from SHB or the like myself and then claim it back but I don't. I gave the ample chance to change their mind and chased them every time.

I've update the story/saga so far HERE now so as to keep the topics clean

Sufficed to say if I can get it booked in today I will do but again the insurance company are going to drag their feet as I bet the assessor that comes today cant get an estimation out today.. FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

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Not attaching blame to you, you're entitled to get what you've paid for
- it's the insurance companies that are being taken for a ride by the repair/hire industry, and at the end of the day it's at our expense. It's why you're plagued with phone calls for hire vehicles if you ever have a "knock".
The insurance companies aren't too fussed as every single one of us ends up paying their costs by higher insurance costs .

Last edited by steptoe on 30th Aug 2012 10:24am. Edited 1 time in total

That's true to a certain extent.

I gave direct line the chance to loan/hire me a comparable car at possibly 1/2 of what they are going to have to pay. They chose not to take that offer and d1ck me around making me chase them. Thats not a way to cost effectively run a business long term in my eyes.

Going off past experience i can hire a D4 HSE for about £80 PD or a FF for about £140 PD. A lot less than what they are going to pay now as i cant foot the bill initially myself.

its a very sad state of affairs where the innocent party takes longer to get sorted than the guilty party! FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

It is a shame when the insurance companies dick you about - don't return calls, the person dealing goes on holiday/sick/maternity...

Just remember, it's their job to return you to the position you were in before the accident - cost isn't your problem. If they want to write it off, then explain you want them to source you an identical one, and then fit all the upgrades etc you have done to make it exactly the same.

I will do Simes don't worry

Im pretty flexible with this kinda stuff as i just want it sorted sooner rather than later, time is always against us !!!

If they offer a decent write off value and let me retain salvage I'll take it. if they mess me around, They can spend the price of another RR in repair costs on mine!

this assessor from DL still hasn't called me to tell me what time he is coming and we are well over half way through the day.

Well they are paying for a day of inconvenience so its their call I guess  FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

KP - sorry to hear about your accident, like I said the other week the Full Fat looked great. Hope you get it sorted soon with the minimum of fuss

Cheers GC.

It may yet come back but who knows  FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

Shock horror a waste of time day where I couldn't take on a proper work task as I was on tenter hooks waiting for the call and...

They never called. Just carded to say they had been and had a quick look but still need to have a proper look.

She'll that's a guaranteed £225 more in rental fees to direct line. Direct line customers take note, they obviously do not mind costs racking up that they can pass back onto their future customers... FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

Well its still borderline.

I spoke to another assessor who has seen the outside of the vehicle and talked to the body shop and has said he could possibly authorise it going in for repair next week but without knowing what damage is underneath until stripped its another unknown.

I've advised him of the cost of the hire vehicle and that by Tuesday that will be £1500 already so that really pushes the total cost so far upto £8k and then add another week i reckon to be safe for them to have time to repair under current known values so £9.5k. getting very close to the cars value, and actually above the value of a poor trade in condition which mine was not. He said they would value at dealers prices which is about £12.4k so I've said to speed up the process if they contact me and want to talk prices to class it as a CAT D with me retaining it we could do and then get this sorted out asap.

This assumes none of the drive train has suffered a shunt or anything. There is a chunk missing from one of the wheels, literally so im guessing there is something underlying that's unseen or the whole mono-coque is twisted off a little. that would be ok to me if it was still safe to drive and doesnt crab along the road once i do some light repairs.

I can understand its a tough call to make to write a car off but when its borderline like this and going to save them money in the long haul i dont know why im even bothering but spending £8k on a £10k car makes no sense to me at all(unless your minted and have money to throw away(no offence to anyone!) ) FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

Even if they did decide to give you 12.5k, they'd still be out of pocket - to the tune of 4.5k - they will do whatever maximises shareholder return - so in this case it's an easy decision - fix your car. Remember, they are paying for the hire car too - so £12.5 + Hire Car would be the write off costs. Compared to even £10k to fix (inc hire car). Plus they will claim back the VAT so reducing their bill by 20%.

the £225 rental a day is exc vat so £1575 per week and we would be running at 2 weeks to cover the repairs if not longer if they run into issues or delays for any parts, so say £3150 as a really conservative guess on hire car charges if it can all be sorted in 2weeks!! (yeah right!)
So 3150+6400=9550 to repair my car.

And the hire car rate is going up when they get an FF to me so lets say that the above is very conservative.

Private Good £10,355
That's the value of my car before the accident and from a dealer another £2k ontop if i could ever ever find one in a dealer close to the condition and mileage of mine(yeah right!!)

Rental of an FF will be at least £270 a day = £1890 PW.. (sounds like its just the depreciation on a new FF!!)

Before i know it the costs are going to be thru the roof! FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

This whole dual pricing for car rentals to insurance companies has shocked me actually it reminds me of some of the ill thought out schemes the banks devised that caused them to collapse.

We are told it's bad drivers, young drivers, fraud etc that drives up policies when in fact it's more likely greed and the stupidity of stuff like this.

It would be interesting to know if declining the high priced rental car would make any difference to the decision to write the car off, it seems not to me or they would process things faster I presume. 03 4.4 V8 petrol / lpg. 1st of many hopefully. I love my Rangie

I'm guessing they are treating it as separate transactions, ie one for repair and one for rental/loses which makes sense on one level but the whole cost or total payout is a lot bigger in some cases and I guess they just aren't geared for it or don't care. FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

Well the bodyshop i have chosen want to charge directline £39p/h for repair.

They wont accept this and want to send me to williams for £29/ph.

I've said im not happy with this as i dont trust williams and have had good reports from the bodyshop i've selected.

They wont authorise it without further talks.

I've said talk away all you want, the hire car will soon wipe out any cost savings while these discussions carry on and it will be down to them that its dragging on as i'm trying to get it booked in as soon as possible but they are stopping me.

Ching Ching, 2 more days of car hire waster!! Cant believe how hard it is to get my FF repaired where i want for a reasonable rate  FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

They spin it out to help their mates in the hire business... and to try to wear you down until you accept a dodgy repair.