Right well, where do I begin.
My hopes of the bodyshop doing a good job were quickly dashed, the first time it came out it had a new gash down the n/s sideskirt, steering was all to shot still, new headlight was badly out of alignment and the angle motor was operating poorly, wing simply didn't fit right. How do I know this? Because they hadquite clearly bent the inner edge of the wing all the way down to fit it, with a noticeable gap where wing and bonnet meet the headlight. The bonnet emblem had also taken a hit and hadn't been swapped, and a small kink in the bonnet where the original wing pealed back to had been missed. I phoned insurer and complained, said I didn't want it to go back. I got some waffle about giving them a chance to fix their mistakes as they had been paid to do that job, so I agreed. This time I get a courtesy car, I don't need it, but I'll bloody well take it considering.
End result for take II? Well, they painted the sideskirt (ignoring a run at the jacking points), just super tightened the suspension to the point where it was difficult to turn the wheel (I'm not small, and the steering could hardly considered heavy) and the headlight hadn't been touched. Opened the bonnet and the whole engine was covered in a few mm of stour. Like everywhere, and I'm quite up on engine bay cleanliness. I suspect it was from machining out the kink in the bonnet, with it open I presume. I went in to speak to the manager, and he came out and said he'd take it in and align it and give the engine a clean. The wing looked marginally better, and the inner lip was now smooth, but I didn't get much of a chance to look at it there because of their yard. He showed me he'd 'wiped it', so at this point I said I wasn't very convinced about his work and said I'll probably take it to BMW to get them to double check everything. He looked sheepish.
I went and jet washed the engine bay for the better part of half an hour and had a good look about and could see that the wing was still sitting out of place with the lines wider than what had been previous. Next day I had it up on jacks on the drive, the n/s (not accident damaged side) of the bumper basically hadn't been reconstructed at all. Break duct completely missing, various bolts and screws missing which meant you could shake the bumper/wheel arch and get a 'bag of bolts' sound from the assembly. The paint finish on that corner was a bit rough, although nicely coloured from a distance, my (not accident damaged) n/s wing was scuffed to **** where they had clearly been machining off the paint or paint job on the bonnet, which coming to that had simply been repainted without any consideration to the stone chips - now sporting silver paint at least? - or clear coat which has formed two very small droplet sized runs next to the o/s grille. The bonnet had runs either side of the edge lip. The new headlight had been broken were the panel underneath clips in, making it sit out. Finally, in good light conditions the blending of the car was well hopeful at best.
The outcome of all this nonsense which has been ongoing since Feb was £200 compensation from the insurer and a profuse apology on the phone and in writing, and that I can nominate where the car could go. This was about two weeks ago. So I go to BMW franchise, who have a body repair centre out of town. Went to get a quote, and the bodyshop is utterly amazing I could write a separate thread on that, which was being passed onto the insurers, who would then in turn pass onto the original repair garage.
Quote from bmw to rectify this mess is a very tentative £2450, the original repair bill rose to £1980 after their second attempt ultimately failed attempt, and the cars value on the insurer is bang on £1995. The first garage had offered me £350 before I got the quote, which I rejected quite naturally. I'm not to sure on the details, because it's been between insurance people and the garage but I know the chief engineer has totally lost patience with the garage. I think they are mindful that this has a bit of a disaster, in almost every sense for them both on the claim and the repair, that they have now offered to just buy the car off me @ £2000. He said it's rare that they do this but he just wants to try and save face for the company for me as a customer, who really didn't need their involvement at all.
Which is over the value as there were three dents in the rear wings and a crack someone left me in the rear bumper, with a couple of scratched pieces in the interior needing replaced but other than that it is still quite clean.
I picked the car up for £1600 about a year and a half ago, and while I've put well more than £400 into it I would be incredibly lucky to get that back. That wasn't the point though, I was planning on sticking at least 100,000 miles on it.
So I sell the car to the insurance for £2000 or I go back to the original repair garage who will have to foot that buy out cost and offer them the opportunity to settle the liability for £1500-1750, saving the company some cost that is going to come to them one way or another, and I get to keep the car and fix this nonsense myself at profit.
Or, what do you think the chances are of me being able to sell to the insurance for £2000 but then also retain salvage rights?
Because having to find another car is a bit more of an inconvenience than waiting, repeatedly, for someone to fix it. And I have done a fair amount to it and don't want the thing needlessly scrapped, OR for the insurance to then take the car and to gain profit by way of salvage or re-reinstatement thus annulling any notion of them having been fiscally penalised for their own nonsense.
I take it you can still get cat c/d's back on the road?
Dilemma. Advice?
