Car scratched whilst unattended. Culprit fessed up...

Mr Oblong

Mr Oblong

Mr Oblong

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Joined
13 Oct 2008
Posts
1,132
Right then!

I found a note when I returned to my car this evening, confessing to damaging the offside rear bumper.

My car's a Mk5 Golf GTI in diamond black (i.e. metallic). The scratches are relatively deep and go across both the painted section and the poverty-oops-forgot-to-paint it section, as per the pictures.

The lass responsible has provided contact details and her address (she's a neighbour) so I can ring or call round to sort it out.

Obvious options are

A) Go through insurance, have things sorted properly- at the cost of raised premiums for us both for a number of years.

B) Sort it outside of the insurance. Get a couple of quotes and ask for the cash.

I'm leaning towards the latter given the relatively light damage and (what I'm assuming is) low scope for getting metallic black paint completely wrong, but then again I know nothing about bodywork costs. I can't see the unpainted part being put back to how it was without a new bumper, which seems excessive somehow...

So Motors, given what you know about bodywork repairs, insurance companies and the nature of the human experience, what advice can you offer?

Cheers in advance for your thoughts.

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Find out what costs are likely to be then approach her - if she is reasonable all good if she starts messing you about go through insurance IMO.
 
Smart Repair on that tbh £250. Could probably heat the plastics and the scratches would remove, not sure or just live with them. Depends on how much you want the car pristine vs possibly ruining the relationship with the neighbour.
 
If you know any decent back street bodyshops you are probably looking at around £500 or less to sort that out. Assuming that the rear valance (povo unpainted bit) I found online is roughly the same price as a factory part your looking at almost £200 for the plastic, plus some paint and fitting.

She is lucky in many ways that it's a £500 problem and not more, I did similar damage to an audi a6 about 5 years ago while not paying attention which ended up running into thousands as audi wanted to replace basically the entire rear end of the car.
 
As others have said, that's only very minor damage and easily repaired for a relatively small cost. Just make sure she knows it's going to be in the region of £500 to sort as she may want to go through the insurance in that case (although advise her that it will increase her and your premiums, and the excess is probably half of the cost anyway).
 
The cost of her repairs (maybe a lot more than yours - your strong bumper edge into her door panel ?) may influence the decision to inform the insurance companies,
as would her having a company insurance or leased vehicle.
 
explain to her that this is going to put both of your premiums up for years to come. if she is happy to live with her damage and pay you off then that is cool. if she wants to pay for both (highly unlikely) then also cool. if she wants to go through insurance then get some quotes and tell her to keep yours out of the claim and ask her to pay for your damage separately and only go through insurance for her own if it's bad. if none of that works then go through insurance and then you will likely only need to pay minimally more for future insurance as your costs shouldn't be much less than £2K most likely.
 
Mr Oblong said:
B) Sort it outside of the insurance. Get a couple of quotes and ask for the cash.
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Best way of doing that is to get the quotes, and then get her to pay the bodyshop/repairer directly - as soon as payment made, book in at your leisure - avoids any doubt with regards to what you do with the money
 
The Mk5 Golf rear bumper is in two sections. Get the upper resprayed or smart repaired - £150 tops. The lower section just clips an and is probably somewhere between £50-80 at the dealers or half that used.
 
Personally, I'd probably thank them for being honest, remove as much as the paint transfer as I could and not even bother getting it repaired.
 
How olds the car? Quick google of the Mk5 suggests 2004-2009.

If repair costs come back quite high that may push her to the insurance route and they might see it as an uneconomical repair.
 
Rroff said:
Find out what costs are likely to be then approach her - if she is reasonable all good if she starts messing you about go through insurance IMO.
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This. Recently someone at work drove into my car and damaged the front bumper and wing. I told him the repair costs will be £500-600 and a hire car whilst the work is being done is around £130. He was happy with this and said go ahead and let him know when to bank transfer me the money. He owned up and was apologetic, so happy days.

If he had baulked at these costs and/or suggested a "cheap" repair I'd have said "ok, insurance time then".
 
lol

My neighbour did the same. Scratched my new car reversing his van. Thankfully he came and told me as well as arranging for it to be repaired.
 
The worst part here is the damage to the plastic, the paint will be easy to fix.

Might be able to get one cheap on ebay or something.
 
Thanks for your thoughts.

I want the bumper to be repainted and for the lower valance to be replaced; the car should be as it was. I got a few quotes this morning, falling between £260-£330, and she's transferred me the cash this afternoon.

The important thing is that liability and payment are now closed matters so I can organise the repair work at my leisure.

Cheers all!
 
Mr Oblong said:
Right then!



A) Go through insurance, have things sorted properly- at the cost of raised premiums for us both for a number of years.

B) Sort it outside of the insurance. Get a couple of quotes and ask for the cash.
Click to expand...

It really depends on if your car holds any sentimental value to you. If it does, go through insurance so it costs you both more in premiums than the cost of repair.
 
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