Bonnet damage

[cjones1687]

Hi,

Hoping for some advice, a slate in the recent storm fell off my neighbours roof, landing on my bonnet. I called my insurance to get it fixed and to my shock it was written off over the phone! It’s a 2019 Dacia duster, which I’ve only had a year- finance way out weights what I assumed they’d value it at. I challenged the write off, they’ve now agreed to have damage assessed at a local centre.

My question being, how much is a repair likely to cost and will it likely go back to being a write off? It’s still worth according to only valuations 7,000 I’d assume the repair costs would be a fraction of that value.

Bonnet still opens, no other damage to anything under the hood, just the one slice.

Any advice would be great

 

[bloodiedathame]

Whack a new bonnet on it, job done.

 

[cjones1687]

Assumed if they couldn’t fix it worst case that’s what they’d do, order a new bonnet and fit it, again looking at prices of bonnets etc I can’t work out how they’ve originally tried to write it off without even looking at it.

New bonnet fitted and sprayed surely won’t cost them 3/4K that they rather write it off.

I’m hoping a decent body shop could quite easily repair it and spray it though….

 

[Teknobry]

Isn't this something you'd claim off your neighbours home insurance?

 

[Kenai]

They may have been pre-empting parts backlogs, excessive wait times for repair (especially if you have a hire car while you wait), potential for it needing more than just a bonnet etc. etc.

 

[cjones1687]

Isn't this something you'd claim off your neighbours home insurance?

Sadly not, I’d have to prove it was negligent on their side. Just bad luck with the recent storm

 

[paradigm]

Isn't this something you'd claim off your neighbours home insurance?

Only if they've been negligent with keeping the roof maintained.

 

[cjones1687]

They may have been pre-empting parts backlogs, excessive wait times for repair (especially if you have a hire car while you wait), potential for it needing more than just a bonnet etc. etc.

Even then, cars driveable, no sharp edges etc still roadworthy. I’d use it until parts arrived etc. if repairable doesn’t seem it would be to time consuming once started on.

No other parts damaged either.

Hoped someone here may have had experience and could determine rough costs/ if repairable etc

 

[Scania]

And we wonder why our insurance premiums are so high?

I've had a bit dissimilar experience recently with my truck, I managed to hit a van that had jumped a set of red lights in my truck, a little superficial damage such as cracked trim, a bent corner piece on the cab a cracked plastic headlamp cover (the glass underneath is not broken but apparently it's a whole unit that needs replacing at a cost of £800+VAT alone) the real kicker was the passenger door, very slight scuff which a paint correction type would sort in minutes apparently warrants a complete replacement door, which is crazy.

The estimate was roughly around £8k, our own in house workshop thought about £1500 tops with a bit of creative parts sourcing.

 

[lordrobs]

Can they write it off with the option of you buying it back as salvage?!

 

[cjones1687]

And we wonder why our insurance premiums are so high?

I've had a bit dissimilar experience recently with my truck, I managed to hit a van that had jumped a set of red lights in my truck, a little superficial damage such as cracked trim, a bent corner piece on the cab a cracked plastic headlamp cover (the glass underneath is not broken but apparently it's a whole unit that needs replacing at a cost of £800+VAT alone) the real kicker was the passenger door, very slight scuff which a paint correction type would sort in minutes apparently warrants a complete replacement door, which is crazy.

The estimate was roughly around £8k, our own in house workshop thought about £1500 tops with a bit of creative parts sourcing.

Did your insurance allow you to get the cheaper repairs done? That will be my plan should they try and write it off with a ridiculous quote, source a new/second hand bonnet and swap it over myself.

Not sure if they allow this or they still stick to it being written off. Can’t see how they could if the damage is visual only really, no effect on the vehicle being roadworthy.

 

[cjones1687]

Can they write it off with the option of you buying it back as salvage?!

Worst case, I can but lowers the value significantly and a lot of mucking around need to Re Mot it, send off v5s etc etc. if I’m in an accident or something down the line and it’s written off again I’ll get peanuts for it.

I will do that though, should they scam me and weasel a way to write it off, only real option that prevents me losing thousands as I’ve no gap insurance sadly.

 

[Hyburnate]

Did your insurance allow you to get the cheaper repairs done? That will be my plan should they try and write it off with a ridiculous quote, source a new/second hand bonnet and swap it over myself.

Not sure if they allow this or they still stick to it being written off. Can’t see how they could if the damage is visual only really, no effect on the vehicle being roadworthy.

Scania is talking about a work incident so probably a little different.

You did the right thing challenging it, but you probably would have been better off having dealt with this without insurance involvement.

 

[cjones1687]

Scania is talking about a work incident so probably a little different.

You did the right thing challenging it, but you probably would have been better off having dealt with this without insurance involvement.

Ah mid read it.

Yeah, silly me assumed it would be a seemingly easy straightforward claim, maybe saving money and hassle- anything but. Lesson learnt

 

[Doughnut007]

I mean you can probably pick one up for less than £200 from one of the breaker networks.

What a waste

 

[BUDFORCE]

And we wonder why our insurance premiums are so high?

I was just thinking this.

My neighbours car got driven into in a car park, I mean if you looked at the car, youd have to look closely to see the damange, it looked like someone with a heavy boot had just kicked it behind the back wheel, did everything through insurance etc.

They repaired it, charged the other persons insurance something like £7.5 to repair. He showed me the report and they were charging like, recharge battery, run diagnostics, clear diagnostics, top washer fluid up etc, crazy **** that had nothing to do with the damage.

So they other persons insurance company are not trying to take his insurance company to court claiming that the damage claim is excessive, or something along those line.

Guess what, all that legal action costs even more money.

Guess what, all of us are now legally forced to pay for that.......

 

[gc123]

its crazy write off for a bonnet... lets just hope its a inexperienced call handler.
daughter had her car driven into at a junction, classic she went to pull out realised, oncoming vehicle so stopped, car behind didnt .
all on dashcam so no probs..... or so you think.
insurance company , tell her to take it to a bodyshop they check it over and then tell her they cant repair it, and to ring her insurance.
so she does they tell her its had a previous accident so there premier repair shops wont repair it she had to get local quotes.
i hpi ed the car before she purchased it so she told them it was clear then they start well its on our insurance records.
these are the records that the insurance company hold when a vehicle repairs a car and not available to joe public.

i know folk will say car verticle or the likes but hpi was always the bench mark. this has been ongoing for 3 months now .

so even when your car isnt written off it appears they can still refer to there records to find it repaired.
by the way insurance wasnt some obscure company but a supposed admirable company.....

oh and as a footnote the guy that drove into her isnt sending post back to his insurance so they wont proceed....

 

[bigmike20vt]

my old fiat coupe was written off due to the bonnet but that was a totally different beast. it was a double skinned bonnet so no repair possible, it was out of production and the bonnet formed part of both front wings as well.

even then I was *fully remove swearing* they wrote the car off over it and I bought it back and got it back on the road.

it is an utter disgrace they would write your car over that.

 

[Scania]

Did your insurance allow you to get the cheaper repairs done? That will be my plan should they try and write it off with a ridiculous quote, source a new/second hand bonnet and swap it over myself.

Not sure if they allow this or they still stick to it being written off. Can’t see how they could if the damage is visual only really, no effect on the vehicle being roadworthy.

In this instance, a write-off isn't an option (this is a near new £100K+ vehicle) it seems the insurance is fixated on going with the highest possible cost whereas in the real world, the actual cost is a fraction of what the 3rd party who I hit insurers may end up paying....

 

[jpaul]

when you said finance, is the car on a pcp in which case are you obligated to get a good quality repair ?

for the 2nd hand possibility the colour match maybe difficult/£££ -
on an older car (paint damage from hot climate) I had to settle for a slightly different colour, well the bonnet was ~£100 and I wasn't going to have to have it repainted at additional £100's
the other issue was the seller didn't package it up well, so one of the corners got damaged (dhl), and seller had to refund a significant chunk.