E30 Zone

Few weekends ago I had a trivial bump on my 325i sport. Damage to the drivers wing. Which is a small dent. Bumper corner which has cracked paint. Valence has a crack too. All of these bits are small. My car is immaculate with no underbody corrosion whatsoever. It has been restored. The underbody repainted, everything shot blasted and powder coated engine rebuilt etc. I valued my car at 12k. The cover note says "Market value £12000"
Now my issue is the repair quote is £2407. This being made up with a new tech 2 valance etc and also a new wing which I demanded as I do not want any filler on the metal body.
Will I have a ground to stand on when I submit my expensive quote?
Sytner BMW have supplied this quote and are aware that even if the orange peel is different that I will make them do it again. I specifically want them to do it so I can really push hard to get it perfect.
Also if it makes a difference.
I have resto invoices and pictures.
3rd party have accepted fault.

Thanks in advance!

You'll need to read your poilicy to see if you are entitled to insist on repairer of your choice, as the insurance adjuster may see Sytners quote as above what they can repair it for.

Also, market value is a variable which can be reassesed at the time of a claim, you may have to provide proof of value against other cars. Agreed value is quite different, and is fixed.

If you are claiming directly from the insurers of the third party, you may encounter some problems with them agreeing to authorise repairs as their engineer will just view the market value at nearer the cost of the repairs. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it will cause some dragging of feet.

The usual criteria applied is that if the repairs exceed about 60% of the pre-accident value, they want to write the vehicle off due to the risks of authorising repairs and then finding a whole load more damage and therefore, what started off as an economical repair suddenly costs more to see through than paying the write off value.

I would continue down the route you are on and see what the other side say.

Your other option would be to use your own fully comp cover, but again this will cause squabbles unless your "market value" of £12k is actually an "agreed value" policy. Many people think they have an agreed value policy just because the "insured value" figure on the policy schedule says what they told the insurer when getting the quote, but this doesn't mean shite. The only time an "agreed value policy" is valid is when you have send them pics and evidence of the value of your car and they have considered this and send you a certificate of valuation.

If you need any further help with this then drop me a PM on here, or my work email is Lee.Jones@corries.co.uk I deal with insurance litigation for a living, so am happy to help out if you need it.

Bugger. It's Market value and not agreed. I did request for the documentation to make it agreed when I took out the policy. But it didn't materialise. Will getting it agreed now make a difference?
If it does get written off. Can I demand my car back for a fee?

You won't be able to retrospectively sort an agreed value policy.

I think you are just going to have to be prepared to do battle in getting the pre-accident value to a level where it doesn't become desirable to write the car off.

If you are claiming from the third party insurers there should not be much hassle keeping the salvage.

You may have to join the BMWCC and seek a letter from a honcho on there in order to try and distinguish your chariot from the usual turds out there. Sadly, inspecting engineers rarely look at E30's as anything other than an "old BMW" and can't see beyond what Glass's older cars guide says.

If you have plenty of evidence of the resto, it will stand you in good stead.

Have Sytners referred you onto a company called Accident Exchange by any chance?

ouch !

not your minter dude ???????????

Basically I rang my insurers with all details. They got in touch with the person that hit me and she took liability. They requested I get a quote. Which led to "Sytner drive" trying to steal the business. They then bitched about 20 years old etc etc. So now tomorrow they will forward the quote back to my insurers.
My insurers are performance direct/Chaucer
Her insurers are Quinn direct
Helphire have taken over from my insurers

ANT!!!! how do we do!!!!??? Yes yes my minter!!! I've been wanting to pass by but me and Neela are still mega unsteady since I came back from Europe trip... It's really drained me... We gotta get the 10/10 out of the machine. I want you to test drive it though. I think you'll be surprised how rapid it is!

car was mint, they took your premiums so they need to pay based on the agreed value indeed !

dude, that trip was months ago ! get your electrolytes checked !

badassyas wrote:Basically I rang my insurers with all details. They got in touch with the person that hit me and she took liability. They requested I get a quote. Which led to "Sytner drive" trying to steal the business. They then bitched about 20 years old etc etc. So now tomorrow they will forward the quote back to my insurers.
My insurers are performance direct/Chaucer
Her insurers are Quinn direct
Helphire have taken over from my insurers

Well I would wait and see how it goes with Sytner's forwarding the quote to your insurers or helphire. What will happen next is a monkey will be sent out to inspect the car. This is when the fun will start, the engineer may telephone you, so this will be your opportunity to set him straight on how he should be valuing your car. My tip is to not be a "know it all" and appear you are telling him how to do his job as everyone hates an expert and he'll probably just get defensive of your stance.

Just suggest that he can presumably see the car isn't a turd clinging to an MOT certificate and advise him of what has been spent and that you have the documents to back up what has been spent on it.

With a bit of luck you may get away with the repairs being authorised and it'll move like shit through a goose.

If you immediately get the impression the engineer is not on side with your valuation then just be prepared that you are going to have to dig out your paperwork and fight to convince them of the market value and avoid write off.

An alternative if you get nowhere with the repairs is the possibility of a cash-in lieu of repairs settlement. What this means is that they don't agree the sytner repair quote and want to write the car off as they don't agree a valuation that makes it economic to repair, so they pay you the sytner's repair amount, less the VAT and you walk off and have to look after yourself. If the repairs come to any more, then you are on your own.

There are ways forwards here, so you should get somewhere in the end.

Helphire will just be bothered about sticking your bum in one of their hire cars as Quinn Direct will be getting the good news for the cost of that.

Quinn are a very pro-active insurer and don't mess about in paying up as they want your ass out the hire car ASAP. It is quite customary for them to send one of their claims managers to your doorstep and if you start moaning about injuries they just offer you a settlement there & then to stop you speaking to people like me.

If you have other spare vehicles you can easily use then I'd avoid hiring something from Helphire as it'll just end up causing you grief in the long run when Quinn won't pay up and although Helphire would have to just swivel for their charges, it will consume your life for months with endless letters and the possibility of getting dragged into court proceedings.

Lee. Could I ring Quinn and offer to send them the quote and just get the pay out less the vat? That way I could buy the new bits and get my local painter to take care of it? He doesn't take insurance work on hence why I cannot turn to him if this carries on via insurance.

Bugger my insurance is performance direct / crusader. If that makes a difference!?

badassyas wrote:Lee. Could I ring Quinn and offer to send them the quote and just get the pay out less the vat? That way I could buy the new bits and get my local painter to take care of it? He doesn't take insurance work on hence why I cannot turn to him if this carries on via insurance.

You can ask for a cash in-lieu any time dude, wait to see what the engineer says when he contacts you. No insurer is going to refuse a cash in-lieu as they are paying out less, but it all revolves around the repair costs not getting above the value of the car. So you should be OK here.

It is probably Crusader who you have spoken to so far, they act as claims reporting agents for your broker. They will have referred you to Helphire.

Odds are Sytners will send the repair estimate to Helphire, who will send it to Quinn, who will then decide if they are going to send out an engineer or just agree to authorise the repairs direct to Sytner, so you need to advise Helphire you want to consider a cash in-lieu settlement otherwise they'll just assume the car is to be repaired and Sytners will be cracking on with repairs and you won't be able to pull back from that once parts are ordered and they start cracking on.

Wait and see what happens with this lot and let me know, if it starts getting messy then you can go to Quinn. Once you get a cash in-lieu any hire car will get pulled from you. Bottom line is if you take a cash in-lieu, you're on your own.

Does that lot make sense?

Are you in/ being placed in a hire car?

If you haven't got a hire car from Helphire then there is no harm in getting a copy of the repair estimate from Sytner and getting on the phone to Quinn for the cash in-lieu and boxing the rest out. It may get the situation resolved quickly as that's how they roll, but they may still be cagey about a repair cost of 2 bags on an old BMW, so you may still have to fight for the cash in-lieu of they think you're a dreamer with an old turd woth a bag and are trying to profit from the repair cost.

stirling advice once again from Lee.....

badassyas - stand your ground no matter what and dont give in to their compromises - it is in the insurers interest to try and pay you as little as possible and screw you out of as much as possible...

I wish everyones post was as informative as this ones. Would keep the zone going no problem... Sytner drive gave me a car from sat but will be collecting it tomorrow. Because of an non functioning indicator bulb! Lol. My plan is to get my insurer to give me their verdict and if it isn't how I want it I will be asking for a cheque. Going to get a post up showing the car off. Me and my friend did term my car the diddler killer. Lol thats the standard it has meant to have exceeded!

Not sure if i should take that as a compliment.

More good advice from Lee there. Hope you get it sorted, the car sounds a peach.

any pics of that minter?