My 325i sport feel foul of the snow!!

[lizard121]

I got a bit carried away (hit a bunch of small trees) and now my 325i sport has been written of by the insurers (cat C so not too bad), purely because they've valued it at £1000!! The assessor admitted that he could not find a similar car up for sale to compare prices. I told him that for a well looked after original E30 325i sport (which mine is) you'd do very well to get one for £3,000. He's not budging - I now have to prove it's worth - any ideas as to how I go about doing that? Anybody had the same experience I can benefit from?

[Brianmoooore]

Contact "E30BeemerLad" on here, ASAP.

[town325i]

ask lee e30beemerlad he work in the insurance game and will help you out with what you need to do to get the best possible payout. the first thing he will tell you is DO NOT let the insurance take the car off you

[//Rocky]

Prove it by printing off similiar sports adverts to yours on car websites such as Pistonheads, Autotrader, etc.

P.S Cat C is very bad because the car will need a Vin check and will say on the new V5 log book as well when you get it. If it was Cat D then it would not of been too bad

[danbear]

sorry to hear about that. look for simular cars for sale, and then send them the details of the cars.

[mrcool]

Provide them with printed of adverts of the same model and year if possible.

From on here, carandclassic, autotrader, pistonheads

See here:

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/classic_ ... rice=&era=

[E30BeemerLad]

The insurers are supposed to pay you the "market value" of your car, less any excess and outstanding premiums.

Just go on ebay, autotrader, here and carandclassic.co.uk , pistionheads and print off copies of for sale ads for cars with similar age, mileage, condition etc. This should help to establish the market value.

Tell them if they don't agree to that you'll get your own independent inspection/ valuation done and see them in the small claims court.

[eta]

Really the above advice can work. The only time I had to do this I was offered around £8000 for a 2 year old car. By providing evidence that offer was riased by £2000 to exactly what I asked for.

[TheHeap]

Why not show him the for sale section on here

[Blitz]

When you get a payout, are you going to buy it back off the insurers and repair it?

[E30BeemerLad]

If you want to retain the salvage, which you can with Cat C, the usual rule applied for salvage value on cars under £3k is 10% of pre-accident value. i.e car valued at £3k, you get £2700 and keep car.

If the car is at their chosen garage/ assessors you will have to pay transportation costs to get it back home if it's not road legal.

If you are insured with Admiral or any of their sister companies then once they have paid out, your policy is finished, so you'd have to start a new policy for your next car regardless of how long you have left on your existing policy. (this at least used to be their terms)

[Triple L]

I'd go with PistonHeads dude, prices are always 20% above the going rate

[lizard121]

If you want to retain the salvage, which you can with Cat C, the usual rule applied for salvage value on cars under £3k is 10% of pre-accident value. i.e car valued at £3k, you get £2700 and keep car.

If the car is at their chosen garage/ assessors you will have to pay transportation costs to get it back home if it's not road legal.

If you are insured with Admiral or any of their sister companies then once they have paid out, your policy is finished, so you'd have to start a new policy for your next car regardless of how long you have left on your existing policy. (this at least used to be their terms)

Thanks very much. The assessor said to me that he could not find any like for like cars for sale, and the car's too old to be listed in the glasses guide - so he's used a valuation for an E36 (which we both know is a bit mad!). He advised me that the qoute to repair the car is £2700 using genuine parts. How would I go about getting the insuers to recognise that repairing the car by spending £2700 would be the cheapest way to pay out? I'd then get the benefit of not having the car written in it's history?

[E30BeemerLad]

They won't got for it unless first of all you can convince them that it is worth about £3500+.

Usually, once repairs exceed about 60% of pre-accident value they will write it off due to the risks of further damage being found on dismantling, which then causes a major headache for them if the revised repair costs then come to more than pre-accident value.

Possibly your only way forward would be to see if a repair shop will do what is called a "contract repair" which means they agree to repair it for that specific price. This can be good, but also can encourage them to cut corners in the event further dramas arise as they are screwed down to that price and additional parts or labour are then eating into their profit, but it's still a better proposition for them as it involves repairing metal rather than just costing a job for it to be a write off.

The repair price may come down on realising some bits are no longer available, such as mtec body kit, so second hand parts will be needed.

Is the car actually at a repair shop or was that £2700 the engineer's own estimate from just looking at the car on your driveway?

[lizard121]

[quote="E30BeemerLad"]They won't got for it unless first of all you can convince them that it is worth about £3500+.

Usually, once repairs exceed about 60% of pre-accident value they will write it off due to the risks of further damage being found on dismantling, which then causes a major headache for them if the revised repair costs then come to more than pre-accident value.

Possibly your only way forward would be to see if a repair shop will do what is called a "contract repair" which means they agree to repair it for that specific price. This can be good, but also can encourage them to cut corners in the event further dramas arise as they are screwed down to that price and additional parts or labour are then eating into their profit, but it's still a better proposition for them as it involves repairing metal rather than just costing a job for it to be a write off.

The repair price may come down on realising some bits are no longer available, such as mtec body kit, so second hand parts will be needed.

Is the car actually at a repair shop or was that £2700 the engineer's own estimate from just looking at the car on your driveway?[/quote

I managed to get the car stuck - the collission took out the oil cooler so it's now at a garage in Slough. The assessor did say that he'd arrange for the car to be returned me, but I'm now wondering where the best place would be to keep it until I get a fair claim settled for it? I like the idea of the 'contract repair' route too - I assume I could shop around in a recession for this? Think I should collate the evidence in the form of prices of cars for sale that are in similar condition - there seem to be a few both on Pistonheads and classic cars, together with a well worded cover letter and await a response. In the meantime would feel a lot more comfortable if the car were in my garage. Are there any other sources I could use to prove the pre-accident value?

[Topblag]

ChemicalAl wrote off his minty touring, he paid £3k for it and spent another documented £1k+ on it. He took Beemerlad's advice (as above) and ended up getting £3.5k for it. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is a result. They offered him the car back for £650 also. He did have a fight on his hands, but he got what he wanted.

Best of luck with it all.

[rubber_duck89]

If you can find any adverts for similar cars thats one way. Another way i think might be to get in contact with the E30 registrar from the BMW Car club GB and see if they can help you with a letter with thier valuation i had a mate have a similar problem with an escort cosworth and a letter from an owners club helped him along im told.

[Brianmoooore]

One question that hasn't been asked yet, is are we sure this is a genuine Sport? There's a considerable difference in the value of a genuine original Sport in good condition, and an otherwise identical Sport 'lookalike'.
If you can confirm it is a Sport (V5 is not reliable evidence), then make sure the insurance assessor is aware of this distinction as well.

[he30]

and one more word of advice, don't drag your heals with it. I was in a similar position, and i had an offer of a buy back for around 600 after considering it and mulling it over, the decided they'd double what they were asking for it. Which left me gutted

[lizard121]

One question that hasn't been asked yet, is are we sure this is a genuine Sport? There's a considerable difference in the value of a genuine original Sport in good condition, and an otherwise identical Sport 'lookalike'.
If you can confirm it is a Sport (V5 is not reliable evidence), then make sure the insurance assessor is aware of this distinction as well.

Yes quite sure it's a genuine motorsport, 3 door, battery in the boot, black roof lining, no crome trim on outside of the car, I've checked with the BMW garage it was originally bought at, I've also have a couple of inspection 2 services done over the years, each time BMW have confirmed it's a genuine sport. I'm not a total tecchie, what other key indicators should I point out to the inspector that it's a genuine sport and what kind of premium do we think this would command, say over a 4 door E30 325i for example?