For those who may have read my post last week regarding my car accident I wanted to post an update as I feel its starting to get unreal.
As a précis - last Tuesday morning I was woken up by a knock at the door & found a delivery driver asking whether the blue Jaguar parked outside my home was mine. Having replied in the affirmative he then goes on to tell me that his van (Hermes) has hit my car & done some damage. On inspection I found that he had made a serious dent over the rear wheel arch (so much that its taken off all the paint down to the bare metal), had scraped the passenger door handle, dented that door, as well as the driver's door, obliterated the wing mirror & finally damaged the headlight. He gave me his insurance details & I did thank him for stopping & finding out whose car it was as I'm sure many other drivers would have just carried on.
But this is where things start unravelling. The insurers preferred body repairers at first said that they would pick the car up on the Friday (4 days after the incident) but after I said that was unacceptable they agreed to come the next day. Wednesday afternoon the pick-up truck comes & the driver highlights on the car with marker pen where the damage is. Its raining at the time & by the time the car is on the tow-truck most of the pen marks are being washed away by the rain.
The next afternoon I get a call from the insurers saying that on inspection the body repair shop have discovered that my car is made from aluminium & they don't deal with such repairs so will have to go to another body repairshop - in Romford (the 1st place was in Gravesend). Whilst this was all going on I was still waiting to hear from the Gravesend place to supply me with a courtesy car as per my insurance. At first the would only offer me a basic Class A car (3 door hatchback such as a Nissan Micra) but again I argued that although I didn't want a like-for-like replacement, something a little more sturdier & with more than just a radio-cassette would be nice. As they could not supply anything else, and seeing as they were now not doing my repairs I said it was down to the insurance company to sort out. On Friday I got a call from Enterprise & they said that they could supply me with a suitable car, but not until Monday. That was ok with me as we (Charlton) were away & I wasn't doing anything particular over the weekend but would definitely need one on Monday as I had client appts that week & needed to get around.
Monday comes & I get a call saying that a driver was on the way to pick me up. They duly arrive & take me to the nearest Enterprise dealer (in Otford) only to be told that my new car would be..........the one they've just picked me up in. wtf ?? why not drop it off & get someone to pick them up or get a train back. Anyway, I now have a 67 plate Vauxhall Insignia Tourer. Nice car but not my ideal choice & didn't really want an "estate" car - the residents parking outside my house is always pretty full & now having a car which is virtually the size of 2 small cars could be a problem. They said that they would look for something more to my liking, and they did have a C class Mercedes sitting on their forecourt, if I wanted to pay the extra £25 per day. I told them politely to think again & I would keep the Insignia until they found a more suitable car & something that was available for free (as per my insurance). To be fair the Insignia drives very well & quite happy with it, but its still a big car & not really what I want, but its only going to be for a week or so......
Forward to this afternoon (Thursday). Enterprise ring me & say that they have a BMW 5 series & did I want that, especially as they have someone who would like the Insignia. I jumped at the offer & they said that they would drop it off to me the next day but could I just check how long my car was going to be at the bodyshop. That reminded me that I had intended to contact the place in Romford as the only contact I had had with them was a week ago saying that they would be picking it up on Monday - even though I did stress that did they know what needed repairing as I expect the highlighter pen marks would now have been fully erased. It might appear to be obvious, but who knows what they might, or might not, see & repair & usually you agree with the repairers what exactly need to be done & get a copy of a form detailing such work. I then called Romford to be told that Yes, they had the car, Yes the repairs have been sanctioned by my insurers & the parts have been ordered. Upon asking when I might get my beloved car back I was told............the end of the month !! 4 f**king weeks !!! The best bit is yet to come - that the repairs are going to cost £6k. That's about a third of what the car is worth. God knows what they have found to be repaired (I have asked them to email me photo's / details of the approved repairs but sadly the email has not yet arrived & is probably sitting in my junk mail file (which gets activated just twice a day, the next one around 8am ). For that amount I'm hoping that they are seriously going to "pimp my ride"
Oh, the final part of this fiasco is that Enterprise left me a message saying that the 5 series has a nail in the tyre & so are giving me a 3 series instead. Not a problem (its not about status, more about comfort & have all the mod cons I have in my car (handsfree capability, text readouts etc), but I'm just hoping they don't freak out if when they find out that I'm going to have it all month & I'm hoping to go to MK Dons in the process.
Just bloody relieved that the bugger stopped & told me what he'd done otherwise I would be well & truly stuffed.
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Golfie, was the insignia like? Was thinking of getting one as my next company car.
About 8 years ago we had a Picasso which someone rolled into the side after leaving their handbrake off. They said full cost or repair to the side of the car with an estimated worth of £2000 was apparently £4500, they wouldn't repair the slight scratch little further up that side of the car as they didn't think it was done at the same time......
I was like, tell you what give me £3000 and we will call it quits as it was up to 3 weeks to source the new door.
Exchanged it in 3 months later for £1500, total wast of everyone's time effort and money.