Hit a car, need rough quotes, pics included.

Kai123

My Girlfriend accidently hit another car yesterday. We seem to have got the most damage and are now looking to get it fixed ourselves. The car is a Ford Fiesta 2011 1.25l.



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The lights are not working as well on the damaged side. Could anyone give a rough estimate to how much we will be paying for this to be repaired? Any advice in general as well and we would be so grateful.

This could not of happened at a better time for us so we are considering getting the light fixed and having the body repaired maybe next year, or at least hammer in the snapped bumper.

Kind Regards,

Kai.

Alanstrainor

Not DIY moved to the main Motors forum.

Do ye have comp insurance with fully protected NCB?

mickdw

I dont understand. What about the other car. Are you not putting the repairs through insurance. Do you know how much the other car will cost?

bazz26

Doing DIY body repairs on a one year old car is lunacy. This is what you have insurance for.

kirving

Sorry, but it's a bit silly only have 3rd party on such a new car as small bodywork repairs can be very expensive.

If you can't afford a repair right now, get the light working at least, and save up to get it done. No point in trying bodywork yourself as you could just make it worse.

If you have fully comp, make a claim since it could cost >€1000 to fix that.

Kai123

Sorry about posting it in the wrong forum.

We are fully insured, but its our fault. We have never had this happen to us so we are unsure how it works. We are assuming the insurance will not pay because it was her fault.

Kai.

Atlantic Dawn

Kai123 wrote: »

Sorry about posting it in the wrong forum.

We are fully insured, but its our fault. We have never had this happen to us so we are unsure how it works. We are assuming the insurance will not pay because it was her fault.

Kai.

If you have fully comprehensive they will.

Kai123

It is fully comp. The guy she hit said he will probably not claim since it was a 97 fiesta and he is getting a new car soon anyway. He was really nice about it but time will tell.

What do we tell the insurance company? We have 3 years no claims, will it be reset to 1? Will our premium go up?

Im taking this good news cautiously. Any more information will be great.

Kai.

Nonoperational

You will loose your no claims bonus and your insurance will go up next year. The amount of no claims you loose depends on your policy. Some have step back protection which means you loose a few years, some have full protection which means you loose none.

Fixing that properly would cost a nice bit.

Kai123

Airbag did not deploy. We will phone insurance tomorrow and see whats what.

The main concern was that because it was our fault insurance would not pay and it would go up regardless. We are with AonInsure (used to be Aviva). I think we can make 2 claims but again since its our fault we do not know.

Thanks for the comments and adding clarity to this.

Kai.

Maldesu

Best thing to do is go to the garages and get a quotation of the body repair people. Most will do this free of charge, but not always. There would be at least a front panel to be replaced and then you are looking at buffing and paint. The little Ford mark will cost you again. The light could be an electrical issue, but they can cost about 200-300. (I used to work in a garage and insurance/body repairs took a lot of my time).

If you put it through your insurance, the company will require you to go to an approved repairer, who will happily replace 2 panels, the light and charge to paint etc. If you go with insurance, some things to watch for -
You may or may not have a replacement car (usually up to 7 days)
There will be a policy excess to be paid on collection.
Some insurance companies will charge you a fee to transfer insurance from one car to another.

TouchingVirus

Unless the bonnet has other damage I can't see on the pictures (e.g shifted hinges, ripple marks from impact) you shouldn't need a new one. A skilled bodyworker would fix up the ding down by the badge.

You definitely need a new bumper though, and associated costs like spraying. Then you've got your light, could be anything from a small loose connection to a new headlight. In any case you're looking at a fair bit for repairs there. Get some quotes, then assess your options.

Prepare for the guy you hit to still claim from the insurance. You should have an idea of his damage and perhaps costs already. If you're looking at €1.5-2k for repairs for your own (if you need a new light) I'd just put it all through the insurance. Your premium won't get loaded too much if the claim total for both parties is low (under €5k) and between the loading and loss of 3 years NCB it probably still wouldn't come to €2k net cost to you. There's also the bonus of spreading out the loading/NCB loss over 3 years instead of taking one big hit to repair your car.

When getting quotes, be sure to head over to your insurer's approved repairer and get a quote, telling them you're not going through insurance; some of them tend to take the absolute pis* with repairs if they know it's going through insurance, replacing everything under the sun to milk it; and it's your policy their milking.

Maldesu wrote: »

There would be at least a front panel to be replaced and then you are looking at buffing and paint.

Which panel? Looks to me as if the only impact was on the bumper, no wing damage that I can see

Idbatterim

wont the Op have to pay a certain excess anyway? You could get those parts from scrap yard or ebay.co.uk for fraction of the price... the bonnet does not require replacing, I wonder could the front bumper be repaired? light might be a loose connection etc or require replacing...

thewintermute

How can folks who can afford brand new cars not afford to fix them. Just curious.

Maldesu

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Which panel? Looks to me as if the only impact was on the bumper, no wing damage that I can see

Panel might have been the wrong word - Metallic bumper rather, which has the damage. Just thinking though, sometimes bumpers, when getting replaced don't come resprayed, so additional paint can be required, but with your colour of car is may be less likely (popularity/demand etc).

OP would only have to pay the excess if he has the repair work done through his insurance company.

kirving

thewintermute wrote: »

How can folks who can afford brand new cars not afford to fix them. Just curious.

Because it's not a brand new car really, it's proably over a year old. Could you pay afford 1-2k tomorrow if you had a bump? Good quality repairs are very expensive.

mickdw

I think the op has been set straight now. They are fully insured and they are as well to let them pay.There is also the possibility that the other driver could get some dodgy advice and put a claim against the ops insurance anyway. Best just hand it over to insurers now and let them cover it.

L-M

thewintermute wrote: »

How can folks who can afford brand new cars not afford to fix them. Just curious.

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Because it's not a brand new car really, it's proably over a year old. Could you pay afford 1-2k tomorrow if you had a bump? Good quality repairs are very expensive.

Don't feed the troll!

djimi

Regardless of how you wish to proceed you must inform your insurer that the incident took place. You could find yourself in a spot of bother if the 3rd party claims against you and your insurer has not been informed of the incident.

Kai123

We could manage if our premium went up loads next year, we cant really afford a lump sum payment now. We could, but we would probably have to borrow more money for our wedding in August.

If we could pay next year, then we would save from August for it. Hearing that is probably the best news we could get. The girlfriend is going to talk with the insurer tomorrow and see what happens.

Kai.

Kai123

We have to pay for the first 300 Euro upfront and they pay the rest. Premium will go up and we lose the no claims bonus.

We have a week before they will fix it incase the guy makes a claim. After a week they drop that claim and then we can go forward with repairs. We were advised in the meantime to get quotes ourselves and see if we want to get it repaired out of our own pocket or go with the insurance and lose the no claims.

The intial shock is over, and its not as bad as it seems. Some people say it would be very expensive and most people have said its not to bad. I am e-mailing plenty of autobody shops and see if I can get rough quotes.

Thanks to everyone who has replied. Its been a very stressful few days and we really cant wait to get everything sorted and back to normal.

Kai.

Kai123

First quote in, 1534 euro. That is mainly to replace the damaged parts. Not sure if I should ask if they could be repaired instread.

On the quote, they want to replace the front bumper, front bumper grill, front bumper reinforement (?). Front bumper I can understand, which is the majority of the cost at 312 euro.

fox_1973

that sounds reasonable enough to me, dont think they would repair the parts, when my car was hit before christmas, id asked the same thing and was told too bad to repair, much better to replace

TouchingVirus

Kai123 wrote: »

First quote in, 1534 euro. That is mainly to replace the damaged parts. Not sure if I should ask if they could be repaired instread.

On the quote, they want to replace the front bumper, front bumper grill, front bumper reinforement (?). Front bumper I can understand, which is the majority of the cost at 312 euro.

You wouldn't really repair that bumper, the labour cost would be more than the cost of a new one as it's been torn across a few lines. The grill also has a good bit of damage, again it's a cost of labour vs new thing and the result would be better with new parts.

At €312 for a front bumper (even ex vat) it seems a bit steep for €1534 all in. The painting would be a day's bodyshop labour/paint & sundries; around €300. The parts could come to €600 (ex new light) making €900 total even if that was all ex VAT; I think you should be looking somewhere around €1100-1200 so shop around. If you're in Dublin I've had a good experience with Carcraft out in Fairview, if you're down in the midlands I might be able to recommend somebody in Longford who managed to keep costs down for me when I was a bit stuck and was determined to keep it away from insurance (young drivers = high premiums already).

fasttalkerchat

too late.

Kai123

I live near Clonee.

I am taking it to a garage at Kilbride which has been recommended to me by a few people. On Friday I am going around with a mate to at least 5 garages to get a proper quote.

That quote was from a garage in D2, which was my mistake for asking them since they are way to far away. It did not have costs included for other replacements like the bonnet repair so it would of been much more.

I Will keep people posted on how the estimates.

Kai.

mickdw

I would be surprised if bumper reinforcement needed changing. Bumper, grill, light and bonnet repair I would think together with painting.

Foxhole Norman

Seems like a fair price to me. When I crashed a '11 Clio back in November we paid around €1500-€2000 for a new Front bumper, Front Headlight Cluster, Front Fog Light, Grille and Badge.

Kai123

Ford and Soraghan autocare both gave a 3k estimate.

Three other smaller garages who actually checked everything there and then gave around 1k estimates, all 3 of them say the bonnet can be repaired while Ford and Soraghan say it needs to be replaced.

I might take out a 1000 Euro loan and get it fixed at a garage in Kilbride just outside of Clonee. Small garage in the country and the owner was very friendly.

Kai.