So, my Passat has a smashed bumper, a slightly bent boot lid and possibly a slightly bent boot sill. Whaddya reckon?

cost via insurance?

£1500-£2000.

Cost via someone else’s insurance! She says she wants me to get an estimate cos they might want to fix it themselves. I think she’s going to get a shock when she finds out how much it’s going to be.

Having trouble finding an estimate through the medium of German mind.

Via a proper repair place and the insurance you’d be looking at over £3k, I reckon.

That’s what I was thinking.

At the other end, but for comparison, had front bumper, wing, headlight and trim replaced plus paint to those new bits and blown over the door and bonnet at the same time (undamaged, but stone chipped/scratched) on a Focus for a smidge under £2k recently.

Depends if you want new parts doesn’t it? You could probably pull out the boot pan and replace bumper and boot lid second hand for about 400 quid.

I don’t care I want it fixed.. at her expense.. just trying to get her to let me get her insurance company involved so that I can avoid having to tramp round German garages for a quote 🙁

What’s the car worth? Would you rather have £600 off them, patch it up and stick £500 in your pocket or a proper insurance job, say £2k to garage and a load of faff to get it all sorted but you end up with a fully fixed car.

Car worth.. dunno.. 7-8k?

I want to drop it off somewhere and pick it up as it was before.. not fussed about making money out of it. I do however want a courtesy car ESPECIALLY if it’s not ready by June 1st when my folks come.

tell her – to get the quotes her self – or get the insurance company involved – thems her options . **** doing all the leg work.

Yeah I emailed her asking for her help finding a garage. Mine’s no good because they don’t have any contacts in Germany, but apparently here you’re advised to call their company directly, so I’m assuming they’ll have preferred garages. If she doesn’t sort me out by Monday I’ll call their company anyway.

Tell your insurance company and give them her registration number…let them sort it out.

Tell her you want a courtesy car as per your entitlement through your insurance company.

Anecdotally, car parts and garage labour are about as high as it gets in Europe, so UK prices may not translate well into Euros. I think some German insurers offer the option to pay in cash to the claimant for the repair (based on a quote), but don’t require you to make the repair (get a main dealer quote, but a back street repair and pocket the difference), so you could make some money, or she could be trying it on…. but as you seem to know the outcome you want, trail-rat speaks the truth!

Ah…just realised you mentioned Germany – don’t know the process there I’m afraid.

I’m also told that via insurance garages like to replace/fix every possible thing, so maybe I’ll get a nice new detatchable towbar out of it 😉

Put an old bike on a rack on the boot…maybe they’ll replace that too.

Note I was kidding about the towbar, can’t stand insurance fraud.

are you sure the floor of the boot isn’t creased at all?

could be anything. This sort of damage often has unseen (by a passing eye) damage to the underlying chassis of the car. Clios, for example, tend to crumple the boot floor rather easily (just how the bumper is I think) which results in a write-off of the car under most circumstances.

Could be 5lab, didn’t check. I should probably check everything I can see to make sure the garage does’t miss anything. Of course if it’s insurance they probably won’t! I think the boot floor though is protectd by the towbar drawbeam which itself replaced a big beam that came on the car.

check yo swirlflaps dawg

Get your insurance company to talk to hers, would she be so forthcoming if it were the other way around?

My co still want me to find my own garage though…

They gave in and called their insurance, and a courtesy car is on its way. It’s a VW Scirocco – result!

Went to my local paint shop but the boot sill is too damaged for them apparently. So I might have to just call the VW dealer.