Car parked in same place as usual outside house – under street light.

Huge bang, look out the window to see car reversing away from mine.

Driver drives a bit down the road and stops as I catch up.

Indicates no damage to my car…so we went back to have a look.

Major impact on passenger side wheel which was sufficient to know the driver side wheel into kerb and gouge both. Crease in wing, bumper out of alignment + cracked and both inner wing liners broken. Steering wheel turned to left about 45 deg whilst moving in straight line and horrendous droning in straight line or turning right.

So, yes my car had some damage thank you.

Repairer picked car up yesterday and have hire car so no significant hassle, but for those of you in the know, what will repairer likely replace?

Inner arch liners
Bumper
Repair and spray wing and blend into existing paintwork
Whatever steering and suspension components required

Wheels are my spare set of oem ones which wear my winter tyres. Both have impact damage – although generally superficial – I think!

Issue is that my car is a 10 year old Alfa 147 which has <50k miles and is (was) perfect. FSH, replaced all shocks and some other suspension stuff last year, new discs, etc, etc.

However on the market it is not worth much so I am now concerned about potential write off if cost of repairs starts stacking up….

Simply I do not want to lose my close to perfect car to have to try to buy another with potentially a pittance.

Other party admitted liability to their insurance company.

check your policy – it’s likely to be 50% to 75% of current value, though.

I’d be worried about suspension/suspension mount damage if the wheels have been hit hard enough side on to damage them.

I’d imagine £500+ just for bodywork.

You can always buy car off insurance company and get it repaired yourself as long as it’s only written off as ‘beyond economical repair’ – might be worth looking at spendign what they give you on repairing the car you have?

Indeed, you need the suspension alignment checking properly (not just tracking) too. The value is not usually fixed, I’ve no write-off level in my policies.

If the vehicle is deemed uneconomicable to repair, it is usually when he repairs will be more that 65% of the vale or thereabouts.

As it is likely to be a category D write off, then you can keep the vehicle for the pre-accident value (the total value of the vehicle) minus the salvage value (what the vehicle is worth for salvage).

Therefore if the car is worth £1k and salvage value is deemed £100, you would get a cheque for £900 and get to keep the vehicle.

A ten year old 147 is worth £1000-£1500, I would say they will almost certainly write it off. My 156 was valued at £2400 and they wrote it off when it needed £1800 worth of repairs (wing and door skin).

that will be a write off. Probably C to be honest (have a bit of experience buying and repairing write offs).

tbh I would probably not want it back as it may never drive right again after damage like that – not without a lot of replacement parts. I would want any subframe and mounts to be replaced along with wishbones, ball joints, track rods, steering rack and potentially gearbox if the shafts have been shunted into it. Some may not be broken but be weakened or bent a bit or have their life reduced.

You can sometimes force them to repair though using the requirement of them to put you back in the same position you were before the crash. It is the other persons insurance that is paying out so nothing to do with your insured amount. I assume you have legal cover? If so then use it and get them to fight for what you want, the other persons insurance will be footing the bill. Did you report them for trying to drive off?

Write off is usually 72% of glass’s value, give out take. Which is also their starting offer.

Ring someone like help hire to fight your corner or start collecting ads for minters from the alfa forums / autotrader.

Used to work at an assessors writing off tens of cars every week…

You are normally insured for market value so look on the trader, etc for market examples.
You will not be insured for Glasses Guide values.
If you claim directly from the third party insurer you can have it repaired up to market value as they have no rights to the salvage.

Glasses guide is rarely optimistic for anything vaguely old. Extreme examples are things like RS Turbos which Glasses will value at a few hundred quid but are actually worth 3k+ for a decent car.

sorry mate but they will wright it off.

I’m not sure why people keep referring to a % of the value as being a write off. There is some truth to that, but the formula is generally simpler than that.

Its does the PAV (Pre accident value) = or less than the cost of repairs, – salvage value recovery. Insurers have deals with their salvage agents, that the category returns a %, so for example, a CatC total loss might return 10% of PAV. Also, only Cat C and D might be retained and a Cat B (or A) cannot be repaired under any circumstance. So if PAV = £2000, and Salvage Cat = C, returns 10% on that insurers contract, then salvage recovery = £200, so if repairs, are less than £1800, it’s deemed repairable.

Unless the vehicle is deemed Cat D, which is where repairs are deemed economic, but the likely salvage return is above average. Say for example, you have an old Porsche, like a 928, where the second hand calue of one of those big curved rear windows is £500 or more, and the car is only worth £2k, then the % return, dependent on contract, might be up to 25% of the PAV.

But don’t forget, if an insurer repairs your car, it must abide by various repair codes of conduct, which mean at least 3 year guarantee on repairs, that painrwork must not impact on any rust warranties, so a 9 year old car with a 10y manufacturers rust warranty must have top quality paint/anti rust protections to the manufacturers spec. Vat is charged and it must also use OEM parts, not cheaper pattern parts. You may also demant the vehicle fixed at a main dealer, who’s labour rates are much higher than an insurers authorised repairer. As such, a car that is a total loss according to the engineer at an Insurers bodyshop, may well, if you are happy with the compromsies, such as pattern parts, be repairable economically at a smaller repairer.

Potentially damn…..

So if the other party has admitted liability and their insurance company will be footing the bill then what should I be doing to ensure I get maximum pay-out?

Autotrader for similar mileage, condition and specification cars?

Receipts for recent work completed?

also sadly your insurance will now be higher for the next 3-5 years even though it wasn’t your fault. 🙁