Self employed flooring fitter and my 12 year old VW T5 Kombi was reversed into by a truck
just had the estimate for repair and it is £3625.00

my mate thinks they will write it off as van is only worth 1 or 2 grand more

now this is shit as I cannot afford to get a fresh van with out borrowing .
I have just spent £1300 on a new turbo and £1000 for new Alternator and drive stuff
plus 4 new tyres .

the van has only done 147000 and is the 184 hp 2.5 still pulls like a train and gives me 35 mpg uses no very little oil between services

my understanding of insurance was they put you back into the position you were in before the accident .

how hard is it to fight for a full repair with the insurance folks .
if they want to write it off . which will leave me in the shit for sure .

Immediately call their insurance company and demand that they supply a rental.

Once you’ve their offer, and if it’s a write-off, say you want to buy it back.

Now calculate whether it’s worth fixing etc.

just had the estimate for repair and it is £3625.00

Did you see what the quote included?

Work mate of mine had his car stolen – curiously the bill to have it repaired was just over the value. Turns out the quote was to return it to “showroom” quality which it wasn’t when it was stolen.

I’m sure the quote from the garage had nothing to do with it being a low mileage/lots of toys example of a desirable car…

Obv, this may not be the case with a 12 yo T5!

buy it back shop around for quotes and use settlement to do majority of repairs.
Cousin did this and was £50 up and had his car back. sourced second hand panels, plenty of online spare suppliers. Local garage fitted for labour costs. If your lucky enough to get same colour as your van no re spray cost

Second hand panels on T5s are eye-wateringly expensive…
£500 for a S/H sliding door with fire damage to some rubber components and window sliding mech… God knows what price on a mintball example

Do i contact my insurance co yet or wait til the lorry insurance co come back to me with their stuff

I might be wrong here but I’m sure I remember speaking to someone about a similar thing and they told me that the insurance would price up the repair using genuine parts and as someone said above, VW parts are crazy money.
The person I spoke to said something about you being able to ask the insurance to get it repaired using pattern parts instead which is much cheaper.

I can’t for the life of me remember who told me this so it could be completely wrong.

Do i contact my insurance co yet

Definitely give them a bell, if only for guidance on what to expect from the process.

Avoid pattern parts like the plague, unless it’s old and worthless or old and no alternative.
Just nailed a front end on my cousins 2015 berlingo, all genuine s/H citroen panels went straight on, perfect fit, panel gaps as per factory. Apart from the huge easily broken plastic bumper/grill platform which was only available from citroen or pattern. After 5 hours of cutting and filing, I wish he’d have paid treble and insisted on genuine

Thanks for your advice guys will have to wait til tomorrow now and see what is the verdict and go from there

looking it up on the web is doing my head in
and need the van for earning a living

A 12yr old T5 is only worth £1-2k??? Surely not, especially a fast/high spec model.

I’ve no direct experience, but I would be worth checking if turning down a hire vehicle would result in more cash towards the repairs before hitting the write-off value.

Sounds about right to me. Insurance companies aren’t going by to be paying scene tax on a write off.

Scene tax? That’s pish talk. Market value will be way more than that, prob nearer 6k.

A 12yr old T5 is only worth £1-2k??? Surely not, especially a fast/high spec model.

+1

there’s not one on eBay or auto trader under 6k.

If they write it off you can buy it back. We did it with a 306 – written off as it needed new suspension arms/ tyre/ wheel when it hit a kerb at 30.

gambled and bought it back – turned out it needed the tracking doing; £10.

The op didn’t say his van was only worth £1k to £2k

T5 are crazy money still buy it back and part it out worst case bit of hassle worth it . I Don’t trust ins approved repair centres I’m afraid

If they say it’s a Cat C or Cat D economic write off you can ask them what the salvage value would be and if you can buy it back. I don’t think it’s a given that they have to sell the salvage. When mine was an economic write off I bought back the salvage and had it fixed at a cost which was lower than the original quote because when you’re sorting it out yourself you can of course decide second hand parts are acceptable.

Basically the insurers put a value X on the amount they would have paid out to you in a straightforward claim. They sell you the salvage for Y pounds, and give you the difference (X-Y=Z) and you own the wreckage. Not all companies will insure a written off vehicle I’m told, and if you are looking to re-sell in the future it won’t have the same value as a similar age and mileage and condition vehicle. I didn’t have to spend all of Z to get the repairs done but am left with a vehicle worth less than the original X amount because of the Cat D effect on future re-sale value.

Hope this helps. I rang the insurers a lot while trying to work it out and to try to get the salvage value decreased.

The op didn’t say his van was only worth £1k to £2k

He did…he quoted his mates guestimate, which is on the low side.

He did…he quoted his mates guestimate, which is on the low side.

No, he said it was worth £1-2k more than the repair estimate

You win 😥

just had a new turbo and alternator fitted plus 4 new tyres .

so for no fault of mine I now need a van for earning a wage .
had this van from new so know I wont find one in as good nick for what ever sum they pay me out .

might be worth 6 grand on the market but worth lots more to me

am prepared now for lots of hassle

Normally, an insurer will look to write off a vehicle if repairs exceed 60-65% of it’s value. I’d speak to your insurer and explain that you’d like to save your van.

If they supply a hire car/van then this adds to an insurer’s cost can count against you in this situation. Don’t let the insurer take the van away from you (even to go to a bodyshop) if you want to save it, until they have agreed a repair.

When the insurer’s engineer comes to view the van, make sure he or she knows that you want to save the van. You should be fine.

Is it definitely going through insurance, or is the haulage firm offering to cover repair costs to avoid claiming? As you don’t seem to have contacted the insurance yet. My old boss used to buy bangers that the lads hit with the vans. Friend had the side of her Civic rebuilt by a haulage company.

My parents recently had a similar situation, spent ages waiting on genuine parts, each time it was reassembled they found something else out. Insurance repairer quoted cheap, but final cost would probably have been enough to write it off. Took 4 months and just a Fiesta as courtesy car.

You can also argue the price up based on evidence of condition, owned from new, receipts for diligent servicing etc.

Our Scudo got written off at 9 yrs and 133k (similar to you – owned from new). Sent them a letter plus massive wad of receipt copies and with minimum hassle got top book price for an “equivalent” base van, plus £1k to replace rear seat conversion with new (old seats were undamaged but said I wouldn’t strap my kids in crashed seats). Our write off was due to type of damage not just economic – on your argument they might just agree to the repair as least cost option on a hard to replace vehicle.

Is this the same van we went to Germany in Chris?
Is it still driveable, road legal?
If its just cosmetic damage to large panels then this can add to big repair costs if done by bodyshop via insurance.
Insurance co will set a price for uneconomic repair & will probably go up to that value for paying out before writing it off, but they will take costs of a hire vehicle off of that amount so if you do not need a hire van then don’t take one.
Also don’t allow the van to be kept at the bodyshop as they will charge the insurance for storage (this can also eat in to the write off figure)
Insurance co will also have to get your van collected, transported, stored & auctioned if they write it off – the last one I dealt with valued the cost of doing this at £440 so if you keep it, you can use this amount in your haggling to buy back the van (as you’ve basically saved them the cost of disposal)

yes Snaps the same van
it is driveable and i have managed to get the door to close and lock .
thanks for the advise

any idea on buy back costs as I do have a mate in the body repair business so that looks like the likley scenaroe

had this van from new so know I wont find one in as good nick for what ever sum they pay me out .

You’ve had your money’s worth; it was always going to need replacing sometime.

Took 4 months and just a Fiesta as courtesy car. [/I]

If it was a fault claim (ie their own insurance company) then that’s probably right, if someone else’s fault, they should argued at the time for an equivalent vehicle.

My last dealings like this were:
Bought a motorbike for £2700 with minor faults (fork seal leaking & needed a new chain/sprockets)
Fixed bike & rode it (I now valued it at £3200)
Some bellend reverses into me at 10mph cracking my headlight, front mudguard & causing the handlebars to swing violently to full lock & put a tiny dent in the frame, bike still rideable so take his details & ride on.
His insurance assessor comes round to mine & says ‘frame damage – that’ll be a write off’ I says that its still rideable & I’d like to buy it back.
Letter comes valuing it at £4100 & saying they want £1100 for me to buy it back.
I offer them £650 for it, they accept, get me to sign a disclaimer that thats the end of the matter, its recorded as a cat D write off & they transfer £3450 in to my account.
I buy a headlight & mudguard from breakers & carry on riding it.

I’d imagine you’ll be haggling around book price for your van (get their assessor to look at it) less the £440ish plus any other cost they incur (should be zero if no recovery or storage etc)

If its secure, road legal & your happy to keep using it then take your time looking for parts to repair (Ebay/breakers owners forums etc)

Do you know any bodywork guys that need flooring doing? 😉

From my experience with the insurers, be pro active in letting them know you might be considering trying to buy back the salvage.

They generally have a formula for calculating the salvage value depending on the category of economic write off. I did end up calling the financial ombudsman because I wasn’t happy with how much they wanted for the salvage, and was advised to formalise a complaint to my insurers. I told the insurers the financial ombudsman had advised me to make a formal complaint and that I wanted to formally do that. The salvage price came down but only a little bit. Mine was fairly specialised so instead of working to their usual formula of x% of value they had put the scrap out to tender and had (apparently) had quite a high offer. I could only take their word for that, but no choice. The bodyshop I was using deal with this kind of thing a lot and normally you’d expect the salvage value to be around 20 – 25% of the pre accident value of the vehicle apparently. Each insurance company sets their own levels for this. It may be written on your policy or available on line for your company – or most simply, a phone call away!

On a vehicle like a T5 with a “scene” attached to it (i.e. people who give a shit will buy it) make sure if you do repair it you have photos and receipts for everything or I suspect you’ll find it harder to sell on. When I bought my Cat D car it would have been a no-go if I didn’t have all the receipts for the work.

Its an old van, parts are expensive, they may well find hidden damage, theyll offer a few thousand quid, possibly want offer a hire van unless theyre going to repair the van as its more costs.

Hire a van yourself and claim off the other drivers insurance, via a no win no fee company , both aa and rac wil help if your e a memmber.

oh and your insurance premium will jump on all vehicles you insure in future.

As other have said, buying it back could be a good move – I was up by about 1/3 of the value of my old Focus after buying it back and fixing it myself; it was just as functional as before, although worth a bit less if I’d wanted to sell it.

The important point is that if it’s the truck driver’s fault, you’re not claiming off your insurance, you’re claiming damages from the truck driver, which your insurers may be helping you to get. If your damages include loss of business, put it in the claim. You should keep your insurers informed, however the claim is managed – if you don’t, and they find out, they could invalidate your cover.

comfyman – Member
had this van from new so know I wont find one in as good nick for what ever sum they pay me out .
You’ve had your money’s worth; it was always going to need replacing sometime

But not at this time.
And not at someone else’s say-so.

Update
Phew lorry`s insurance have agreed the full repair costs 😀
van goes in monday for mending

Excellent news. Hope you’ve got a loan while it’s in the shop.

only 147,000 miles ?!

That’s a good outcome. I’ve paid the difference between the repair costs and the insurance valuation on our car before now. It wasn’t a large amount, but was worth it for the lack of hassle in sourcing a replacement car at short notice. Saved the transfer fee on the personalised reg number I bought for Mrs Z as well.

cozz – Member
only 147,000 miles ?!

One on the ‘bay the other day with over 600k on it. 😮