slight prang!
 

Hi all just had a slight bump in my ZT can you believe. Just passed its MOT as well, cleaned and polished and headlight lenses buffed as they were a bit frosty. Must admit the car looked great. Then I went to work on Monday morning and collided with another car just at the end of my street. Brilliant! Its damaged the front nearside corner consisting of damaged bumper, headlight surround and lens cracked & broken (xenon lights) damaged wing and its just caught the very edge of the tip of the bonnet. As you can imagine I am thinking this will be a write-off. Putting it through the insurance at the moment. They wanted loads of photos of the damage plus all 4 corners of the car, a photo of the VIN number and the mileage on the dash. They have just got back to me today to say the engineer has assessed the vehicle and are basically saying the value of the car is £1334 minus the excess of £550 which leaves me with £728. The car is basically being written off but instead of pressing the Accept button I decided to press the Decline button. Not sure what to do now. Do I dispute the value? I have been told to go for cash in lieu of repairs and that way I avoid a salvage title being attached to the vehicle. I need your thoughts on whether to accept the write off or do I fight to keep it and try and fix it myself. Just to clarify the car is an MG ZT190SE in Pearl Black 54 plate. I also need to bear in mind the availability of parts such as headlights and wings etc with purchase costs and of course painting costs. Is it worth it to save the car or not? Mark.

Hi Mark,
I would say save it if you like the car!
I would ask for cash in lieu of repairs, then source some second hand parts (correct colour for wing and bonnet to save on respray costs). I am presuming that chassis rails haven't been twisted.
Neil

If nothing is bent out of shape then repair it yourself, it doesn't sound too bad, where are you going to buy a car for £700?

repair it if you would like to keep the car.
headlight, if you cant get xenon can you fit ordinary lights?
All the rest are easy to swop out.

As said, what will you get for "£700" You could even end up with money left over

macafee2

Hi Mark :wantpics:after contacting you through email, glad to see you post up a thread.

Did you contact ( mickyboy ) like I said too, because if he can help he will, also remember regarding the light you could contact ( Devlish ) he as some refurbished lights I think.

Post up a couple of photo's of the damage, who's fault was the accident ? also that is high excess of £550 I only have excess of £100, sounds like you have about £450 worth of second hand parts to find, and about 3/ hours work to fit them, should you decide to save it.

You can get parts easily enough and it would definitely be worth rebuilding as there aren't that many 190's around.

Morning Steve I take it you want some pictures then! ha ha I am just on my way up to a local bodyshop place to see how much they want to spray the wing and bumper because yes I did contact Mickyboy as you said and he can get them but not in Pearl Black so they would need to be sprayed the correct colour. I got the figures round the wrong way it would leave me with £782 not £728. Well as regards fault I pulled out of the junction at the bottom of our road turning right and collided with a Ford Mondeo coming from my left. Didn't see him at all until it was too late. Now it was dark as it was 5.40am and he must have been hidden behind the thick window pillar which is a bit of a blind spot on the ZT in my opinion. So for all intents and purposes it was my fault but since the accident my wife has suggested the simple theory of did the other guy even have his lights on and I have thought about it a lot since and it could be a possibility simply because I stopped at the junction, looked and didn't see anything and pulled out. But I simply have no proof of that so not much I can do.

It can happen to the best of us - even royalty! We all have a built in blind spot
https://lasikofnv.com/try-these-3-fu...al-blind-spot/
The secret is to move your eyes slightly from left to right to "scan" and the blind spot is then seen (apart from the A pillar!). Good luck and best wishes with the rebuild. Mike

slight prang!
 

Hi Neil thanks for the reply its almost unthinkable to let it go. I will try and get some photos up of the damage later. With a little bit of effort and help off the guys on here its perfectly do-able. I really don't like insurance companies!
For the price of a bumper and wing, some paint and a headlight plus some bits & pieces it can be done. But the insurance just want to send it to salvage. So I declined their offer and wait to see what they will do next.

Over here I would not accept a penny from the insurance company for what amount to about a 500-600 pound repair. It would cost double or triple that or more in increased premiums over the next 5-10 years. Even spreading the repairs over a couple of months to ease the damage to my wallet would be a better choice for me. Make it driveable first and pretty second, if necessary.

Cheers,
Glenn