[Repair] Just bumped into someone in the car park…

[Abcmsaj]

That quote is an absolute joke and I would ask some serious questions.

I approached a Tesla approved body shop (AW Accident Repair Group - Doncaster) after I hit a pheasant at speed which cracked the front bumper. They said the repair would be expensive, so recommended replacing the entire bumper instead.

Total cost Including labour: £1300.

Parts were about £900 and labour £400.

I'm leaving it with insurance - I did phone them and express that I thought it was absurd money, and the person on the phone told me that they have a team that sniff out dodgy dealings and will negotiate the price with the garage. Unfortunately, there's no other Tesla-authorised bodyshop nearby to me and I think they know that...

 

[Adopado]

I don't think this is a Tesla tax in this case, it's just the way they seem to do business. It seems they want ludicrous insurance work or nothing and aren't bothered if it makes most people walk away. If the insurer is willing to pay that much, they'll throw a dart at a number and charge it. I can't say I agree with it (especially if they were exaggerating the severity of the work, but no reason to believe that's the case until you see it) , because the obvious knock on effect if every bodyshop in the land did this is that premiums are inflated, but on the other hand maybe it's just a sensible business practice that protects them somewhat from insurers throwing their weight around?

Unfortunately it's been like this for years ... and is partly the reason insurance premiums are often so high of course. Some places used to be prepared to negotiate on price on more expensive jobs if they knew it wasn't going to be covered by insurance ... especially if you dropped to your knees whilst pleading poverty!

 

[GlynG]

The insurance companies make life very difficult for anyone trying to challenge their way of working, they are like the old "closed shop" union days. I fail to see how a persons risk of a claim increases when its been decided you are not to blame for an accident, this applies even if you are not in the car - its parked and someone runs into your car. They say that reporting an accident is a claim even if its no blame whatsoever and statistics confirm that once one claim has been submitted its likely another claim will follow within two years. I clearly don't understand their logic.

I discovered all of this quite a few years ago when my wife's brand new car was scraped in a car park - very minor and just the paint was damaged - no dents or gouges. She was shopping, returned to the car and saw the damage (no car was next to her when she parked, - she called me and i drove to her, The car next to her was blue - and traces of the blue paint was on my wife's white car (white paint on the blue car too) - took pictures and waited for the owner to return, Initially denied it but the pictures and evidence on both cars had her bang to rights. We got a quote for repair - just over £100 as the lady said she would pay - her husband thought it was a con and said its to go via insurance - no problem - It was repaired by Ford and almost £2K as they fitted a new bumper and painted the rear quarter panel. (The car most certainly didn't need anything more than the paint fixing)

I tried to find out what the impact would be if anything on my wife's renewal as it was just a couple of weeks away, it was confirmed the premium would rise but they couldn't put a figure on it - maybe because i said I wanted a figure to be able to add that to the overall claim as damages because it impacts for three years and she shouldn't be out of pocket even by a penny because she had nothing to do with it.
When the policy renewal premium arrived it was higher than the previous year but further discussions with her insurer proved fruitless because they said insurance tends to rise anyway each year and they don't see evidence of how the premium is arrived at - just a figure. (I say "they" because the person i spoke with is one of their team - a worker in customer services - not the person, persons or computer generating the quote) - so i got nowhere.

 

[Adopado]

The insurance companies make life very difficult for anyone trying to challenge their way of working, they are like the old "closed shop" union days. I fail to see how a persons risk of a claim increases when its been decided you are not to blame for an accident, this applies even if you are not in the car - its parked and someone runs into your car. They say that reporting an accident is a claim even if its no blame whatsoever and statistics confirm that once one claim has been submitted its likely another claim will follow within two years. I clearly don't understand their logic.

It's awful of course but the way they see it is that this is evidence of a risk. If someone runs into your car then you have been in the close vicinity of other vehicles ... perhaps even in a (shock horror) supermarket car park, with other cars manoeuvring in tight spaces. It's ridiculous of course but there is some truth to the fact that people who don't park in supermarket car parks avoid some opportunities for minor calamities! If you regularly drive in built up areas you're more likely to have someone bumping into you (I don't know the stats but I'm guessing) than someone who drives fewer miles in such areas. If they have stats that show someone who has a no fault accident is more likely to have claims in the future then it's hard to argue ... but in my opinion this level of thinking devalues the whole point of insurance, which is to spread the risk amongst lots of policy holders. It seems fair enough for real instances of exceptional risk to affect premiums but to penalise someone for a no-fault accident does seem way over the top.

 

[Tigermad]

You can always make a "notification only" declaration to your insurer, that will fulfil the requirement to notify them without them handling a claim - leaving you still deal with the repairs privately. Your insurer will then close their case after a few months on the basis they haven't heard anything from the other party.

I did this and still went against me. It was only minor damage to my car and I still have to mention it in the claims section.

 

[Abcmsaj]

Hey all - sorry to bump an old thread but people wanted an update!

Essentially, I got the quote myself from a local Tesla-approved garage, and went to Peugeot with the quote. They then did all the authorisation on their end (maybe took 2 days?) and the garage got in touch with me to arrange a date to fix it. This was back in May! The earliest date they had available for me was July 13th... So last Tuesday, someone came to collect the car, and this morning I got it back - ended up being a 5 day job to take my old bumper off, spray a new one, fit it, colour match it!

Made harder by the fact I put valet mode on before they took the car, which meant that they were unable to get the bumper off as they couldn't open the frunk! So ended up using an angle grinder to cut the old one off (instead of just phoning me to turn off valet mode via the app??). Was also fun to watch them do a test drive of it around the city on Friday after they had fitted the bumper and reset all the sensors! Tezlab gave me a notification that a drive was in progress and I watched them drive it (listening to my Spotify... Olivia Rodrigo was on...) in the Tesla app.

I'm pretty happy with the end result:

Thought it was a crack on the bumper in the little gaps on the sides of the bumper but apparently that's the design and I've just never noticed before! Don't think you'd be able to tell it was ever in an accident - the colour match is great. I'll give it a better look this evening when the sun's gone in a bit more, but I couldnt spot any issues (and the garage offered me a lifetime guarantee on any work carried out too so I'm confident that anything I find can be fixed!)

 

[NewbieT]

Looking smart. Thanks for reporting back.