Is this going to be a write off - Advice

[mr2turbogts]

So yesterday the Mrs got side swiped by someone pulling out of a junction.

They caught the rear door along with the quarter panel and rear wheel.

This doesn’t appear to have affected the adjoining panels, also until the car on a ramp I can’t tell if any suspension components have been affected.

This is all going through insurance, I must admit in my 19 years of driving I’ve Luckly never had to go through insurance, so not 100% how it all works.

So while I am waiting for the insurance company to come back and I guess send an evaluator out/send to a body shop I am sitting here wondering is this will be ££ to repair therefore a write off or if it can be saved.

Is anyone able to estimate a budget costs on this repair based of these few pics.

Car in question is a C350 CDI 2011, with 152k miles so perhaps 5-6k current market, perhaps.

[mr2turbogts]

[mr2turbogts]

[mr2turbogts]

[supacool1]

They'll probably write it off as there could be damage to the suspension and wheel. Sorry to be bearer of bad news...

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

Due to the age and mileage I would say that will 100% be written off. The hire car costs alone to put you in a similar car are probably as much as the car is worth.

[essayer]

Very likely.. but if it's otherwise good maybe worth buying back and fixing ?

[mr2turbogts]

Thanks all, this is what I was thinking, having read/heard a scuff on a bumper being 1k through insurance.

How do you buy the car back if they write it off? I.E if the market value of the car is say 5k, i assume they will pay me out 5k.

Then a seperate valuation of the car being a cat D (Whatever the new cat is) if i want to buy back?

[Limpet]

I look at that and I think secondhand door in colour for about £200 and about the same again for a smart repair guy to deal with the rear wheel arch. I'm confident I could repair that to a good standard, and have change out of £500.

But a body shop pricing up a repair for an insurer will quote a new rear door from Mercedes (which will be four figures - the one for my M140i back in 2019 was £1,200 from BMW with all the bits), plus a few hundred for painting, plus labour to swap all the bits over from the old door and fit, plus another few hundred for the rear arch damage. I'd be surprised if it came out at less than £2,000. Then you have all the hire car and other admin costs on top. When the repair gets towards 50% of the value, you are looking at possibly having the car written off, but all insurers have different criteria.

My own personal opinion is that insurers generally are more risk averse when it comes to repairing stuff these days judging by the amount of Cat N stuff going through the likes of Copart with really quite superficial damage.

If they do write it off, and you like the car, it's worth a conversation to see if you can buy it back and get it repaired yourself. Insurance companies are generally open to this as it saves them a load of time, cost and hassle recovering, offloading and auctioning the car, plus the uncertainty of what they will get back on the day. The car will have a Cat N marker on it, but it's an easy and cheap repair, and will be as good as it was pre-accident. If it works out right, you will be able to repair the car and carry on using it, and have a bit of cash left over for your trouble.

[Ussrcossack]

mr2turbogts said:

Thanks all, this is what I was thinking, having read/heard a scuff on a bumper being 1k through insurance.

How do you buy the car back if they write it off? I.E if the market value of the car is say 5k, i assume they will pay me out 5k.

Then a seperate valuation of the car being a cat D (Whatever the new cat is) if i want to buy back?

Lots on here about buy back
Just don't let anyone take your vehicle away as it'll never come back!

[swisstoni]

Doesn’t look like there was any underlying damage (based on the picture at least).

If the car was a good one, I’d perhaps consider buying it back and running it as a shed. It’s 13 years old after all.

A lot of people don’t want to slum it, of course, and will just want it gone so they can move on.

[Olivergt]

mr2turbogts said:

Thanks all, this is what I was thinking, having read/heard a scuff on a bumper being 1k through insurance.

How do you buy the car back if they write it off? I.E if the market value of the car is say 5k, i assume they will pay me out 5k.

Then a seperate valuation of the car being a cat D (Whatever the new cat is) if i want to buy back?

You can generally get the insurance to offer you a cash settlement instead of repair, talk to them and see what they say. It shouldn't get a write off marker if you take a cash settlement either.

Given the car is still drivable, if you're not precious about it, then don't bother fixing and just drive it. Alternatively, I'm sure you would be able tofind someone who will fill and paint that for a reasonable cost.

[Pica-Pica]

It depends if the inner wheel arch is also damaged and distorted here (red). I suspect it is, in which case it will probably be written off.

[Mr Tidy]

mr2turbogts said:

Thanks all, this is what I was thinking, having read/heard a scuff on a bumper being 1k through insurance.

How do you buy the car back if they write it off? I.E if the market value of the car is say 5k, i assume they will pay me out 5k.

Then a seperate valuation of the car being a cat D (Whatever the new cat is) if i want to buy back?

My 125K mile BMW 330i got hit in the rear last year and got 2 barely visible cracks in the bumper.



BMW could supply a new bumper cover in primer for just under £650 but the repairer suggested by the other insurer padded out their estimate to over £2K so it became a Cat N (previously Cat D) 2 weeks before the other insurer bothered to tell me.

But as my car was always drivable it stayed in my custody.

Hastings' valuation was insulting, and I couldn't squeeze much more out of them but they only deducted 22% from the pitiful valuation for me to keep it, which is presumably what Copart would have given them.

So I ended up with a Cat N car and 50% of what I had paid for it 4 years previously!

[Defcon5]

I’m surprised you even bothered claiming for that

[Wilmslowboy]

mr2turbogts said:

So yesterday the Mrs got side swiped by someone pulling out of a junction.

They caught the rear door along with the quarter panel and rear wheel.

This doesn’t appear to have affected the adjoining panels, also until the car on a ramp I can’t tell if any suspension components have been affected.

This is all going through insurance, I must admit in my 19 years of driving I’ve Luckly never had to go through insurance, so not 100% how it all works.

So while I am waiting for the insurance company to come back and I guess send an evaluator out/send to a body shop I am sitting here wondering is this will be ££ to repair therefore a write off or if it can be saved.

Is anyone able to estimate a budget costs on this repair based of these few pics.

Car in question is a C350 CDI 2011, with 152k miles so perhaps 5-6k current market, perhaps.

If you are insured by one of the big players they will not send an assessor out or ask you to take it to a body shop. Instead your claim will get forwarded to their preferred repairer, who will ask you to take several high quality photos, and from that they will decide if it’s a write off or not. Bringing a car in that turns out to be more expensive (and/or take longer to repair) than first estimated is not in the interest of the body shop - so they will err on the side of caution.

[bennno]

Olivergt said:

You can generally get the insurance to offer you a cash settlement instead of repair, talk to them and see what they say. It shouldn't get a write off marker if you take a cash settlement either.

Given the car is still drivable, if you're not precious about it, then don't bother fixing and just drive it. Alternatively, I'm sure you would be able tofind someone who will fill and paint that for a reasonable cost.

If you take a settlement the car will generally get a cat N or S marker.

[oldagepensioner]

mr2turbogts said:

So yesterday the Mrs got side swiped by someone pulling out of a junction.

They caught the rear door along with the quarter panel and rear wheel.

This doesn’t appear to have affected the adjoining panels, also until the car on a ramp I can’t tell if any suspension components have been affected.

This is all going through insurance, I must admit in my 19 years of driving I’ve Luckly never had to go through insurance, so not 100% how it all works.

So while I am waiting for the insurance company to come back and I guess send an evaluator out/send to a body shop I am sitting here wondering is this will be ££ to repair therefore a write off or if it can be saved.

Is anyone able to estimate a budget costs on this repair based of these few pics.

Car in question is a C350 CDI 2011, with 152k miles so perhaps 5-6k current market, perhaps.

I reckon they will probably write it off if my recent experience is anything to go by.I have a 12 year old Astra estate perhaps not in the same bracket as your Merc but when i was struck from behind in a traffic jam recently my insurance wanted to write the car off because of its age and their insistence on a replacement rear bumper.The only damage was some scuffed paintwork and a hole where the other cars front number plate screw had embedded itself in my bumper which was repairable at a fraction of the cost of a new bumper.

[anyoldcardave]

Ussrcossack said:

mr2turbogts said:

Thanks all, this is what I was thinking, having read/heard a scuff on a bumper being 1k through insurance.

How do you buy the car back if they write it off? I.E if the market value of the car is say 5k, i assume they will pay me out 5k.

Then a seperate valuation of the car being a cat D (Whatever the new cat is) if i want to buy back?

Lots on here about buy back
Just don't let anyone take your vehicle away as it'll never come back!

Good advice.

Don,t take it to an insuranced approved repair company if asked to do so, and leave it there. You will not get it back.

That car will be written off, suspension damage or not, as long as you have possession of it, you can ask for a reduced payment and keep the car, it will though, still get a marker put on it.

If you let it out of your sight, it will be off to Copart.

If you like the car and want to keep it, there will be a door for it somewhere on the net, and someone who will repair the rear quarter, as already said. A marker is here nor there really, if you like the car and want to continue using it.

[Olivergt]

bennno said:

Olivergt said:

You can generally get the insurance to offer you a cash settlement instead of repair, talk to them and see what they say. It shouldn't get a write off marker if you take a cash settlement either.

Given the car is still drivable, if you're not precious about it, then don't bother fixing and just drive it. Alternatively, I'm sure you would be able tofind someone who will fill and paint that for a reasonable cost.

If you take a settlement the car will generally get a cat N or S marker.

Thanks for the clarification, I wasn't 100% sure on the marker part.