Rear ended will it be a write off?[HELP]

[Classicalmusic]

Do you think it will be a write off? Car is a Ford Fiesta Zetec s 2015 red edition value of £9000. I think the boot floor is creased as I can’t put the rear seats down. Feels like the car is also out of alignment. Suspension is also higher on one side of the car.

[Classicalmusic]

[FerdiZ28]

IANALA

I'd say that would be, boot floor being creased is probably enough, suggests rear slam panel, bootlid, locking mechanism, that's apart from the suspension and alignment damage that you mention.

Also, they'll take into account the total cost of claim - courtesy car for you, any injury claim (hope you are ok) before they even consider the (often negligible in comparison) repair cost.

Bad luck, but these things happen, Ozzie.

[Mexman]

Write off I'm afraid.
Boot floor creased will have seen to that.
Imagine the labour involved in replacing?

[Classicalmusic]

Mexman said:

Write off I'm afraid.
Boot floor creased will have seen to that.
Imagine the labour involved in replacing?

The lady at the garage told me that they would write the car off if it costs 85% of the cars value. For parts and labour do you think it will reach 85% of £9000=£7650. Surely parts about 2-3k and labour around 200?
The boot is now half the size of what it use to be

[Bobberoo99]

Classicalmusic said:

Mexman said:

Write off I'm afraid.
Boot floor creased will have seen to that.
Imagine the labour involved in replacing?

The lady at the garage told me that they would write the car off if it costs 85% of the cars value. For parts and labour do you think it will reach 85% of £9000=£7650. Surely parts about 2-3k and labour around 200?
The boot is now half the size of what it use to be

I hate to tell you this but that is pretty much certainly a write off, if you can't put the rear seats down and the suspension geo has changed that's structural!!!

[Nickp82]

Does look very likely to be a write-off, I am guessing somebody went in to the back of you so not your fault though?

[HorneyMX5]

I'd be very surprised if they fixed that. Needs putting on a jig first to find out if it's still straight. The seat comment suggests not.

[TooMany2cvs]

Classicalmusic said:

The lady at the garage told me that they would write the car off if it costs 85% of the cars value. For parts and labour do you think it will reach 85% of £9000=£7650. Surely parts about 2-3k and labour around 200?
The boot is now half the size of what it use to be

Even assuming you've missed a zero off the labour, your guesstimate is a long way from reality...

Frankly, even the boot floor etc wasn't structurally damaged, just tailgate/bumper, I suspect it'd be close to binworthy. Even a crinkle in the boot floor means having to do structural metalwork. If the damage has reached far enough into the structure to make folding the seats hard, let alone a visible difference to boot shape and movement to the rear subframe, it's simply toast. You've clearly got major movement in the structural box sections providing the strength etc. If it was being repaired, then it'd probably be a reshell.

Bobberoo99 said:

I hate to tell you this but that is pretty much certainly a write off, if you can't put the rear seats down and the suspension geo has changed that's structural!!!

"Structural" doesn't automatically mean a write-off. It can still be worth repairing - it's all down to cost to repair versus cost to write-off. "Structural" simply comes into it as a flag to describe how badly it was damaged once it's written off.

[Krikkit]

Classicalmusic said:

Mexman said:

Write off I'm afraid.
Boot floor creased will have seen to that.
Imagine the labour involved in replacing?

The lady at the garage told me that they would write the car off if it costs 85% of the cars value. For parts and labour do you think it will reach 85% of £9000=£7650. Surely parts about 2-3k and labour around 200?
The boot is now half the size of what it use to be

£200?

IF you wanted to fix it, you'd need to strip the rear suspension off it, put it on a repair jig, straighten the chassis, remove and replace the boot floor, then replace the outer panels as well. That'd be a few hundred hours work, at >£50 an hour.

FWIW I had a write off a few years ago, they explained that when the costs got to 40% of the value they'd write it off as a Cat. D, 60% a Cat. C, 100% a Cat. B. That was before they changed the system to N/S, but you're looking at it probably being a Cat. B.

Bad luck, start clearing your crap out of the car now.

[IanCress]

Classicalmusic said:

The lady at the garage told me that they would write the car off if it costs 85% of the cars value. For parts and labour do you think it will reach 85% of £9000=£7650. Surely parts about 2-3k and labour around 200?
The boot is now half the size of what it use to be

Presume that's a mis-type but labour will be way over £200. Don't forget to add on costs of hire cars etc. I thought they tend to write off cars at around 50% of cost, not 85%.

Anyway, chances are you don't want the car back. Push for a decent pay out.

[Classicalmusic]

Thanks everyone! Yesterday I had to drive the car to the garage and that I could feel the car pulling to one side, does that mean the allignment is off? Also i could a whinning noise on the left back wheel. Does anyone have any idea what the noise is?

[Classicalmusic]

IanCress said:

I thought they tend to write off cars at around 50% of cost, not 85%.

Anyway, chances are you don't want the car back. Push for a decent pay out.

Thats what the manager of the garage told me, maybe its different for different insurance companies? Also what do you mean by 'push for a decent pay out'? Don't accept the first offer they give you for the write off?

[TooMany2cvs]

Classicalmusic said:

Also i could a whinning noise on the left back wheel. Does anyone have any idea what the noise is?

Looking at the pic, it could be as simple as the bumper rubbing on the tyre. Or it's possible that the inner wing has bent outwards and is contacting the tyre.

[TooLateForAName]

£200 labour

What happened? Its interesting, the shape of that damage.

[Bobberoo99]

Classicalmusic said:

Thanks everyone! Yesterday I had to drive the car to the garage and that I could feel the car pulling to one side, does that mean the allignment is off? Also i could a whinning noise on the left back wheel. Does anyone have any idea what the noise is?

Well if you could feel it pulling to one side that's a good indication the chassis is bent, or the rear subframe has moved, either way that's major, the whirring you mentioned could be as simple as the rear bumper dragging/rubbing or as major as the rear wheel being at an angle causing the wheel to be dragged partially rather than rotating. Do some research as to the value of the car, look for the same make/model/year/spec and take an average of the prices but factor in the condition of your car, it's mileage any extras ETC, if there's any finance outstanding that will be paid and the residual money passed to you, so you need to try and make sure you don't lose too much financially.

[GordonL]

I had a 6 week old XR2 shunted like that a few (many) years ago. It was a near thing but insurance decided to repair it.
After I got it back (4 weeks in a hire car) I really, really wished they didn’t.

It rattled continuously the sunroof was up unusable because somehow exhaust fumes came in, the paintwork was clearly different under yellow streetlights and it never quite handled as nicely again.

Got shot of it 6 months later at a fair loss over a mint example.

[SilverPhoenix]

Working within a (reputable & in business for nearly 50 years) bodyshop, I love jobs like this. They're much easier to repair than front end crash work, where there are a lot of expensive radiators/intercoolers/sensors etc.

Get the car to a decent independent bodyshop, with a jig. You'll be amazed at what can be repaired and you'd only cut out a boot floor as a last resort.

There is a lot of bad information out there, especially regarding 'write-offs'. The larger 'supermarket' bodyshop chains will write it off as they cannot make any profit from it, due the the contracts that the insurance companies tie them up with.

From the images provided, we could comfortably repair that within the figures suggested - even allowing for a new boot floor.

[Krikkit]

SilverPhoenix said:

Working within a (reputable & in business for nearly 50 years) bodyshop, I love jobs like this. They're much easier to repair than front end crash work, where there are a lot of expensive radiators/intercoolers/sensors etc.

Get the car to a decent independent bodyshop, with a jig. You'll be amazed at what can be repaired and you'd only cut out a boot floor as a last resort.

There is a lot of bad information out there, especially regarding 'write-offs'. The larger 'supermarket' bodyshop chains will write it off as they cannot make any profit from it, due the the contracts that the insurance companies tie them up with.

From the images provided, we could comfortably repair that within the figures suggested - even allowing for a new boot floor.

Out of interest, on a jig how do you know the original dimensions? When a chassis leg is bent on one side it's easy enough to use the other side for reference, but when the whole rear end is bent what do you do?

I agree there should be more repairs like this done, but repairs have fallen to the lowest bidder, not the highest skill.

[TooMany2cvs]

Krikkit said:

Out of interest, on a jig how do you know the original dimensions? When a chassis leg is bent on one side it's easy enough to use the other side for reference, but when the whole rear end is bent what do you do?

Manufacturer data...?