Kuga written off.

[Scully]

I knocked on a villagers door last Friday during storm whatever it was called, to inform the lady of the house a branch had gone through the rear window of their Kuga. 
The owner pulled up this afternoon to thank me and told me his insurers had just written off the vehicle. It was a 2009 vehicle with 117k miles on the clock. He said his wife wasn’t too chuffed as she enjoyed driving it, and it ran like a clock. 
It just struck me as odd when we’re having sustainability rammed down our throats at every opportunity. 
 

[oowee]

Written off for a broken window sounds pretty drastic. 

[Scully]

6 minutes ago, oowee said:

Written off for a broken window sounds pretty drastic. 

Must admit I was surprised when he told me, but what do I know? 🤷‍♂️

[TOPGUN749]

It could be bought back from the insurance company and fixed for a couple of hundred. They may pay out market value, say £2,000 and sell back for salvage price of £400.

 

[Jaymo]

Maybe it dented the roof with the branches? 

[Scully]

1 hour ago, TOPGUN749 said:

It could be bought back from the insurance company and fixed for a couple of hundred. They may pay out market value, say £2,000 and sell back for salvage price of £400.

 

Could do, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going down that route. 

38 minutes ago, Jaymo said:

Maybe it dented the roof with the branches? 

Maybe, but from what I saw it was just the window. It was a heated window and I think a brake light in it, so that would push up repair costs I suppose? 
Just seems a waste of a perfectly good and usable car to me. 

[Stephen-H]

They price the job on using new genuine dealer parts so a boot lid , heated rear screen , paint & labour fitting will probably write it off against the age , mileage & condition of the cars retail value 

As stated if the roof is damaged its classed as structural normally. 

[ph5172]

You can get the screen replaced for about £400. 

Seems silly to lose a car you know inside out and has no issues for that. 
 

I think looking online first for a repair cost before contacting your insurance on slightly older cars may be the way to go - obviously assuming it is just the rear screen 

[Lloyd90]

The insurance companies will only have brand new parts used, and there are huge back logs, delays, and issues getting parts. 
 

The model of the car may have also changed so parts hard to find. 
 

Add to that, the garage sees the insurance company are paying and a few hundred quid job turns into multiple thousands. 
 

Then they have to pay for a rental car in the interim. 
 

The insurance will try and screw you, and everyone tries to screw the insurance. 
 

 

[enfieldspares]

On 24/10/2023 at 22:23, Stephen-H said:

They price the job on using new genuine dealer parts so a boot lid , heated rear screen , paint & labour fitting will probably write it off against the age , mileage & condition of the cars retail value 

As stated if the roof is damaged its classed as structural normally. 

This. Labour is, I'd guess, maybe £120 per hour? Plus when I was scrapping brand new Landrover parts (yes brand new) when doing agency work at Neovia Logistics inventory is only kept for most vehicles for about twelve years after that model is discontinued then all parts are scrapped. It's called "inventory optimisation" apparently. You don't warehouse and stores, say, two hundred right hand door skins when worldwide there's now but x number of that model that takes such a part still known as being on the road. So at a certain point all that inventory is scrapped and warehouse and stores space made free for the latest newest model's right hand door skins.

Edited November 25, 2023 by enfieldspares

[armsid]

Why are they pushing to write off these cars  EV,s will cost even more to write off or  repair one let alone recover it

[Stephen-H]

31 minutes ago, armsid said:

Why are they pushing to write off these cars  EV,s will cost even more to write off or  repair one let alone recover it

More salvage value in ev's in terms of reselling to trade to repair & sell on & salvage parts battery packs on e.v's are worth a lot of money & the electronics & motors. The major risk with storing full e.v vechiles , breaking them for spares while in full is fire risk 

[Bobba]

On a similar write off theme, I recently collected my car from a bodyshop - ‘21 Reg Dacia Duster Comfort. In conversation the manager said that an insurance company (unnamed) recently wrote off a similar car which was not much older than mine even though the repair had been completed. It was awaiting a pair of headlight units. Although the car is manufactured in Romania the headlights are manufactured in the Ukraine. They waited 5 months back order without success after which the insurers, fed up with paying for the courtesy car, wrote the car off. The reason, apparently, is that the insurers would only accept new replacement parts.

I would like to think that, hopefully, within the trade, deals were done with recovered headlights from a scrapyard and someone is enjoying a very decent car

[ph5172]

A while ago someone reversed into my Volvo in the works car park.
It was repaired but the assessor said if it had damaged the headlight unit it would be a write off. 
the cost of some genuine light units is somewhat staggering and that’s without supply issues as mentioned above