Hi,

Got shunted today by a Golf which itself had just been been hit from the rear. The Panda seems to have taken the hit pretty well but the bumper and the sporting bumper trim are both damaged. I don't know if they are repairable or if they usually get replaced. Was wondering if anyone had an idea of what replacement cost including painting should roughly equate to? I need to get a quote for the insurance company to review but I am a little anxious that if it is too much they'll want to write it off as on paper it probably isn't worth a great deal. It is a 55 plate with 82k on the clock.

Thanks

Sorry to hear about the shunt.

IMO take it to a body shop and see what they say & I wouldnt go suggesting cheap options whatever it takes it takes.

I say this because depending on what you want, having it written off is not the worst thing in such a situation. If you play your cards right you can have it written off & negotiate to have the car also. You can then get a repair a insurance company won't do such as an ebay bumper or just live with it and keep the cash.

Having done some research and a quick chat with a friend who works for Aviva it looks like the best possible route out could be something called cash in lieu of repair. The book value of the car is only around £1K. A new bumper plus the 'sporting' trim for the rear bumper is looking like £200, plus it will need painting and fitting so probably not far off the write off threshold. With cash in lieu they just give you a small amount to sort the repair yourself and close the claim as that is cheaper for them that writing it off, as the car is not written off so you do not need to buy it back. The issue with the buy back is that it is then marked as being previously written off which means some insurers won't cover you and would also be a problem at resale. I'll get a couple of quotes this week but having looked at it again it isn't that badly damaged so worse case scenario I just live with it....

I'd imagine the bumper and body kit part will need replacing, it'd probably cost just as much, if not more, in labour to have them repaired and they'd never be as good as new. Around £200 for the parts sounds about right, ePER says a new bumper is £137, but it doesn't list the Sporting body kit parts (or not that I could find, anyway). As you quite rightly said, on top of that £200 you've also got the cost of painting and fitting the parts.

Whether or not the insurance company will write it off is anyone's guess, I wouldn't bank on them paying you cash in lieu of repair, they might just Cat D the car, sadly .

Don't take this the wrong way, but even if they do Cat D it, I wouldn't worry about resale value too much if the car's only worth about a grand anyway. Assuming you weren't about to sell it prior to the crash, the car will only continue to depreciate and even if you were planning to sell, there isn't a massive amount of room for loss of value between £1,000 and the car's value in scrap (£100-£125ish I'd guess).

Matt100HP said:

Don't take this the wrong way, but even if they do Cat D it, I wouldn't worry about resale value too much if the car's only worth about a grand anyway. Assuming you weren't about to sell it prior to the crash, the car will only continue to depreciate and even if you were planning to sell, there isn't a massive amount of room for loss of value between £1,000 and the car's value in scrap (£100-£125ish I'd guess).

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:yeahthat:

Although cash in lieu is best option if you can get them to go with that

Had a quote for just under £700 to have a new bumper fitted and thso sporting trim repaired and repainted. The rear cross member is also bent so it includes sorting that. Now waiting for insurance to agree, or not!

buttonsandzips said:

Had a quote for just under £700 to have a new bumper fitted and thso sporting trim repaired and repainted. The rear cross member is also bent so it includes sorting that. Now waiting for insurance to agree, or not!

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I hope they agree to fix it (or pay in lieu) and don't Cat D it .

£700 seems a lot, but I have no idea how much the cross member and painting actually cost.

Matt100HP said:

I hope they agree to fix it (or pay in lieu) and don't Cat D it .

£700 seems a lot, but I have no idea how much the cross member and painting actually cost.

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Seems about right, cross member won't be more than about £50 but its the painting and prep work etc along with the labour that cost

Most Easterly Pandas said:

Seems about right, cross member won't be more than about £50 but its the painting and prep work etc along with the labour that cost

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I suspected that, I think painting just costs more than I have imagine it should, for some reason haha.

more or less the same damage that happened to my Panda, got the bumper and xmember but not fitted/painted yet.

306maxi said:

more or less the same damage that happened to my Panda, got the bumper and xmember but not fitted/painted yet.

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You also had rear panel rearranged, which is a fair bit more if repaired properly tbh.

The good news is it is being repaired. The cost came to £755. The bumper spoiler is repairable so it will be fixed to a new bumper and both repainted.

buttonsandzips said:

The good news is it is being repaired. The cost came to £755. The bumper spoiler is repairable so it will be fixed to a new bumper and both repainted.

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Good to hear, I'm glad they didn't write it off .