General Damaged Barchetta - Can it be fixed without replacement parts?

[philipbloom]

Hi,

My beloved 96 Barchetta which I’ve had since 1997 was damaged whilst parked on the street. It looks like a car has reversed into it. You can see the damage from the photo. No note was left.

I haven’t contacted my insurance yet or gone to a body shop, before that I wanted to get some experience from others here. I have no experience of body repairs as I’ve never needed them done in my 35 years of driving.

My concern is if the cost of repair is higher than the value of the car the insurance might right it off. Thankfully the used prices of them has risen significantly in the last few years so I might be OK.

The bumper damage is not from the same incident. As it’s fibre glass I don’t know if that’s repairable or not, if not then that’s sourcing a replacement. They seem to be going for around £400 or more that I’ve found.

If the body shop can’t repair the front section and it needs a whole new section what’s confused me whilst searching is front and left wings are available, although I’ve not found the middle part. Mine looks like one piece to me. Did later models have separate parts?

Obviously when they do repair it they will respray it. Would the insurance by any wild chance cover the entire car respray as it won’t match.

Thank you, I appreciate your answers.

Philip

 

[Greasytrucker]

Looks from the pictures of the cracks that it’s been filled and repaired before? Any good body shop should be able to pull it back out and skim and respray i’d have thought. Presume they are steel and not fiberglass as I know nothing about them???

 

[Greasytrucker]

If it is fiberglass any fiberglass specialist should be able to put that right

 

[pablopablo]

There's a front end available on ebay. Not sure how easy it would be to cut out the damaged section and weld the new one. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12614799...9cJ8IBrwPtAqmedwjzMi3Lmy5b69QOgEaAghWEALw_wcB

 

[AndyRKett]

I haven’t contacted my insurance yet

You must contact your insurance company even if you do not intend to claim, you are obliged to inform them of the accident/damage, they may be able seek CCTV footage or other evidence to track down the culprit that you would not be able to do yourself.

My concern is if the cost of repair is higher than the value of the car the insurance might right it off. Thankfully the used prices of them has risen significantly in the last few years so I might be OK.

These are rare now which makes it easier to argue with the insurance company to affect a repair rather than write it off.

before anything could be decided on this front it would need to be assessed and priced up so they would need an assessor to view the car and decide a price. Then if the price is near the value of the car you'd need to have a chat with the insurance company about what to do next.

The bumper damage is not from the same incident. As it’s fibre glass I don’t know if that’s repairable or not, if not then that’s sourcing a replacement. They seem to be going for around £400 or more that I’ve found.

I would suggest that you put the bumper damage in as part of any claim. They are not doing to go to the effort of repairing everything else and leave the bumper damaged.

If the body shop can’t repair the front section and it needs a whole new section what’s confused me whilst searching is front and left wings are available, although I’ve not found the middle part. Mine looks like one piece to me. Did later models have separate parts?

As shown in the link posted above the nose panel is a seperate piece that can be cut out and then a new one out in. the body shop will sort that out. It may be the parts are leaded to fill in the gap between the nose and the wings.

Obviously when they do repair it they will respray it. Would the insurance by any wild chance cover the entire car respray as it won’t match.

Absolutely not.

you may get the front wings blended, they may do the whole bonnet, given the poor condition of the paint on the bonnet, but they will not give you a full respray. However ... You could talk to the body shop and see what they would charge you to extend the painting of the front end to include the whole car. It maybe a little easier for the body shop to not have to blend the paint, but it will still cost more as they would need to prep the whole car for paint. so it may save a little money and cost a little money, but ultimately you could get a good deal from the bodyshop to do the whole car, while the insurance just pays for the front.

 

[LezLezLez65]

Hi Philip Bloom, My only two-pennyworth is for you to look at AutoDoc. I have just done a search on "body panel" there and see many hits e.g. "right wing lower". So you may find that you can buy from this reputable firm and then you would only have a decision based on value for money. On my side (1998 B) I have repaired a significant fracture in the fibreglass rear lower wing. You can do this without too much difficulty by using fibreglass materials and resin, followed by shaving, sanding and polishing. I was also able to match my car colour almost exactly using "Hycote" brand paint spray cans. I haven't had to tackle any steel panels thankfully. Good luck. Geoff.

 

[s130]

These are rare now which makes it easier to argue with the insurance company to affect a repair rather than write it off.

As cars get older a rarer things can get interesting re: insurance.

We had our 130TC on an agreed value classic insurance for many years. Every year the price was cranked up till we got fed up.

I contacted the insurance obudsman and discussed the postion of taking out a non classic agreed value policy and going for a normal market value policy. Their take was that if you take a market value policy, declare at policy opening/declaration the value of the car AND have proof e.g. strict valuation or recent aution sales of same model and similar condition then they would support your claim.

We took a policy @ £15K with the RAC and went from £263 to £122 in 2018. Savings over last years are around £800 (guestimated)

Note! If the £130TC were are only car then having to take the insurance company to the ombudsman for resolution would not be practical! Thankfully we have two other vehicles we can use.

 

[philipbloom]

Thanks for all your replies. It's much appreciated!