Accident Repair Costs

[rdc1985]

I was involved in an accident today - another car changed lanes on a roundabout - for no apparent reason as we were both in lanes marked to go straight over - and didn’t look. The car needs two new doors, the bumper, wheel and sill are all damaged too along with the wheel trim. It seems to drive fine but I have a niggling concern about the battery as there is lots of reports of EV batteries not dealing well with collisions.

Has anyone had any experience of accident repairs on their MG? Was parts availability/delays an issue and at what sort of level of damage are they likely to write off the vehicle? It is 12 months old with about 22K miles on it.

 

[Alb]

Parts availability may well be an issue but the chance of your battery being damaged is extremely low.

 

[Rolfe]

I agree about the battery, but it's a lot of damage. I suppose, as usual, it will come down to whether someone thinks it's economical to fix all that. At least it should be done on the other driver's insurance company's dime, if they admit liability. The problem is that if they decide to write it off, the innocent driver ends up out of pocket, having to replace the car from a settlement that won't cover the purchase of an equivalent vehicle.

Still, it's a very new car, so hopefully mere bodywork damage won't trigger a write-off. There have been another couple of cars on the forum that were repaired just fine, but these were bashed wings rather than the whole side of the car.

I presume the airbags didn't trigger? That's usually a good sign. It's expensive to replace airbags and seat belts.

 

[salty]

Sorry to hear about your accident, presume you and any one else in the car are ok? Hopefully it's not a write off and they can fix it, god only knows how long it will take though. Or would you prefer for it to be written off?

 

[rdc1985]

All ok, including the third party driver. Air bags didn’t trigger fortunately. I’ve given it a closer look and the damage seems superficial so I would be surprised if anything went wrong internally - it was at fairly low speed as we were on a roundabout.

It is a company car so I won’t be out of pocket if it is written off, but I really, really don’t want the hassle of ordering and then waiting months for a new car to be delivered, I foresee 6 months plus of hire cars if it is written off - the insurers repairing it seems a much easier option.

 

[Rolfe]

Sounds like it's probably repairable. Given that the car is so new, it's probably worth significantly more than it would cost to repair that.

Glad everybody is OK! A car is just metal and plastic.

 

[siteguru]

I had a diesel Insignia (company car) that was about 18 months old (in May 2019) when someone smashed into the back of us at about 40 mph differential. (I was slowing down to about 10 mph due to traffic in front slowing for a junction turning off the main road, but the car behind was still doing at least 50 when they hit us. The driver said they went for the brake pedal but hit the accelerator by accident). The whole back end was crushed and I somewhat expected it to be written off - but no, they repaired it.

 

[Kithmo]

It's amazing what these modern body techs can do with dent pullers. Not so sure about the sill but the doors probably can be repaired.

 

[rdc1985]

Well it is being assessed by the insurers as we speak. Our broker told me that if a car that is less than one year old requires repairs that exceed 60% of the replacement value the car gets replaced.

Of concern for those who bought their cars, Autotrader are suggesting that my car (SE Long Range, 11 months old, 22k) is only worth £16,180, with WBAC coming in lower - as you would expect - at £14,845.

 

[brilig]

Been waiting 8 months for a back door!

 

[davidobrien666]

Hi
I had a similar accident two new doors needed, no parts issue at all.
Car was with repair shop for 3 days.
All told 10 days from accident to back on the road.
Dave

 

[DavecUK]

I suspect the battery pack will be fine. I had 2 i3s before, one was a lemon and I PXed it in with a dealer for a newer i3. That i3 eventually got into an accident. No airbag deployment, one plastic clip on wing came off, no error messages. Cost to repair 3K, however a tiny nick to the carbon fibre was discovered and the car was immediately written off.

Fortunately, the MG4 doesn't really use space age materials, so repairs should be as per any other car, apart from the isolation protocols they now have to follow due to the chance of a fire being massively bigged up.

 

[John Joice]

I agree about the battery, but it's a lot of damage. I suppose, as usual, it will come down to whether someone thinks it's economical to fix all that. At least it should be done on the other driver's insurance company's dime, if they admit liability. The problem is that if they decide to write it off, the innocent driver ends up out of pocket, having to replace the car from a settlement that won't cover the purchase of an equivalent vehicle.

Still, it's a very new car, so hopefully mere bodywork damage won't trigger a write-off. There have been another couple of cars on the forum that were repaired just fine, but these were bashed wings rather than the whole side of the car.

I presume the airbags didn't trigger? That's usually a good sign. It's expensive to replace airbags and seat belts.

Did you have “Gap” insurance?. If the car is written off, at least that would cover difference between what insurance company offers and what a finance company is still owed.

 

[omega22]

We sustained a small bit of damage to the front nearside of our ZS, thought it might be a few hundred to fix so was intending to not go through insurance. Quote for repainting and having a new plastic lower valance fitted - £1300 ouch!!

 

[rdc1985]

Been waiting 8 months for a back door!

Crikey, that doesn't sound good

Hi
I had a similar accident two new doors needed, no parts issue at all.
Car was with repair shop for 3 days.
All told 10 days from accident to back on the road.
Dave

That sounds promising

I suspect the battery pack will be fine. I had 2 i3s before, one was a lemon and I PXed it in with a dealer for a newer i3. That i3 eventually got into an accident. No airbag deployment, one plastic clip on wing came off, no error messages. Cost to repair 3K, however a tiny nick to the carbon fibre was discovered and the car was immediately written off.

Fortunately, the MG4 doesn't really use space age materials, so repairs should be as per any other car, apart from the isolation protocols they now have to follow due to the chance of a fire being massively bigged up.

My in-laws i3 was involved in a crash a few years back and when my father in law went to collect something that had been left in the car he said they had fenced it off in a far corner of the car park and were very dramatical about it.

We sustained a small bit of damage to the front nearside of our ZS, thought it might be a few hundred to fix so was intending to not go through insurance. Quote for repainting and having a new plastic lower valance fitted - £1300 ouch!!

Insurers do seem to have a way of making things unnecessarily expensive. I had a Volvo V60 that got bumped in a car park. The bodyshop I use when I have got bits sorted myself quoted me £500+vat and said they would need it overnight but it was an easy job. This one was going through the insurnace as it was a company car and I knew who did it (and they tried to get away with it). The insurance wouldn't agree to reimburse me if I paid for the work, and the bodyshop wouldn't agree to deal with the insurers directly as they had a previous bad experience with the company so it ended up going to the insurers chosen place. They had the car for 17 days and the total cost was about £3.5K - including £1700 of car hire. It could have been sorted for £500 all in.

 

[andi]

We had the front bumper taken off outside the house. I took photographs and sent them to insurance. They have repaired the vehicle, MG4 Trophy in orange. All parts available except small lower grill. That turned up this week. Vehicle has been off road 5 weeks from bump to redelivery supposedly next week.
It's had bonnet & wings repainted new bumper and all plastic within bumper.
Don't know costs yet.

 

[Rolfe]

That sounds promising

My in-laws i3 was involved in a crash a few years back and when my father in law went to collect something that had been left in the car he said they had fenced it off in a far corner of the car park and were very dramatical about it.

Insurers do seem ot have a way of making things unnecessarily expensive. I had a Volvo V60 that got bumped in a car park. The bodyshop I use when I have got bits sorted myself quoted me £500+vat and said they would need it overnight but it was an easy job. This one was going through the insurnace as it was a company car and I knew who did it (and they tried to get away with it). The insurance wouldn't agree to reimburse me if I paid for the work, and the bodyshop wouldn't agree to deal with the insurers directly as they had a previous bad experience with the company so it ended up going to the insurers chosen place. They had the car for 17 days and the total cost was about £3.5K - including £1700 of car hire. It could have been sorted for £500 all in.

That's not dissimilar to what happened to me, and led to me getting my MG4. An idiot in a BMW came out of a side street and bashed the side of my Golf. Driver's door and front wing. He initially said he'd rather pay for it himself, so I agreed. I said if I can get my local garage to do it then I won't need a courtesy car, and I'll overlook the damage to the alloy because it was kerbed anyway. I got the quote, £1,600, could be done in a couple of days at my convenience.

Oh no, that's too expensive, he wanted to go through the insurance after all. So the insurance said that's OK, we'll get it fixed for for you, but they couldn't do it for another three months. I spent three months driving around in a bashed car, but eventually the time came. The Golf was whisked off and I was given a courtesy car. Nine days later I got an email saying the car was uneconomical to repair, here's £4,000 and please give back the courtesy car.

So they paid out £4,000 plus the cost of the courtesy car, when I'd have settled for the £1,600 repair locally.

My first reaction was to go and get my beloved GTi back, but my second reaction was to get real and start looking at EV reviews on YouTube.