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Five weeks ago whilst driving down a country lane, I hit a large pothole, it really jolted me in the car but I didn't think too much about it and carried on driving home as it was only minutes away. When I got to the end of the lane, the rear end of the car started to make a rattling noise so on arriving home, my partner looked at the rear drivers side and it was noticeably lower than the right, not massively, but enough to notice.
My Partner said he thought something had snapped on the suspension so we got the Garage who looks after it to take a look and he said the rear drivers side swinging arm had snapped and he quoted us £700.00 parts to repair it, plus 4/5 hours labour at £50.00 per hour so I decided to claim on my insurance as I'd never made a claim before and that's what insurance is for, right?
I 'phoned the insurance and after 5 weeks they made me an offer to settle as they'd decided to write the vehicle off. I told them that I wished to buy the car back and have it repaired and she came back to me with a settlement figure, less the price of me buying it back and said the money would be in my account within 24/48 hours.
The insurers engineers hadn't brought my vehicle back 3 days later, then I received an email saying their engineers said my vehicle was a Category B write off so they couldn't allow me to buy it back, it would have to be scrapped as their engineers deemed it not roadworthy. I was really upset by this as my own garage who are an MOT centre had said the vehicle could be repaired and said no way would they risk their reputation in stating a vehicle was roadworthy if it wasn't!
On paper, my vehicle is old, but in reality, so much of it has been replaced on callbacks , e.g it's had 4 new doors , a new steering column, something to do with the clutch, chip for fuel replaced, chip for the abs replaced, umpteen other things and in January it was re called and had 4 new airbags. The vehicle is a Toyota Avensis, and each time its called back, the Toyota garage do a full vehicle diagnostic to determine if any work needs doing on the car and gives a quote for that work being carried out....it was only in Toyota in January and nothing needed doing. Additionally, it only passed its MOT in August with not even any advisorys on it and my garage said there's no way that my vehicle has deteriorated so much in such a short time as to now not be roadworthy so I think I am being duped here!
My garage is prepared to repair the vehicle and do another full MOT on it so the insurance have asked us to send them all this information, which we have done, and now we are waiting for an answer as to what happens next.
I really want to have my car back, I know her inside out and she has never let me down and I know what work she has had done on her and she has had most things replaced that would have gone on a car her age, given all of the above, is there anything else I can do to help over rule the Insurances current position please?
Many thanks for any help received.
My Partner said he thought something had snapped on the suspension so we got the Garage who looks after it to take a look and he said the rear drivers side swinging arm had snapped and he quoted us £700.00 parts to repair it, plus 4/5 hours labour at £50.00 per hour so I decided to claim on my insurance as I'd never made a claim before and that's what insurance is for, right?
I 'phoned the insurance and after 5 weeks they made me an offer to settle as they'd decided to write the vehicle off. I told them that I wished to buy the car back and have it repaired and she came back to me with a settlement figure, less the price of me buying it back and said the money would be in my account within 24/48 hours.
The insurers engineers hadn't brought my vehicle back 3 days later, then I received an email saying their engineers said my vehicle was a Category B write off so they couldn't allow me to buy it back, it would have to be scrapped as their engineers deemed it not roadworthy. I was really upset by this as my own garage who are an MOT centre had said the vehicle could be repaired and said no way would they risk their reputation in stating a vehicle was roadworthy if it wasn't!
On paper, my vehicle is old, but in reality, so much of it has been replaced on callbacks , e.g it's had 4 new doors , a new steering column, something to do with the clutch, chip for fuel replaced, chip for the abs replaced, umpteen other things and in January it was re called and had 4 new airbags. The vehicle is a Toyota Avensis, and each time its called back, the Toyota garage do a full vehicle diagnostic to determine if any work needs doing on the car and gives a quote for that work being carried out....it was only in Toyota in January and nothing needed doing. Additionally, it only passed its MOT in August with not even any advisorys on it and my garage said there's no way that my vehicle has deteriorated so much in such a short time as to now not be roadworthy so I think I am being duped here!
My garage is prepared to repair the vehicle and do another full MOT on it so the insurance have asked us to send them all this information, which we have done, and now we are waiting for an answer as to what happens next.
I really want to have my car back, I know her inside out and she has never let me down and I know what work she has had done on her and she has had most things replaced that would have gone on a car her age, given all of the above, is there anything else I can do to help over rule the Insurances current position please?
Many thanks for any help received.
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