Air-bag replacements - DIY?

J

John Mecklenburgh

Member
My lovely 2004 TDi whilst stationary was hit square on the front by a sideways moving car and the air-bags and seat-belt tensioner were activated.
There is relatively minor damage to the front - kinked bonnet, broken light and crunched 'bumper', small water leak from radiator - but the insurance assessor says it is uneconomic to repair!!! Such a waste!
I am considering buying it back and repairing it myself.
Has anyone got experience in repairing front damage and particularly replacing airbags etc? I have heard they are expensive!
 
Hi John,

Sorry to hear of your misfortune and it's a pity that your first post is in this vein.

What you think of as light damage will be pretty severe actually - I had a similar frontal in October last year, but my airbags didn't deploy. All told, this has so far cost around £8100 to repair!!!

What you think of as a small leak from the radiator means that in practise the rad and the climate condenser will need repairing, as will the intercooler (TDi). Then there's the bonnet, grille, bumper, wings, headlamps etc etc.

The dash alone is around £600 and the airbags are around £500 each!! You can sometimes pick up bargains and do it on the cheap, but this is only viable if you have a second car, as the A2 is going to be off the road for a long while.

Sorry to disillusion you, but if you can get the salvage back for a reasonable cost, then it might still be viable, but only if you can source parts from other cars.

Cheers,

Mike
 
Thanks for your replies, very depressing!! I guess air-bag deployment means the bump was quite severe - any idea what G sets them off?
I had just put new discs and pad all round and tires are only a few months old!!!
I will wait for the full assessors report and comments from the insurance company.
Any idea of the market value of a 54 plate TDi (90ps)?
I have seen some on the net for £6k to £8 but not an exact replacement.
John
 
John Mecklenburgh said:
Thanks for your replies, very depressing!! I guess air-bag deployment means the bump was quite severe - any idea what G sets them off?
I had just put new discs and pad all round and tires are only a few months old!!!
I will wait for the full assessors report and comments from the insurance company.
Any idea of the market value of a 54 plate TDi (90ps)?
I have seen some on the net for £6k to £8 but not an exact replacement.
John
Click to expand...

John sorry to hear of your dilema. Having just negotiated a write off with an insurance company I have some advice. It may sound pretty obvious but do NOT accept their first or indeed maybe their second offer - there is nearly always room to negotiate - upwards. Don't forget that although they may have taken the car away for assessment you are still the owner of the vehicle.
Unfortunately new brakes and tyres will not come into the assessment of value as you are obliged under your insurance to keep the car in a roadworthy condition although you can use the fact to argue that the car was in first class condition. You can add value by the accessories that are fitted subject to any max values in your policy. To arrive at the value they will usually start with a Trade value and you then need to find two cracking examples on sale locally to you at a premium price - suggest you find only Audi main dealer ones! Good Luck
 
At the time of my prang, the bodyshop staff did all the negotiations on my behalf, although they knew that should the car be written off, they would get pretty much no work from the job, so it was in their interests to keep it as a viable repair.

Suffice to say they did the business and bearing in mind that mine is a 54-plate TDi 90, the market value was assessed as being in the region of £10k (although Tank is a pretty special example).

As this is a non-fault incident, ultimately, it's not your insurers that will be picking up the tab, but that of the car that went into you, so you'll be dealing with another party too.

Keep the faith, keep in mind that the car is your property and that ultimately, it's up to you to decide what happens, as you've always got the buy back option.

Cheers,

Mike
 
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