Not a happy morning

Update.....

Well I have a little update and a bit of a shock.

The body-shop owner arrived at 11am this morning to take my wife’s car, however I decided to have a chat with him about my expectations of the work, specifically to my A2, as the Sitlo only has minor paint damage. It was the owner himself who turned up, along with another driver.

While talking with him he advised that he could clearly see the primary impact had occurred on the n/s rear wheel itself, which had slammed the o/s wheel into the kerb. He advised the rear axle is clearly bent following this impact (something I didn’t notice yesterday).

His financial assessment at the roadside was approx. as follows:

2.5K bodywork and paint
2K for 4 new alloy wheels
1.5-2K to supply and fit a new rear axle.

The body-shop is an authorised VAG repair centre, and the owner has 23 years time-served, and a bonus is he was trained by Audi on A2 accident repairs (which give me a little comfort).

The husband had offered to get the cars repaired at his full cost without going through the insurance company (saving time, effort and inconvenience for us) but I doubt he was expecting these costs. Obviously if it goes through insurance the car will be written off based on the rough costs given.

I have no problem if this occurs as I would certainly buy the car back and repair it to concourse condition, but I’m hoping he sticks to his word and just gets it all done without this hassle.

Obviously this means my car is not drivable, so I couldn’t release the Stilo to him.
We’ll still be attending this weekend’s social, but sadly not in the A2.

I’m not feeling too happy again today.
I’m waiting for a call back from the drunk’s husband, after leaving voice mails 2hrs ago, so I can determine what way he wishes to proceed.....This is making me very angry.

Here’s looking at happier times.

Jeff

Edit:

At 2pm I took a call from the other party. He did, as I expected, advise it would be best to go through the insurance if this was going to be the cost. I advised him how utterly pi55ed off I was going to be if the insurers categorise my car as a write off - no matter what the category. As he owns a large haulage firm he has assured me he has regular dealings with assessors and will ensure this doesn't occur and my car will be back with me in the condition I expect.
At this moment he has requested I refrain from speaking to my insurers until he has firm costs. At that point we will make a decision.

I'm feel a little easier........but not much - however I have made it very clear what my feelings will be should the worse happen.

Cheers

Jeff
 
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That's very ulucky Jeff. Let's hope the other chap gets it all sorted. It's amazing how the costs add up. I feel for you with the threat of the car being written off.

Good luck will catch up sat.

Cheers

David
 
dan_b said:
Can surely obtain the alloys for significantly less than 2K?!
Click to expand...

Hi Dan,

Well the cost of new replacement alloy wheels are £370 + VAT each
So around £445 per corner - so >£1780 without tyre fitting, valves, balancing and centre caps.
Part No. 8N0 601 025A

Of course there are cheaper options.......but why would I accept any cheap option?

Obviously I'd have no issues in not disclosing the damaged alloys to the insurer and settling for the other party buying them for cash.....but I'm not going to settle for anything less than I had.

Cheers

Jeff
 
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Shucks mate, i'm at a loss for words!
After our chat last night I did wonder if there was any damage to the axle?
I just hope the man is true to his word and gets the little silver car back into the state that it was!
Hang in there and stick to your guns.

blue skies
tony
 
hotstuff said:
Shucks mate, i'm at a loss for words!
After our chat last night I did wonder if there was any damage to the axle?
I just hope the man is true to his word and gets the little silver car back into the state that it was!
Hang in there and stick to your guns.

blue skies
tony
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, after talking with the body-shop I think the other party is probably full of sh1t. The owner say’s the other party has an excess of £750 (commercial insurance through AxA) and probably the reason he was offering to repair outside the insurers was he thought the cost wouldn't be much higher than his excess.
An approximate estimate won’t be done before Monday, and obviously this figure may change depending what is found when the car is in the air.

I guess the worst case is the axle is fine but has bent at the chassis mounting points, and best case is Koni FSD’s bent.
It's not helping my mood being away from home either, so I can't even lift it to see what the problems may be.

I’m trying not to think about the various options that might need to be discussed next week as I’m in the mood for a proper fight – so I’m going to try and stay calm for a little while longer.

The police still haven’t responded via email, so yet another epic fail.

If this crap carries on perhaps you’ll see the normally mild-mannered Jeff on CNN.

Cheers from one fed up chap.
 
Some pics of the damage

I wasn’t going to post the pics, but after looking at them I thought, why not.
This is the first time I have looked carefully at photos of the damage, and I’m angry with myself I didn’t spot the seemingly obvious axle or suspension damage ( perhaps I’ll thrash myself before thrashing the useless drunken halfwit that caused this mess). It does look more likely to be at least the axle that’s damaged now I’ve looked closer at the pictures, and not the FSD's.:mad:

1.JPG2.JPG3.JPG4.JPG

Pic 1 shows how close the cars ended up. They were over a metre further apart prior to impact.
Pic 2 shows the n/s/r wheel and arch damage.
Pic 3 shows the n/s/f wheel and bodywork damage
Pic 4 shows the o/s slammed up against the keb – normally at least a 6 inch gap

Jeff
 
riverlad said:
A nice cold one is on me Sat night Jeff:)
Click to expand...

Cheers mate - not sure how it'll go down with a fist full of tranquilisers, but who cares…

Calmed down a little now – as long as the chassis/space-frame isn’t bent I’ll have it back on the road one way or the other.
 
the event that lead me to buying my first A2 was when my 3 week old (to me) Honda HRV was written off by a crazy pregnant woman driving a NISSAN QASHQAI THE ULTIMATE URBAN CAR - lazy me lifted that from google as i couldnt spell it.

i was so upset at being run into and spun round onto a small tree on the central reservation that i lept out of the car swearing until i saw who had done the deed! the police arrived and were very helpful, much better than your experience.

the tree recovered and i was ok too. i gave up my 4wd desires and started looking for something more economical. fortunately i found the A2 and havent looked back!

i was so upset about my cheap HRV but i can't imagine what it would be like to have a top spec A2 damaged as yours has been after you have no doubt expended a great deal of time and money on your car. very sorry for you and hope you are able to get it fixed up as good as new. all the best!
 
Hi Mustang Owner, hope you slept well and feel somewhat better this morning, any type of damage to a proud A2 owner is gut wrenching and it is all the chasing up afterwards which doesn`t help either, lets hope things pan out well for you and you are back on the road within a short time.

Good luck with the repairs I will be following this thread with interest and look forward to a happy ending :)
 
Hi Jeff
Just joined the site but have heard about A2's being written off for relatively light damage. Don't know if this helps, but there is currently a guy on Ebay breaking an A2 for spares, front end damage. I phoned him 2 days ago and all that he had left was the doors. good luck.
Best regards
Brian
 
Hi again Jeff,
Sorry, I replied yesterday without reading your follow up with details of the damage done to your car. I now realise that the doors are not going to be of any use to you. Cheers, Brian
 
Goodness me. I've just returned from the Highlands to find this.
Jeff, I'm so, so sorry. Ultimately, I know you'll get it fixed by one route or another, but that doesn't stop this being painful. Massive commiserations.

Tom
 
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Update

Just a little update.

The car was booked for its MOT today and passed without issue.

As far as I can tell the rear wheel issue is just that the bracket that bolts to the axle bush and the chassis has moved, therefore the n/s/r wheel has far more toe-in than it should. This should be a relatively cheap fix.
There doesn't appear to be any deformation/damage to the chassis posts the bracket fixes to, so I'm sure once the approved repairers have assessed the damage the costs won't push the car into write-off status.
The car drove fine this morning, however I wasn't going to try anything silly.

The pic below shows the bracket with its 3 bolts, and you can clearly see movement

IMG_1025.JPG

Cheers

Jeff
 
Latest update

Well the good news is that finally my car has been inspected and the insurers have agreed to the repair, totalling around £3500.
There is damage to front and rear n/s suspension components as well as bodywork and all alloys, but no chassis damage.

It has taken far too long for the insurers to get an engineer out to inspect the damage, but at least the work is now underway.
The workshop started stripping it Friday morning and the wheels will be sent for a refurb on Monday.

The work is being carried out at Castle Coachworks in Northampton who have an excellent record and work ethic. They understand my car is my passion and not just a 10 year old runabout and have treated it as such.

She’ll take 7 working days to repair, so, as long as nothing is on back-order from Germany I’ll be turning up at ADI with her looking good (if not I’ll have to disgrace myself and attend in the Abarth).

The stress of the past few weeks has finally materialised as a heavy cold, so apologies for not updating sooner.

Once again, thanks for all your messages.

Cheers

Jeff
 
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