Just been offered Cat D on my car!

[vi11ain]

I've been going through the process of getting my car repaired after some so and so drove into the drivers door and didn't leave a note when it was parked....

The gory details of the repair are that the door will have to be replaced as the steel beam inside has been bent inwards, so the repair bill is going to be about £2300 + VAT.

The insurers (Admiral) insisted that I get two repair quotes, as they thought the first one was too high - needless to say, the second was very similar.

Anyway, today I had a call from a company asking to collect my car. Needless to say I called Admiral for some clarification as I'd heard nothing after sending them the second quote, only to find that they're writing off the vehicle! I explained my surprise as I'm sure it's worth a lot more than £2700, so the guy (who was very understanding and helpful, TBH) took some further details about the car from the V5, MOT documents and my driving license and said that they'd get back to me with a value once they'd done their sums.

I'm still in shock, to be honest - does this mean that it's not going to be economic to repair Elans for much longer?? Will this be the end of my Elan ownership/love affair after 11 years? How much will they offer and how much is an Elan actually worth these days? My mind is in turmoil!

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

Ben

[ailwyn]

I believe that you'll end up with a CAT D if the repairs are 50% or more of the car's value, in your case it might be worth seeing what they offer, and how much to buy back the car... if you can clear £2500 then it might be worth getting it repaired yourself.

[Jackonicko]

I suspect that Insurance companies will take a pessimistic view of values, as some might say that I do.

Remember that the thousands we all spend on our cars RARELY add much (if anything) to the price we'd get if we sold them, however daft that may be, though they do make the cars more attractive at a given price point.

Equally daft is the fact that pricing is still related to a surprising degree to mileage (and to condition, of course). Even though there's an eBay car at the moment with 175k miles on the clock.

I think (my opinion only, YMMV) that S2s generally fetch £800-1000 more than an SE in similar condition.
I think that there's an NA/SE price ceiling of about £4k for any car with more than 100k miles, however good.
You can buy a tatty SE with 95k miles for around £3k, but £4k seems to be more usual.
You can buy a tatty SE with 65k miles for around £3.5k, but £4.5-5k seems to be more usual.
Bear in mind that the rather nice silver SE in Ringwood w 70k miles didn't attract a single bid at a starting price of £4k........

Surely the way forward for you is to get a price for a door from Douglas Valley, and then factor in £500 for a cheap part car respray.

You can then give your insurers an idea of how little it could cost them to get you back running, or you'll know how much the budget repair option would cost if you buy back the car as salvage.

As Ailwyn says, you need to find out how much they'll pay out, and how much they'll sell the car to you as salvage (often 25%). As long as the difference is enough to pay for the repairs (and doing a real world repair, and not an 'insurance job') then it's worth doing, though your car's resale value will fall, thanks to the Cat D.

If they want to pay £5k and want £1250 for salvage, bite their hands off.

If they want to pay £2.5k and want £625 for salvage, it's a harder decision, though that would give you a repaired Elan for about £3k, assuming that the repair/respray cost as much as £2300....

[vi11ain]

Yes, I think it all depends on the figures hat they offer really.

To clarify, my car is a '90 SE with 76,000 miles and a full Lotus history, one previous owner and in pretty good (apart from the door internals!) condition. I have got hold of a second hand door to swap over with the original, so some money can be saved on the repair there, although I hesitate to go for a "cheap part respray" as I'd prefer the car to look good rather than have problems with the colour match/quality of the paintwork in future.

I'll let you all know how this progresses, although the bad taste this is giving me at the moment means that I might decide to sell the car once it's repaired in any case.

[vi11ain]

Well, it's about time for an update:

A girl from Admiral called be back, although a day later than promised by my initial contact in the claims department. She explained that, as I had suggested that I would like to buy the car back from them for salvage if they wrote it off, she had been tasked with determining the vehicles actual value. She had spent quite a while trawling through AutoTrader etc and stated that values produced by Glass's guide etc were of little use for cars of this age and rarity - as far as she could see, Elans seemed to be priced anywhere between £5000 - £10000. She asked how much I thought the car was worth, so I said that I didn't really know but somewhere around £7000. She seemed quite happy with that and said that she would speak again with the engineering department and see what could be done and then let me know.

The following day she called me back to say that she had spoken with the engineering department and the garage and come to the conclusion that the car is worth repairing . She then went on to explain that the repair would be on a fixed price basis - any additional damage which is discovered upon dismantling the car will not be covered (I'm not too worried about this as the damage is confined to the door as far as I can tell).

So, my Elan is booked in for it's repairs on Wednesday next week! Hurrah!

[tigerdog]

[vi11ain]

Well, it's taken quite a while, but I just got my car back from the repair shop!

All I can say is that I'm very pleased - it looks better than it has done for years as they resprayed the front end to get rid of the stone chips there as part of the work. Very nice indeed.

Just in time for Sunday Service at Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands on Sunday

[Aoki Magic Pants]

Well, it's taken quite a while, but I just got my car back from the repair shop!

All I can say is that I'm very pleased - it looks better than it has done for years as they resprayed the front end to get rid of the stone chips there as part of the work. Very nice indeed.

Just in time for Sunday Service at Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands on Sunday

That is awesome! I'm so pleased for you! It's always heartbreaking hearing about M100 being written off

[HJ2]

Good one!

[phunk]

[GeoffSmith]

That was phunking funny.