Getting my car repaired has been and continues to be a slow and painful process. As expected the additional damage revealed once the car was at the repairers and examined more closely with the wheel arch liner out etc, caused the insurers to review the repair/write off decision. The availability of the new shell at Lotus and the price it was available at was a key factor in getting a conditional decision to repair. The condition was that the body repairs would only be carried out if the steering and suspension repairs could be completed satisfactorily and a satisfactory geometry check could be done to prove that was so. This was finally completed a couple of weeks ago (not sure what has been replaced) and the bodyshell was collected from Lotus by the repairers a week ago.
So repairs continue and I don't yet know when they will be complete, certainly into the New Year, I've asked the repairers for an indication and am waiting for a response. Looking at the weather I'm in no rush to have the car back on the road just yet and Norma is now running again and so I'm not exactly Elan deprived, although skates would be more appropriate than tyres at present
. I would like to say publically how grateful I am to to Neil Lovelock, Aidan Coughlan and Chris Brown at Lotus for responding so promptly and being so helpful, without them it's unlikely that insurance funded repairs would have been considered. I am also most grateful to those forum members who also offered help including a second hand shell (thanks to Paul P for that). As discussed with Paul I may still go for this as the lack of body repair sections at the factory is going to become an issue for our cars over the coming years and a shell that can be either cut up and used directly or as a pattern for newly made parts may prove to be invaluable in the long term.
