Hit a post with my GTI :( Cost of repair?

[cageman86]

I had a moment a few weeks back and drove into the back of a car :-( done exactly the same damage as you + headlight but on the drivers side, gone through insurance because couldn't be bothered with the hassle of fitting etc myself and having to colour match ESP being red!! Company doing the repairs, using gen parts and having to spray pretty much 1 whole side of the car to blend it in , price comes to over £2K!!! Im sure it can be done ALOT cheaper than this but I figured if my insurance company are going to spank my backside next year I might aswell spank theirs! haha

[xjay1337]

I'm sick of saying it but ins quotes are done through a recognized system with tines derived from thatchem, the same people who grade the alarms. Sad to say but the Times they quote are accurate, just the fact Joe public would never pay them so we have to loose some of the time and profit.

No denying that and not mugging anyone off but there is a huge variation in price between private jobs and the invoiced cost on insurance. I'm not sure about spraying as I said, but I know the book times for mechanical work are nowhere near accurate. They say it takes 4.5 to change a gearbox on a Golf, I've watched it be done in 1 hour 58 minutes!

When my old car got keyed it was blended on rear wing, resprayed rear door, drivers door, front wing, bonnet and the adjacent wing, and I paid £450 for that. (over half the car basically). Wasn't the BEST job but nothing a wet sand wouldn't fix. It was perfectly presentable!

[cuprajake]

Dont forget the times take into account never working on the car,

how many times has the guy who did the job taken out the same gearbox,

now give him a chevy lacetti and get thim to do the same,

when we were mitsubishi approved, we had to take a dash out, times given were 3hrs! for a full dash on a l200 warrior

[xjay1337]

I agree Jake, familiarity is everything.
But you'd think for the most part the majority of cars are fairly similar, most cars, Golfs, Astras and what not, are all fairly simple.

However in the case of mechanics, I went to VW for a quote on the clutch change they wanted £700 in labour!! They said it would take 4.5 hours.
You'd think a VW Mastertech could do it a bit more quickly than that.

[roughd]

I take it your a women?

No need for that! We are old enough on here to avoid sexism, even in joke form!

Bore off...what are you a member of parliment?

[roughd]

I take it your a women?

I take it then, that it was your missus that wrote off your car? 

A 17 year old lad with L plates on and his mother in the passenger seat whilst my car was parked outside my house believe it or not 

Anyway back on topic...your car looks worse then mine...and my insurance wrote mine off and are paying me out for the whole car 

[nelmser]

Everyone asking how.....  It genuinely was a scrape against a post next to my drive.  Misjudged swinging round in my drive    Wasn't even going to stop because it literally felt like nothing, was just going to check it out at the end of my drive lol.  Then heard a strange noise as I continued, so pulled up, got out and almost fell over in shock.  Honest to god, there was no impact whatsoever, just scraping :/

Seems to be massive variation in guesses.... Some people saying £3-4k some saying under £1k!!

[brookesb32]

I take it your a women?

No need for that! We are old enough on here to avoid sexism, even in joke form!

Bore off...what are you a member of parliment?

  now that was funny. However, no I am not a member of parliament, I just don't think that the first thing to jump at should be the well worn 'are you a woman' joke - especially when it was in fact a guy that did it himself 

[xjay1337]

If a woman finds a woman joke offensive then that's one thing
a bloke finding it offensive may work to win you brownie points with the missus but doesnt work with us 

[Scottymon]

The worm has turned, the two ronnies predicted it:

&t=0m21s lolf

[cuprajake]

Mine wasn't a guess

It was a quote ;)

[brookesb32]

If a woman finds a woman joke offensive then that's one thing
a bloke finding it offensive may work to win you brownie points with the missus but doesnt work with us 

Difference being that I'm not trying to win brownie points on here, was just stating my view 

Anyway, now that we have cleared that up, I still think the op will
Be better fixing himself, as others have said insurance costs will be high due to new parts at full retail plus paint and labour

[garrardrj]

Its never going to be £3-4k

The damage you have can be repaired with new parts , copy parts and secondhand parts - First saving possibility
You can probably put all the bits on yourslef and source them yourself - Second Saving possibility
You can get them sprayed properly in a top class approved bodshop or cheaper - third saving possibility

If you are paying the bill it is all down to you how much you can get it done for - My sons £4600 repair using genuine bits vw approved bodyshop etc i reckon could have been done alot cheaper and around £1500 or less , but then some tw@t pulled out onto him and smashed his pride and joy so we will get it repaired as best as possible with genuine parts and it was near perfect prior to accident too

Your car may have other bodywork issues and had previous work and you might be skint , that would make a great deal of difference to what you do

Good luck to you and hope that you get it sorted and it doesn't spoil your Xmas - Have a good one 

[Llew]

If it were my car and I buy the parts I expect to pay no more than 300 for the spray and fitting -

[xjay1337]

It would cost more than that, bumper and wing need doing as well as blending on the other wing, bonnet and drivers door.. £500 is a reasonable amount for spraying, especially as replacement panels would either be the wrong colour or need spraying from fresh.