Cat C write-off

Post by **Charles** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:38 am

Don't panic - it's not the B3S

A couple of weeks ago, some twassock parent from the local school felt it was appropriate to reverse into the side of our little Megane as the au-pair headed off to collect the children from school.

At a value of Â£1k, the damage was uneconomical to repair - new driver's door and possibly new OSR door too - and so my insurers have come up with the Cat C decision.

Now I am faced with effectively throwing away what is a perfectly good cheap runaround and sourcing something unknown for the job, or I can pay Â£70 to buy the car in and do the repairs myself. Now, I don't care what colour the replacement door is so long as it fits and locks and I don't mind getting my fingers dirty to fit a new one.

So, my question is this. Should I just take the payout (remembering that the third party seems to think we must have been at fault for minding our own business whilst he selected reverse and didn't check behind before moving) and so it may take a while to get the excess returned once "no fault" has been confirmed? Or should I buy the car back for Â£70 (which I don't mind wiriting off in the future) and go about sourcing a replacement door from a breakers yard, followed by a new MOT and a VIC check courtesy of VOSA to prove I haven't ringed the thing?

By my reckoning, it shouldn't be too pricey to get a replacement door(s) and the extras for getting it on the road shouldn't add too much more to the bill. This would get what is an honest banger back on the road. However, I haven't done this sort of thing before and would, therefore, appreciate some guidance as to where to go to get parts.

Chas · Post by **Chas** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:42 am

Thank goodness!

If you know your car and there's nothing else wrong with it, it's a no-brainer. Take the cash and get your hands dirty.

Chas · Post by **Chas** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:42 am

Thank goodness!

If you know your car and there's nothing else wrong with it, it's a no-brainer. Take the cash and get your hands dirty.

ade and liz flint · Post by **ade and liz flint** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:48 am

Blimey, there were probably a few twitchy fingers when members saw that post......

Keep it and take the money. Doors readily available as reliability and odd prangs put these fairly common cars in the scrappers. Here's a 2004 MY (assuming yours is a Mk1) door on ebay...looks tidy:-

Megane Drivers Door

And an earlier one:-

Another Megane drivers door

Or there are the specialist Renault breakers, such as This One and breaker networks such as Breakeryard. Worth a few quick enquiries I would think!

Everything says take the car back, repair it cheaply and keep running it. Negatives? Harder to sell-on (but you don't plan to anyway) and you may get a slight insurance premium hit as you have to declare it on any future quotes - but you can easily check its impact by talking to your current insurer about that.

HTH

danlimb · Post by **danlimb** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:49 am

Chas wrote: If you know your car and there's nothing else wrong with it, it's a no-brainer. Take the cash and get your hands dirty.

I'd agree with that, if you plan on more or less running the car into the ground anyway as a cheap and cheerful runabout (which it sounds like you do), you should have no concerns at all about future resale values/concerns.

Fix it up, you know exactly what you've got then.

If you buy another car for Â£1-2k, I'd expect a couple of hundred quid needing to be spent within 6 months anyway...

Just my thoughts

Dan

joylove · Post by **joylove** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:33 am

Agree with repairing it, the only thing is to take before after photos, as a CAT C can put the willies up a buyer. Also how much is the VIC check gonna add to the bill?

blacky · Post by **blacky** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:34 pm

I would get it back all the trim/electrical parts are easy to swap over so only a couple of hours work to get it back to useable

John_C · Post by **John_C** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:23 pm

What they said, as long as the rest of the car is sound then buy it back and stick a door on it for sure.

The number of older cars which get written off because of minor panel damage and enormous bodyshop costs is amazing, too few people understand just how easy it is to sort out.

Definitely take before, during and after photos too, should you ever want to sell it on it'll be the difference between pretty much worthless and standing a decent chance of flogging it.

Post by **Charles** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:45 pm

Well, for the sake of Â£70 I've bought it back and reckon I am looking at Â£100-150 to replace both OS doors and a few bits of trim. MOT and VIC check will take it to about Â£250 to get it back on the road.

Now for some googling! Thanks Ade for starting me off ...

ade and liz flint · Post by **ade and liz flint** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:17 am

Seems the right choice at that cost, and leaves you in profit. I'm amazed they offer them back so cheaply - they must be worth more to them as scrap into the breaker network (but probably more hassle). The VIC's not bad then, cost-wise....well worth knowing.

Good luck with the panel search. There appear to be a lot of O/S doors available. You may be lucky and get your colour matched

B10BRW · Post by **B10BRW** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:58 am

You could always cobble together a Megane Harlequin

Araf · Post by **Araf** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:03 am

Go for it. I've just repaired my brothers old Fiesta that was also an 'uneconomic' repair. 3 hours and Â£117 in parts. Should have it sold on Saturday, to turn a tidy profit.

Post by **Charles** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:15 pm

Yay

Just found a colour-match door complete with glass and electric window regulator for Â£90 delivered. That's my Friday afternoon arranged.

Now I need to work out what paperwork is needed to get the car back on the road ...

tg · Post by tg » Wed Apr 11, 2012 9:02 pm

Well done Charles! As an aside, I utterly despise this new trend whereby people refuse to admit any blame irrrespective of the circumstances - 'your fault!'. Not only does modern society appear to want to find a scapegoat for everything, people refuse to believe that it might be them.

Obnoxious.

Post by **Charles** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:26 pm

tg wrote:Well done Charles! As an aside, I utterly despise this new trend whereby people refuse to admit any blame irrrespective of the circumstances - 'your fault!'. Not only does modern society appear to want to find a scapegoat for everything, people refuse to believe that it might be them.

Obnoxious.

Couldn't agree more - which is why, if I am forced to accept a shared blame from the insurers, the third party will be receiving a Small Claims action the following day for the balance of my excess that I will have paid, quoting all manner of Road Traffic Act legislation that the insurers don't feel is appropriate when settling the claim. Apparently they don't feel it's important that the third party was reversing without due care and attention...

On a parallel note, my wife was on the receiving end of someone reversing out of their drive and into her car which was in a stationary queue on the highway the other day. Within 5 minutes of getting home, Direct Line was on the phone accepting full responsibility and offering to cover all costs for repair and hire car charges. Sometimes there are some people out there who know the difference between right and wrong.

And finally, total cost for this looks like being Â£250, made up as follows:

Purchase of car from insurance company = Â£70
Replacement door & glass = Â£90
MOT and VOSA ID check = Â£90

Set this against a total write-off valuation of Â£1000 (OK I haven't got all of that yet but I damn well expect to) and it looks like there is a silver lining