Safe Speed Forums

My GF has just been involved in an accident. dozy cow in a Vitara missed the brake pedal and hit my GF's 200SX hard enough that the bullbars on the Vitara are bent. The fact that the damn thing even has bullbars tells you it's not going to be pretty. The car doesn't drive straight and both rear quarters are bent outwards. It's going to be a write off for certain.

The problem we have is by the insurance valuation book (which as far as I can tell is basically the Parkers guide to fucking over your customers) a 1990 200SX is only worth about 800 quid, and yes this is true, an average condidion 200SX of that era is worth about that much, also average condition for that model at that age usually involves giant rust holes in the sill and rear arches and rotten subframes, hers has had a few grand spent fixing all that up.

It's also had about 3 grand spent on the engine, it has been rebuilt with forged pistons & metal head gasket, a bigger turbo, FMIC, uprated gearbox, intake, exhaust, updated ECU chip, uprated suspension, poly bushes all around, uprated brakes, 18" alloys that were custom power coated from new, basically the only parts of the drivetrain left untouched are the propshaft, diff and driveshafts.

Is there any way we can force the 3rd party insurers to pay out something close to what this car is actually worth, or failing that can we legally remove all the modified parts that they aren't paying for, which would basically leave them with a shell+interior sat on a few lumps of 2x4 that they'll need a forklift to take away.

We're currently awaiting a callback from HelpHire as her insurer (who I won't name, but those who have Jap Imports will probably be able to guess, and it isn't Flux) are known to be shit at handling claims so we aren't even going to bother, if anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear from you.

Oh, for bonus points, the person who hit her refused to give details, the police attended but they wouldn't give us her details either, just gave my GF a producer for her trouble.

The pictures:

My GFs car

The Vitara that hit her

Very large picture showing the bent rear quarter

Edit: Weird, I got a message saying someone has replied to this thread, but there is no reply. Is the forum having problems?

If all mods are declared to her insurance co then it should be perfectly valid to expect to be returned to the situation you were before dozy cow hit her. Sue her for the full cost of buying another 200sx in the same condition and carrying out all the mods it had or finding one that someone has already done that is equivalent. The other insurance co will need proof of the 200sx's condition and work carried out on it. It might be a good idea to contact an owners club for reasonable valuations and to see if anyone has one that is in such good condition for sale. As it was all dozy cow's fault then you need to sue her and make sure your GF's insurance company know that. If you go via your GF's insurance co they'll try and weasel out of coughing up the true value. The other insurance co may also try to wiggle out of paying up but have a look through the insurance ombudsman website as I am sure there is info on there about what is reasonable. Your gf has a duty to mitigate losses so it would be much better to find an equivalent 200sx that is up to the same standard as hers rather than buying a rough one and getting the insurance company to rebuild it completely. If you could offer two prices eg mint 200sx with everything like your GF's5k or whatever. Ordinary 200sx but with full engine rebuild, body work yada yada to get it up to spec £15k then they'll be more likely to cough up for a mint replacement.

I have checked the insurance db and the vitara vehicle isn't insured according to that. She had no legal right to refuse to give details but it is rather obvious when someone does this.

You may have to go through your GF's insurance or be paid out from the MIB. That has a higher excess though and I am not sure whether that will cough for all modifications. You need to find out where daft cow lives and serve her with a notice to sue for damages. Also consider using bailiffs as I think there is something you can do which makes them go round and count up what could be taken before you issue a full warrant. Can't remember what it is called but it is a good way of making people cough up what they owe.

Good luck and make sure the daft bint pays every last penny to put the car right or get a decent replacement.

You'd have to ask your insurance co about the modified parts. If they are only paying out for a standard car then you could legitimately expect to remove things which weren't standard. Under no circumstances let an insurance co take the car away from you. Only let a repairer you know and trust touch it as it is quite common to sell of bits and do all sorts of things to nice cars when approved cheap skate repairers have them.

We are 99% sure that the 3rd party is insured, the police attended and interviewed both and they let her attempt to drive off afterwards. The attempt was thwarted as the front bumper of the Vitara now has an interference fit with the front n/s wheel. We all know how worthless the MIB database is, I'm a bit worried that the police wouldn't give us her details afterwards though. I'm thinking that we should visit the local police station again, and put in a complaint about them leaving without giving details, hopefully they'll contact the person and give them an opportunity to provide willingly. That's what happened when I was in a similar situation in 2005.

All mods are declared, but since we plan on using a 3rd party claims provider (Helphire) I'm not sure whether declaring them is an issue. I guess we'd need to declare them again at the start of the claim and insist regularly and repeatedly that they recover the cost. Or would you recommend that we find a solicitor and sue them directly rather than going through the industry as it were?

I'll make sure she collects for sale adverts on SXOC for cars of a similar spec, there's a few S13s up on there for about 5-6 grand right now.

Not sure I like the idea of buying someone else's car. Problem is my GF can only drive an automatic (not due to licence or ability, but due to a gammy shoulder) and nearly all of the heavily modified ones are manuals, it cost her a hefty chunk of money to get that autobox built to handle 250bhp, and frankly you never want to trust buying someone else's modified car as it may well have been drifted to death, what we ideally want to do is buy an unmodified fiarly rust-free rolling shell with a blown engine and automatic gearbox and transplant the entire driveline into it.

The car is currently at my GF's preferred mechanic and he has the keys, so no worries on that one. I have advised her not to allow anyone to take the car, presumably they'll want to send an assessor round at some point, who'll presumably just look at it and say "yeah, that's knackered"

Edit: We have reciepts for the engine work, the rest of the mods are pretty damn obvious since they're all bolt ons.

I agree with the above - get as many receipts as you might still have, or get a full list of the parts and get an estimate for them, then sue the Vitara driver for the cost, plus the loss of transport until they sort it out.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

So what, forget Helphire and find a proper lawyer?

We don't have mega reserves of cash right now, so 'alternative transport' is basically going to be buying a shed and running it into the ground. She has to commute to Somerset every day!

Funny you should mention bailiffs, in the town down the road there is a firm of bailiffs that have an office on the high street. Presumably we need to win in court before getting to that stage though?

You'll have legal expenses cover with your insurance company. You should be able to tell them to organise suing the other driver using your legal cover to pay for it. If your insurance company use helphire to handle claims of any kind then you'll need to instruct them in what to do and make sure they understand they go after the other driver and don't leave you in the situation of losing your no claims because they have sorted your car but fouled up getting the money. You need to make sure they know it was entirely the other driver's fault and also reiterate the car isn't just any old 200sx. If you can also state due to our GF's shoulder she must have an auto (or paddle shift) then I assume they'll organise an appropriate hire car. Helphire seem to be infamous for inflating claims so make sure what they do is reasonable. They'll need to make sure a replacement hire car is suitable and yes, sadly she may get a ford ka or micra but it will do the the job.

An inspection from a specialist would show whether a replacement car was decent or not so I don't think you need to worry. Get one from a well known club member that spends more time polishing it or find specialists with good customers that baby their cars and have one for sale. You might want a fully rebuilt car but at the same time a) it could be considered betterment depending on the time scale since you did the work and b) all of us with car insurance will be paying for it next year if you have a massive claim

So basically we may as well go through Helphire, just need to be sure to instruct them accurately and get supporting documentation.

We have no intention of inflating the claim, we just want to end up with a car in the same state with no financial loss. Betterment is a significant worry since my GF is very much interested in function over form when it comes to her engine work. It's not a pretty engine bay, it doesn't have a complete set of shiny blue Samco hoses everywhere (infact the intercooler pipework switches from Nissan black to Samco blue halfway down as we reused a lot of the original hose) and is very much anti-bling. Most of the high spec polished ones have very shiny engine bays and huge dump valves and the like which to the untrained eye would be seen as massively superior.

I'm not sure a Ka or Micra would be suitable for a 2 hour (one way) commute that consists of twisties->M4->twisties, plus FWD cars terrify her as they handle all wrong.

I guess that means we'll be buying an ancient BMW as a runabout in the near future.

My last insurance policy on a modified car specifically mentioned that the rfeplacement of the modified parts was not covered.

Years ago had an insurance co (not my own) try to write off mine following a rear ender .My own insurance co point of view was that in this case acceptance of any offer was up to me ,and there was always the last resort of the ombudsman.Had it been my own insurance company -I'd have had no choice.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yes, but that shouldn't matter as we're not claiming on our own insurance.

On a related note, does anyone know which section of the Road Traffic Act requires them to provide details? I am going to pay their non-mobile a visit and leave them a friendly note reminding them of this requirement. Edit, n/m found it, S170 RTA 1988

Edit: This is the note I plan on leaving, am I likely to land myself in legal bother by doing this:



Edit: Doesn't matter, the damn thing is gone, we need to get HelpHire to chase the police / DVLA now I guess.
Phoned the insurance brokers and it turns out that the legal assistance would've just given the claim to HelpHire anyway!

Well this isn't going so well.

HelpHire can't find any details of insurance for that vehicle, we're hoping this is just because the MIB database is crap, the person seemed like they might be a new driver, especially since after the visit they got their mother to come down and gob off at us so maybe they've only had it a few days (even more reason not to be allowed bull bars. )

No joy from the police either, all the local police station numbers go to the same switchboard who cut you off when transferring you to the station / officer / whatever you request.

Also, we can't have a hire car until HelpHire know who they're sueing, fortunately she had already booked Monday off, but I guess I'm going to be making two round trips to Somerset on Tuesday. Wonder if I can claim 40p a mile for the additional legs of the journey and one Severn bridge toll (ie. the parts of said trip that wouldn't happen were she able to drive and park herself. It's a good job I work from home

Unless dozy cow's policy is new in the last 14 days max then I'd assume she really wasn't insured and somehow managed to sweet talk the police into letting her drive off.

If the gobby mother visits again make a note of the reg no of the car if she pitches up in one and see if you can trace either theirs or the vitara via the dvla. Keep on at the police. If there is an actual station within a reasonable distance of where you are then go and visit it instead of trying to do it over the phone as it is much harder for them to fob you off when you arrive in person. Is gobby or dozy local to you? If so it might be worth driving around the nearest rough areas to look for the car.

Alternatively you could try every insurance co with an 0800 sales line in the first instance and see if they have anyone with that registration as a customer.... bit of judicious fishing eg give reg no and correct description of vehicle but say the driver wouldn't give out their full name or address but said you insured them. Or offer a name and see if the will tell you what the real name is. Eventually you might get lucky with a CS rep that ignores data protection issues and will spill what you need or at least flag up a claim against them.

40p a mile? Pah, try hourly rate as a chauffeur. £10+ ph depending on how well she thinks you drove

We don't know where they live or how local they are (well, they were very "local" if you get what I mean ), didn't think to get the reg or any details of the mother's car either.

I'll have to persuade my GF to visit the police station, this isn't something I can do for her. Unfortunately she seems reluctant.

Offer to go with her? Or if she says no and you are feeling under hand and sneaky suggest going shopping and accidentally on purpose make sure you walk past one so you can say 'while we are here we may as well drop in'. If you don't make a thing out of a refusal even if you offer to go with her she'll probably think it is a coincidence if you leave a couple of days between the suggestion and the action If she reads this you are toast though!

If gobby has been round then it is getting on towards harassment which should be reported to the police. Also check the mid again and ask why a probably uninsured driver who has just had an accident was allowed to drive off without giving her details, as required by law, to the person she hit. Say it is becoming very difficult to pursue this without heavy police involvement if the registered name and address isn't being handed over and you hate to waste their time with bothering them but if you could just have the name/address of dozy then you could leave them alone.

http://www.askmid.com/
You can keep checking the database here.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

sorry if it's stating the obvious but I can't see it mentioned- do you have an agreed value on your insurance? Also an independent valuation (quote to rebuild as opposed to market rate) may be usefull.

Has you gf seen a physio? I gather whiplash isn't always immediately apparent.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Well the police aren't being helpful at all, they're refusing to give us details, apparently the only person who can help is the officer who attended at the time, but so long as their switchboard keeps buggering up, this line of enquiry isn't going to get anywhere, and this is the officer who wouldn't give us the details in the first place.

I guess if we do get to speak to the officer again and they still refuse, the next course of action will be to inform that officer that we'd like to make a complaint against the driver for failure to provide under S170.

As for physio, well she left the scene of the accident in an ambulance (though this is probably more to do with the fact that she can't take Ibuprofen and the paramedic wasn't sure what to do) and the whiplash is very much apparent. Not sure what a physio is going to do though, I know from painful experience that it either fixes itself or you're stuck with it, physio doesn't help.

I don't think we have an agreed value, very few insurers offer that, and they have to send down an assessor, so they'd have to do this after each change. At this point it doesn't matter anyway since we can't track the driver.

Well this is getting better and better.

Apparently the police aren't allowed to give out the details because there is an alleged assault involved, obviously I can't say too much about specifics here, but it wasn't my GF doing any assaulting.

So, I guess if you drive into someone and want to avoid paying, punch them in the face before you leave.

I seem to be involved in a non-fault accident every 2 years or so.(still have 9 yrs no-claims).
I use a local solicitor, and it's never cost me a penny, I take it your ins co. would have instructed Helphire, if you had not contacted them directly, so they are willing to pay for your legal representation.

My Ins Co's (Directline ant present, various others over the years) have always agreed to pay for my personal solicitor to represent me.
Try a good local Personal Injury Solicitor, and see what he says, Solicitors letters to the Police are usually taken notice of, and dozy's details may be forthcoming.

AIUI you are entitled to be put in the position you were in prior to the accident, and they or their insurers are responsible for putting you back in that position.

fatboytim

Problem is HelpHire are solicitors, and they have already contacted the police and been refused, what difference will it make if another solicitor is involved?