Acceptable quality of insurance repair

[Johnd2000]

Hi all,

 

Can anybody help with advice re: challenging an insurance company regarding the quality of a repair job? Sorry about the length of the post but I wanted to get all the facts across.

 

My wife had an accident in her car. It was her fault. The insurance company told her to take the car to their approved local bodyshop for repairs. The repairs were:

• Replace and paint the front bumper
  
• Replace and paint an under-bumper spoiler
  
• Replace and paint various moldings on the front wing (drivers side)
  
• Replace broken side lights
  
• Replace broken fog light
  

The work was done and the car collected last week. Immediately, on collecting the car, my wife complained that the colour didn't match. There is a poor colour match between the new parts and none of these match the overall colour of the car. In total, the issues reported were:

 

1. The new bumper does not match the rest of the car.
   
2. The under-spoiler does not match the new bumper, or the rest of the car.
   
3. The side moldings do not match the other new parts or the rest of the car.
   
4. The new side light lens does not match the old one on the passenger side.
   
5. There is a patch of bare metal on the front drivers side wing (already rusting since the car was collected).
   
6. The newly painted bumper shows primer/undercoat along the driver side wheel arch.
   

My wife took the car to an independant bodyshop, where a painter with 20+ years experience said it was an unacceptable job, in his opinion.

 

The insurance company said they wouldn't cover changing both side-light lenses, as this would be improving the car from its condition pre-accident. My wife accepts this but asked for an assessor to be sent for the remaining issues. The assessor visited today. He agreed that 5 and 6 needed to be fixed, but said that the insurance policy did not cover matching the paintwork (either with the old paintwork or even between the new parts).

 

Surely this can't be correct. The bodyshop have obviously not put enough paint on any of the new parts and their original colour is showing through. The car looks awfull and will cost around £250 to repair (quote from the independant car painter mentioned above).

 

What can my wife do? Should we be engaging a solicitor to sue them, or is there some other appeals procedure.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice offered.

 

John

[gyzmo]

Apint is an age old problem with insurers. Their argument is that if you put new paint next to old paint - even exactly the same paint - it is bound to look different and cannot be helped.

 

In terms of replacing the parts, are the parts that were replaced originally part of the car or where they add-ons (third party)?

[Johnd2000]

The parts are all standard Toyota body parts. There are no 3rd party modifications to the car.

 

The main issue is that they've not put enough paint on. They've sourced parts that were either 2nd hand, or pre-painted with different colours (we have a copy of the quote to the insurer). By not putting enough coats of paint on, the original colours are showing through slightly, resulting in different shades. They've also made no attempt to blend the newly painted sections by polishing the surrounding (original) panels. This much was obvious as the bonnet and wings were still dirty. It's hard to believe they could do the work without washing at least the front of the car, but it didn't look like they had at all.

 

Call me a cynic, but they quoted the insurer £900 and it looks like they've tried to keep the actual cost down to what my wife had to give them as an excess (£350).

 

The latest from the insurer (who is waiting for their assessors report) was that we may be able to make another claim for the damage caused by their repairer (eg the bare metal, now rusting). Bizarre!

 

It's just a good job they didn't do it to my car. If they had, there would have been bloodshed and I'd be asking for a different type of advice! ;-)

[gyzmo]

I would get an independant report on the work done and, if you haven't already put in a comlaint, put one in including the report. If no action results, you can go to the FOS.

[Johnd2000]

Thanks for the advice Gyzmo. The insurer has now agreed to correct all the issues we complained about. Their assessor said he couldn't see any inconsistencies with the paint colour (he must have been blind) so I can only assume that it was our constant hassling and mentioning that we would take matters further that tipped the balance.

[gyzmo]

Probably. Glad its sorted - or getting there anyway!

[Guest richardedward]

bump

[gyzmo]

bump

 

???? The issue is resolved I believe. Why the bump?

[jonni2bad]

Because they wanted to get their post count number up in order to spam us.

 

Now sorted!

[gyzmo]

oh dear... how sad (for the bumper)