January 2006
Following the bump to my daughters car last week,which was not her fault,it has been quite an eye opener to see the process of claiming against the third party.I now know why our premiums are so high.
The cost to the third party insurance company will be made up of the settlement for our damaged car,which I am pretty much certain will be written off.The weekly hire cost of a lowly Fiat Panda is going to be £248 per week wxcluding VAT.
Delivery cost £100 + VAT.
The car was today taken away from our home address on the back of a recovery truck to a repairer situated about 40 to 50 miles away,so a round trip of double that.Cost unknown but probably more than £100 + VAT of course.
At the repairer,someone will take time to inspect the car and probably take a couple of hours to come to the same conclusion that took me 5 minutes.No doubt an engineer from the third party insurance will then pay a visit to the garage to assess for himself.Cost unknown but not cheap I suspect.
All this time the repairer will now be charging a storage fee which will probably be at least £50 per day.
Add on the various expenses of the accident management companies involved and it is easy to see how a claim like this just rockets out of all proportion to the cost of the car.
I dread to think what happens when there is injury caused.
I always suspected that the car insurance game was a gravy train and these events would seem to confirm my suspicions. Read more
A while back (2 years ago?) I saw a report on a French (or I thought that it was French - I suppose that it could have been Swiss) Motor Show, that was taking place in the first quarter of the year. It might have been Nice, or somewhere close to Nice. It caught my imagination, and I quite fancy trying to go to a continental show. Does anyone know which one it was and where I can find more info on it? Thanks... Read more
If any Backroomers are thinking of coming out to the Frankfurt motorshow in the autumn let me know, as I may be able to sort accomodation (hotels charge 500% normal rate for the big trade fairs)
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4651178...m
London. Revised charges coming. Read more
www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=29...1
You want one of those. Easy to set up, excellent range, and the wireless transmitter is pretty dinky.
Our local Renault+Fiat dealership, Olympian, has gone into receivership this week. Branches in New Milton, Wallisdown, Blandford and two in Salisbury - 180 jobs at risk and lots of punters who have lost money on deposits paid. Not sure what has happened to Olympian Southampton or whether this is a separate company. Is this a sign of what is coming with the economy or just the product? Discuss!! Read more
I suspect that land and property prices plus crippling business rates has a large part to play in all of this.
Does any tyre techie out there know why ZR rated tyres sometimes dont have a load rating on the tyre itself or on the literature on websites, whereas others have it. How do you know if they are suitable? Mine (dunlops) have the words "max load 630kg" on them but this is only for the American market i'm told. They have no service markings such as 93Y for example which other ZRs do. Read more
Drop an email to info@blackcircles.co.uk - they answered a couple of niggling queries I had (about Mercedes specific tyres).
I've no connection with them, not even as a customer!
I saw a roadside advertisment with two 4X4s standing in heaps of rubbish under next to an underpass. If the 'visualisers' want us to develop a mental image of the the cars what would they expect ? I would associate them with the stuff lying around.
Likewise that advertisment "Shake your ...". I have an unfavourable image of that one.
Someone is taking good money off the manufacturers! Read more
Does no-one else look at roadside adverts when they are stopped at the lights? It's a shame, I had good vibes with the marque before I saw that. I even considered buying one.
When I was in hospital in Switzerland a very bright young physiotherapist whose English was not so good, (much better than my German), was asking what word she could use for bottom when she spoke to English speaking patients. She proposed to use that word which was chanted in the car adverts. We had too explain to her that it is a American slang, and not current best form.
I have a current model Accord saloon. One evening this week I parked the car with the handbrake full on. Just after I had closed the door there was an audible bang and the car shifted slightly. I found that the handbrake had moved right down to the off position. Luckily it was in gear so it held. I can't recreate the slippage (eg by half depressing the handbrake release button)neither is there any apparent problem with the release button. Its going into the garage next week but, as I can't recreate the fault, I may get the "no fault found" response. A colleague with the same model says he has had this happen too but just lives with it. I am puzzled as to how it apparently "jumped" right over the intermediate handbrake notches and also wonder if its a known fault given that two of us have experienced the problem? Read more
Thanks for the suggestion but wouldnt this only account for a handbrake failure where the handbrake lever stayed in place? In my case the leve shot to the "off" position. Leaving it in gear is OK until you want to run the engine to defrost and scrape at the same time!
By sheer chance, I just caught this on BBC1.
Was sceptical at first but it was presented by Dougie someone or other who used to present a Breakfast Show on Channel 4 and I remember him being quite funny so I gave it a go.
Basically it was David Dickinson, Tommy Walsh, Jenny Frost and Nina Wadia (not what I'd call stars exactly) given tasks to do in cars surprisingly ranging from banger racing in Tranny vans trying to do the most damage to each other to firing cars the furthest distance.
From what I understand the tasks vary each week and whilst it may not be everyone's cup of tea, it was quite entertaining and a good watch if you've nothing to do.
Can't believe I'm saying this myself but it was a better watch than Top Gear.
Recommended.
Read more
I'm with adam i found it amusing and not a bad watch. as for students being lazy its just storing up energy for that next set of exams or road trip to where ever.
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Temporarily not a student, where did the time go???
I'm looking at buying a Hyundai (I know!)because of the mileage I do and the 5 year warranty.
Their servicing is pretty expensive, so is there any reason I can't do it myself, (except the belt change)?
I spoke to them, and they mention taking it to a VAT registered garage for the servicing. Their theory being that a VAT registered place is 'qualified and competent'. Since when has VAT registration been a benchmark for quality and competence in car servicing?
I had a look at the various government web sites, and nowhere does it mention VAT registration, merely a garage, but nothing about DIY.
So what's to stop me buying everything from the dealer, like oil, filters etc. and doing it myself?
They also said if something happens like an engine blow up, it's up to the dealer to decide the cause. Since when did dealers become experts in things like oil degradation and metalurgy, in order to determine why a main bearing has picked up, for instance? Read more
I looked at a Sorento, but it's a bit small, and no 5 year warranty.
For what it's worth, I'm more than qualified to carry out routine servicing, and I can guarantee it will be done more often, and to a higher standard than the dealer. Have you seen some of the guys they have at the dealers? Have you read some of the posts on here about shoddy workmanship?
The total cost of dealer servicing assuming 140K miles, would be just short of £7500. I don't know about others, but that's a lot of money I would rather have in my own pocket. Hell, it would even cover some (or a lot) warranty items should they fail to honour it. I have a friend who serviced his own X trail, then the timing chain snapped. Of course the dealer gave the usual about possibly incorrect servicing, wrong oil etc. and refused to warranty it. So he paid the dealer to repair, then went straight to the small claims court, produced the reciepts for all the parts, including oil that he bought from the dealers, produced the old filters and the dealer checksheet that he'd filled in with what he'd done and when. He also produced the service bulletins about chain tensioner issues other owners had had. Needless to say they paid up.
I also have access to the Hyundai Hi-Scan diagnostic software, though if it got to that it would be back at the dealer.
The ruling states that manufacturers have to give you access to the information at a reasonable cost. Incidently, the Kia web site tells you where to purchase the service manuals and diagnostic kit. But don't forget, this isn't some super modern can-bus multiplex wired vehicle, with computers busy talking to each other. It's an old shogun underneath, but with an electronically controlled mitsubishi gearbox, and a VM diesel engine with delphi injection. When you open the door, it doesn't prime the glow plugs or start the fuel pump running. The central locking doesn't lock the doors at 30mph, and it doesn't monitor tyre pressures or brake pad wear. No electric handbrake, air suspension, variable rate power steering, auto wipers, auto lights, sat nav, engine pre-heater or even an electric cooling fan!
It aarived today, some people may not like the look of them, but they drive like nothing else in its class. Superb and its er... an automatic, but do i care ? Read more
Nice one PU, what colour, did you go for any of the packages?
Enjoy
Jim
Browse
I've made 4 claims in 42 years, and I reckon they've cost my insurance company more than I've paid them in premiums. So I have to conclude that car insurance premiums are, at worst, reasonable. At best, they're cheap. If injury or death has occurred (fortunately not in any of my incidents) the costs to an insurance company can be astronomical.
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L\'escargot.