Just after advice on the cambelt change please. £700 at main dealer. Is it worth the risk of letting a mainstream garage do it to save some money. And what should they actually change. Belt, pulleys, water pump? Thanks. Read more

Hi,
Last week, a council truck reversed into the household car causing front bumper and left headlight damaged. The car is an Auris, 2007, 95k and in vgc condition cosmetically and mechanically. In this current market (Covid times and winter), having looked online, to replace the car like-for-like (Model, Engine, Year, Mileage, etc..) we are looking at £3k.

I was witness to the incident and council truck driver has accepted full liability (it's their fault). We rang our insurer and inform them of the incident. We then rang the council and informed them and in return we got an incident reference number from their side, which we gave to our insurer too. At present, this claim is currently working its way through the standard process. It will result in a non-fault claim.

This morning, our car was collected by Copart (the company our insurer uses to assess damage). We asked the driver of the process and, short story, he informed it may probably be a write-off due to its age, even though the damage is only a bumper and headlight.
Now a little panicked thinking it's a write-off, I did a little research online and the car value, via Parkers, is only £1k-ish - that's £2k short of the current market value to replace it.

I may be jumping the gun here but to prep for the car being written-off and only being offered £1k in return, I would like your advice/suggestions on how to:
A) enforce the car (front bumper and headlight) is repaired at the cost of the council.
or
B) to make sure we are offered the amount it would cost to replace it like-for-like.

This has us worried as we cannot afford to be out of pocket whatsoever. The car was parked on the road (nicely and legally) and the council truck reversed too quickly and crashed into it. Why should we be left out of pocket due to the council's fault.

We have motor legal aid on our insurance policy but we have been told that wouldn't help us should the valuation offer is greatly less that the cost to replace it.

Your advice will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Read more

This website allows you to compare dimensions of any 2 cars side by side.

www.carsized.com/ Read more

Hi,

The front assist on my Skoda is not working, had a prang a month ago & it needs to be reset or repaired.... Read more

Swmbo has finally agreed that the approved used Volvo XC60 we last year was a bad call. The car has been nothing but trouble since it arrived and has a few paint and rust defects I stupidly didn’t notice when buying, the two rust blisters on the roof where the windscreen has obviously been replaced and badly fitted are the most concerning and costly to fix. As it was damaged by a third party I doubt the Volvo paintwork warranty would cover it plus it means a trip to the other side of the country to the nearest Volvo approved body shop to let them say no to me.

I took my eye off the ball and got caught out. The only plus side is that we are being offered what I paid for it from several car buying services (as long as they don’t notice that roof - I’ll take it in on a rainy day) so I’m not really out of pocket by much other than the maintenance costs.

The gaffer has a job as a teacher (yes, she’s much smarter, and better looking than me) that’s around a 50 mile commute daily and despite my attempts to talk her into a nice low mileage 2015 Civic 1.6 DTEC I’ve spotted in a local private sale she’s now decided that an electric cars fits the bill as she’s putting around £170 a month in fuel into that greedy Volvo. So off we went today to look at the Nissan Leaf, Vauxhall Mokka- e and the Peugeot 2008. No worries about problems as they’d be brand new and covered by warranty for most of the ownership term.

The only sensible way to run them or most pricey new cars at the moment is via a contract lease as the leasing firms get huge discounts on the cars from the manufacturers. It typically costs £60/£70 a month less than a PCP and ends in exactly the same way with you handing the car back at the end with no money left in it. So why pay the extra for a PCP? Buying outright is out of the question due to the unrealistic list prices, it works out dearer over 4yrs even if you factor in a worthwhile discount even if one was possible.

The Mokka was the surprise winner to her and to me. It’s quite appealing inside and decently spacious for a small car. On PCP it’s around £400 a month which is unrealistic but on lease over 4yrs at 12.5k p/a it’s around £315 a month which factoring in the fuel saving of around £130 a month via a nearby free (for now) charger is quite reasonable.

Me personally, I’d buy a used pre 2017 diesel Civic and enjoy reliable, cheap motoring that I own outright but the boss wants something fancier. I’ve only done some basic back of a fag paper calculations so far but it does seem electric is viable here and it’ll cost me less per month than the loan for the Volvo currently does but it’ll last 4yrs instead of the 18mths left on the current car but it’s costing a fortune in repairs and maintenance plus fuel.

What to do? Have at it regulars.

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