>>If you ever wondered why your premiums are so hight - that's exactly why - not because of
>>mythical uninsured drivers, but because the prices charged by garages bare no resemblance
>>to the actual work in reality.
What an ill-informed comment!!! Do you actually have any idea of the internal workings of the motor trade, bodyshops in particular? I'll use the original posters vehicle as an example:
For a start the amount of labour charged will be a standard time based on the 'book' time for doing the job. All insurance jobs in bodyshops are based on the book times as that is the accepted standard by which everyone works. To remove and refit the bumper you will be given around two hours for this job.
Anyone can sit there and claim "it is four screws and four plastic clips" but I doubt it really is that simple. How much dismantling is required to get to these screws and clips? Do the under wing mud shields have to come out? Do the headlights have to be removed too? Are there any parking sensors/headlamp washer jets in the bumper, what about spotlights, has the number plate got to be removed and refitted - is it stuck on with tape or is it screwed on. All these things need to be considered and they all take time and don't forget that it has all got to be refitted into the new bumper.
As for the reinforcing bar that sits behind the bumper then there is probably another half hour book time given to this part. Again it might not be as straightforward as just unbolting four bolts, there may be a wiring loom that runs across it and attaches to it, maybe some of the engine pipework may be clipped to the rear side of it etc. It all takes time to swap over.
As for the paint costing £120 too then this is about right. Its not just the paint that you are paying for, it is the materials too as the bumper has got to be prepped first, it doesn't come from the manufacturer ready to slap some paint on. Paint is ludicrously expensive too, would it be fair to guess that the car is a metallic colour because not only will that require the base colour it will require a couple of coats of clear laquer too. Oh and don't forget the special plastic primer coats that the bumper will need first before any coloured paint can be applied. It all adds up. The spary booth in which the bumper will be painted and baked is fired by gas normally and having that on working for an hour isn't cheap on the gas bill. I also believe that nowadays you also have to pay an EPA (Environmental Protection Act) charge too, which is all about cutting down on the pollution and getting rid of the waste materials safely. That'll all be in your £120 somewhere. Also the painting of the bumper will have a book time of about two hours as well.
So far we are up to four and a half hours labour at the minimum, which based on your £159 is just about £35 per hour which sounds not too bad at all. I can't imagine that for a minute that they are quoting you £25 per hour. An insurance assessor maybe at a squeeze, but not a man off the street. Also depending on your location £35 per hour may be cheap. Some people don't bat at eyelid at paying £80 per hour for their car to be in a service workshop, yet somehow think that the overheads in a bodyshop should be considerably less when in reality they aren't.
Up to now we have spent £159 on labour and £120 on paint & materials and if we total these up and add VAT then that comes to just less than £330. So where is the other remaining £370 going? I can only assume that is the cost of a new bumper and reinforcing bar from Honda. I am surprised than no-one has picked up on this point. The two parts are costing more than the rest of the job all put together. You are basically paying £330 for a bit of moulded plastic and a piece of metal.
Now to me that is where the money is going and it is Honda that are making the vast amounts of profit out of these accident repairs, certainly not the repairer himself. If others actually stopped to think before making outlandish comments about the motor trade workshops/bodyshops trying to rip people off "because the prices charged by garages bare no resemblance to the actual work in reality", then they would see that what they are saying is total rubbish.
|
What an ill-informed comment!!! Do you actually have any idea of the internal workings of the motor trade bodyshops in particular?
(..)If others actually stopped to think before making outlandish comments about the motor trade workshops/bodyshops trying to rip people off "because the prices charged by garages bare no resemblance to the actual work in reality", then they would see that what they are saying is total rubbish.
Well, it might be upsetting but it's the truth - if anything is outlandish it's the prices charged for the work involved. Which is why any garage will always ask you if repair is going to be paid by insurance or from your own pocket. If it's private matter the price is always significantly cheaper. You know your "motor trade internal workings", so you know it's true. Any bodyshop will take advantage of insurance job to the max. And where repair and spray painting of single element, such as doors or bonnet can cost as low as £45 incl labour at main dealer on the continent the paint suddenly becomes "ludicrously expensive" and priming it very expensive to dry the moment we enter alternative motor trade reality in UK. You will not find poor or underpaid insurance contracted garage anywhere on this island, so let's not pretend they work for £35 per hour and get shafted by gas bills, ok?
--------------------
[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
|
v0n is telling the truth. I know someone who works in insurance, arranging replacement items for people who've had their bits stolen or damaged.
They get paid full RRP for the item from the insurance company but they'd never sell it for that price to you if you walked in off the street.
They aren't taking advantage, it's just the way it works.
|
i didnt read this thread because i thought it was some boring question about an ultra reliable honda,but i have now and i cant believe what i read
simon has given a spot on answer to an old chestnut
ive put before i will put again
my mate runs an insurance approved bodyshop he is with one major insurance player ,they screw him on everything and he has to fight little battles to get the worth out of the job,why does he do insurance work? it covers the overheads ,usually and only just.
He does private work at a higher rate to make a profit,if you dont like this then dont go to an independant bodyshop,but remember when in 5 years time he has gone bust and there are more ten bob apartements on the site and you want a job done well then the answer is tough
oh and the waste allowance is even told to you per job from the insurance company
off back to the proms now
|
Bell Boy has it right. A couple of years ago a mate of mine saw his bodyshop go under. The business was started 50 years ago by his father. Very sad. He was approved by 21 insurance companies and was employing 14 guys. The insurance co's were squeezing him harder and harder, he made some big investments to keep up (new sprayshops etc) but in the end the sums didn't add up, the business collapsed.
The insurance co's and the parts suppliers are making the real money in this business.
When you have a repair done always give the local bodyshop a chance, do't let them take it off to one of their big 'approved repairers' 60 miles away. Seen some shoddy jobs done by those places.
|
And the big "approved repairers"make it big how?
--------------------
[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
|
You will not find poor or underpaid insurance contracted garage anywhere on this island, so let's not pretend they work for £35 per hour and get shafted by gas bills, ok?
I'm staggered by that - it's widely recognised that the industry is in crisis, shafted by insurance companies, even down to the extent that the courtesy cars your insurance company allegedly provides are actually paid for by the bodyshops - if they don't agree, they don't get the work. Bodyshops hve closed down all over the place. And the little ones have been hit by health and safety legislation ? the one man band in our village shut when he was told he?d have to spend over £20K on ventilation equip.
Entire front of the Xantia together with lights bonet wings radiator and intercooler was completely smashed. I fixed the Xantia privately brilliant job for what I thought >> was a whooping price of £650.
Given the description of the damage, I can?t conceive of how that work could possibly be done for £650. The lights alone would cost hundreds of pounds on many cars. OK, if you bought parts from a breaker and did all the work yourself you could save money, but that?s hardly a valid comparison.
|
I'm staggered by that - it's widely recognised that the industry is in crisis shafted by insurance companies even down to the extent that the courtesy cars your insurance company allegedly provides are actually paid for by the bodyshops - if they don't agree they don't get the work.
I don't know guys where you live, but yellow pages reveal 24 coachwork and body repair shops, 20 car painters and sprayers and way over 200 car repair and service shops within my postcode. Two new ones within 500 yards from my house in the last 3 years. I see no evidence of widely recognised industry crisis in south east, in fact, if anything, it seems to have grown a tail now - provided accident wasn't my fault there is full galore of companies that will deliver replacement car to my door and take care of all details and paperwork INSTEAD of my insurer, whooping the other party insurance with additional rental and admin charges. Not to mention ambulance chasers ready to give you a whiplash if you already don't have one just to add some to the bill. Insurance claims is where the money is, clearly.
Given the description of the damage I can?t conceive of how that work could possibly be done for £650.
Well, that says it all really. Knowing industry you can't imagine who would undertake repair of entire front of a car for a little change from £650 after parts.
--------------------
[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
|
>>Two new ones within 500 yards from my house in the last 3 years.
What bodyshops or service workshops? If there are two new bodyshops within five hundred yards of your house that have appeared in the last three years I'll eat my hat. Assuming that you don't live on an indutrial estate.
>>it seems to have grown a tail now - provided accident wasn't my fault there is full galore of
>>companies that will deliver replacement car to my door and take care of all details and
>>paperwork INSTEAD of my insurer,
What has that got to do with your original point about "the prices charged by garages bare no resemblance to the actual work in reality". These accident management companies act in just the same way as your ambulance chasing solicitors and they only exist to make a profit for themselves. They still shaft their approved repairer/nominated bodyshop in the same way, by forcing the bodyshop to accept a low labour rate in return for the work that they push their way, because the more money that they can make from the payout off the insurer to what they can pay to have the car repaired is their profit at the end of the day.
We would all be a lot better off if we didn't have these accident managemnet companies and these ambulance chasing solicitors all trying to take a bite out of a barely sufficient sized cake anyway.
|
Well that says it all really. Knowing industry you can't imagine who would undertake repair of entire front of a car for a little change from £650 after parts.
You're original post gives the impression that £650 was for the whole job (inc parts). £650 for labour only seems far too high - I'm sure I could have got it done for less.
|
>>Entire front of the Xantia, together with lights, bonet, wings, radiator and intercooler was
>>completely smashed. I fixed the Xantia privately, brilliant job, for what I thought was a
>>whooping price of £650. To my surprise, the bill for Mondeos a new bumper and power socket
>>to my insurance company was £900 plus courtesy car rental.
Did you actually see the bill from the repairer that added up to £900? I dare say there was something else on there other than a new bumper and a power socket. If you hit it that hard to smash the front of your car in totally then I would guess that at the very least they would have replaced the whole towbar as its structural integrity may have been compromised even if it didn't look bent. And often when a towbar takes the force of an impact there is subsequent damage to either the rear panel of the car or the boot floor as the impact force is transferred to the mounting points of the towbar.
|
Originally asked by Simon
What bodyshops or service workshops?
One is regular mechanic, the other is repairs plus body shop, I think they spray and paint in another branch though.
The latter one is also about 100 yards across the street from a fully kitted branch of Nationwide Crash Repair Centre, with parking always packed with cars and no indication of going out of business.
Originally queried by Bill PayerYou're original post gives the impression that £650 was for the whole job (inc parts). £650 for labour only seems far too high - I'm sure I could have got it done for less.
I think I didn't make myself clear - total cost of repairing the car was circa £650, including parts. Granted I sourced parts, so there was no RRP prices, adding 25% on top and similar malarky. And I removed most of the damaged front and replaced intercooler and radiator myself as well, so yes - feel free to jump on me for not letting little details spoil a story, but still - unless towbar of the mk2 Mondeo I drove into was made of platinum, I don't see where £900 was spent.
I'm not sure what is the purpose of this rouge fire I found myself in the middle of here though. Are you guys trying to convince me that there are garages somewhere out there that were screwed royally by insurance companies and consecutively closed down? If so - I can easily believe that - sounds just like what insurance companies would do. If you are however, trying to convince me coachwork garages work for peanuts and starve to death, underquoting all the time, then we should look again at the original post and question in this thread:
- Repairers quote £159 for labour to remove and fit the bumper and bar, and paint it.
- Quoted cost of paint for bumper is £120
- The total cost comes to just under £700 therefore parts involved are at £420.
If this was private quote every one of you would walk. Not even walk - run away. Does that look to you like the garage is going to get shafted? Really?
--------------------
[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
|
Im a bit confused here v0n so will just post some facts
Most insurers pay as said book time unless its something like an old honda shuttle where every bolt will be seized and shear (you then negotiate with the assesor to get an increased time)
Most insurer labour rates for the job pan out at £25 per hour
Some insurers are requesting on older stuff the body shop sources s/h parts fits them but keeps stum (one for hj to investigate maybe?)
There are no after market parts for this honda shuttle so the parts are main agent only special order and will cost anything they so desire (the phrase we have it you need it do you want it or not springs to mind)
Paint is now going water based and a £125 fee probably is right as the stuff will most likely not stick so they use 2 pack that has doubled in price in the last twelve months.
Did i mention most jobs are now done via the internet pictures taken sent to the assesor he comes back with what to do,not saying you dont see an assesor its just not all the time,so they dont even see the rust in the captive nuts or even have hands on experiance of a particular model cos its all on the cd
As regards the old mondeo and only needing superficial repairs,oh if it was so simple,the shock from the rear ender can travel all the way down the shell and cause anything from rippled floorpans or roofs to moving or buckling, the chassis legs and closing the door gaps up (very common on mondeo estates)
please feel free to comment,no witch hunt or anything i just like things clear
|
Let's put it this way. If I was going to invest in a business then a bodyshop dependent on insurance co. repairs would be one the last places I'd put my money.
There's more money fitting bodykits and doing custom paint jobs.
|
>>If I was going to invest in a business then a bodyshop dependent on insurance co. repairs
>>would be one the last places I'd put my money.
>>There's more money fitting bodykits and doing custom paint jobs.
Very true and neither would I invest in a bodyshop where most of the work was insurance accident repairs. Take a look around, you will never see anyone making a fortune in the panel beating/painting trade full stop. If they did then they would all be driving round in top of the range Mercedes and BMW's such as say a lawyer (for example) does etc.
Another point that has been briefly mentioned in this thread which I can expand on is about the courtesy cars supplied by these approved repairers. The cars themselves generally speaking are solely financed by the bodyshop in question. They receive no payment from the insurers for the use of them, it is a case of 'if you want our business then you will supply the customers with courtesy cars'. And you can't give them any old banger either. Often the insurers specify that they have to be less than three years old, they have to be insured by the bodyshop for customers use, they obviously have to be roadworthy and taxed and valeted everytime they are given out. In fact the only thing that you don't have to supply for the courtesy cars is the fuel that the customer uses whilst it is in their possesion. Like I said there is no payment for any of this, you have to subsidise it your self out of the 'profit' (which isn't a great deal anyway) from doing the accident repairs.
|
|
|
