Recent crash - repair advice welcome

[Sawyer710]

Hi All,
Just had someone crash into the back of our T6.1 cali ocean, really gutted as only had it 4 months, but luckily no one hurt.
There is damage to the bumper, boot door, wheel arch and underneath too.
We are with Comfort insurance who are underwritten by Aviva and they have said they will send a list of approved repairers.
Just wondered if anyone has any recent experience with anything similar and whether there are any repairers/garages to reccommed or avoid, we are north essex so presume it will be a garage in the essex area.
Any advice welcome!

Edit - just to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond it is so helpful and much appreciated. Power cuts at home currently so sorry if responses are delayed. These are some pics of the damage

 

[Xtourer]

Best of luck and sorry for your inconvenience x

 

[Sawyer710]

Thank you

 

[Meoncoast]

We had a similar incident back around 2015. Our claim ended up c £9k
My advise made sure your repairer is VW approved. The repair will be to original spec ie they did not skim our rear door with an outer skin they replaced the whole door this was due to the original parts being internally rust proofed and outer skin would be not to original spec.etc etc. The other parties insurance tried to make me use their preferred body shop. My insurance were helpful in ensuring I got the repair I wanted. All costs were claimed back from 3rd party.

 

[Perfectos]

You are under no legal obligation to use your insurers preferred supplier. DO NOT FEEL PRESSURED into accepting the least cost to the insured or your insurers simply because its suits them to use certain suppliers (whom they control)

The fact that the damage is rear end means it's the third parties insurer will be paying the whole bill.
Regardless, you can take your vehicle anywhere you choose to have it repaired , you may have to pay an excess for non approved repairer but that cost should be collected by the third party as you are at no fault. (Speak to your insurer or a claims company)

As advice above - all new VW parts / panels , repaired by VW approved repairer.

You are entitled to a replacement vehicle at the third parties cost whilst your vehicle is being repaired.
Edit : or your vehicle cannot be driven

 

[Loz2286]

Agree with above. We had a rear end shunt and the insurance company wanted us to place it with a local body shop. One glance at local reviews didn't exactly fill me with confidence. I insisted that the repair was done by a VW Commercial dealer as I said it needed a California specialist to really understand what was going on behind the obvious panel damage. The insurance company squirmed a bit but I made sure they understood that it wasn't "just a van."

Good luck.

 

[Oscarthebeddie]

Hi All,
Just had someone crash into the back of our T6.1 cali ocean, really gutted as only had it 4 months, but luckily no one hurt.
There is damage to the bumper, boot door, wheel arch and underneath too.
We are with Comfort insurance who are underwritten by Aviva and they have said they will send a list of approved repairers.
Just wondered if anyone has any recent experience with anything similar and whether there are any repairers/garages to reccommed or avoid, we are north essex so presume it will be a garage in the essex area.
Any advice welcome!

Do you have a towbar fitted, my car was written off because of the damage cause by the impact on the towbar, this damaged the structure to a point that it wasn't financially viable to repair.

 

[Perfectos]

This one made it back onto the roads ! (Not sure it should have) but it goes to show severe damage can be repaired.








Thread

Salvaged Cali

Sorry to see this Cat S 4mo for sale and hope the occupants were ok after a nasty rear end. Not sure there’s much Cali left to salvage for over £15k+vat though. https://www.copart.co.uk/lot/26539560

vwcaliforniaclub.com

And yes it's still on the roads !

 

[WelshGas]

Hi All,
Just had someone crash into the back of our T6.1 cali ocean, really gutted as only had it 4 months, but luckily no one hurt.
There is damage to the bumper, boot door, wheel arch and underneath too.
We are with Comfort insurance who are underwritten by Aviva and they have said they will send a list of approved repairers.
Just wondered if anyone has any recent experience with anything similar and whether there are any repairers/garages to reccommed or avoid, we are north essex so presume it will be a garage in the essex area.
Any advice welcome!

Pick a repair shop approved by VW/ Audi.

 

[Sawyer710]

We had a similar incident back around 2015. Our claim ended up c £9k
My advise made sure your repairer is VW approved. The repair will be to original spec ie they did not skim our rear door with an outer skin they replaced the whole door this was due to the original parts being internally rust proofed and outer skin would be not to original spec.etc etc. The other parties insurance tried to make me use their preferred body shop. My insurance were helpful in ensuring I got the repair I wanted. All costs were claimed back from 3rd party.

Thank you so much this is really helpful

 

[Sawyer710]

This one made it back onto the roads ! (Not sure it should have) but it goes to show severe damage can be repaired.

View attachment 152828

View attachment 152829

View attachment 152830


Thread

Salvaged Cali

Sorry to see this Cat S 4mo for sale and hope the occupants were ok after a nasty rear end. Not sure there’s much Cali left to salvage for over £15k+vat though. https://www.copart.co.uk/lot/26539560

vwcaliforniaclub.com

And yes it's still on the roads !

View attachment 152831

Oh my goodness, that looks bad, hopefully no one was hurt, and ours is not as bad so hopefully it will be back on the roads soon

 

[Sawyer710]

Agree with above. We had a rear end shunt and the insurance company wanted us to place it with a local body shop. One glance at local reviews didn't exactly fill me with confidence. I insisted that the repair was done by a VW Commercial dealer as I said it needed a California specialist to really understand what was going on behind the obvious panel damage. The insurance company squirmed a bit but I made sure they understood that it wasn't "just a van."

Good luck.

Thank you I will definitely insist on this based on what you and others have said, appreciate the advice.

 

[Sawyer710]

You are under no legal obligation to use your insurers preferred supplier. DO NOT FEEL PRESSURED into accepting the least cost to the insured or your insurers simply because its suits them to use certain suppliers (whom they control)

The fact that the damage is rear end means it's the third parties insurer will be paying the whole bill.
Regardless, you can take your vehicle anywhere you choose to have it repaired , you may have to pay an excess for non approved repairer but that cost should be collected by the third party as you are at no fault. (Speak to your insurer or a claims company)

As advice above - all new VW parts / panels , repaired by VW approved repairer.

You are entitled to a replacement vehicle at the third parties cost whilst your vehicle is being repaired.
Edit : or your vehicle cannot be driven

Thanks so much for this info it is really useful and others have said similar things so we will certainly make sure we use probably a main dealer. I have not had the list from the insurance company yet but hopefully there will be someone good on there if not we will pick our own!

 

[Sawyer710]

Do you have a towbar fitted, my car was written off because of the damage cause by the impact on the towbar, this damaged the structure to a point that it wasn't financially viable to repair.

I’m sorry to hear they couldn’t repair yours, did you get another? No towbar fortunately and still driveable so fingers crossed it will be repairable.

 

[Doorbundle]

Bit of a drag from Essex to Worcestershire, but these people are perfectionists. VW Commercial vehicle approved. www.reynoldsofrushock.co.uk

 

[Viktorgeorge]

You could send the photos and speak to Alisdair at Rackhams Ipswich IP1 BN. He has always been attentive on both my Phaeton and then my California Ocean. They are VW approved.

 

[Sawyer710]

You could send the photos and speak to Alisdair at Rackhams Ipswich IP1 BN. He has always been attentive on both my Phaeton and then my California Ocean. They are VW approved.

Thank you, I will give them a call, much appreciated

 

[Trudi]

I had someone scrape all down the drivers side. I was lucky that a local body shop is not only vw approved but used by vw too.
I was also with Comfort insurance.
I sent the quote from the body shop to the insurance then the insurance company and body shop sorted it out between them.
Because body shop is vw approved, it comes with a full guarantee.

 

[Oscarthebeddie]

I’m sorry to hear they couldn’t repair yours, did you get another? No towbar fortunately and still driveable so fingers crossed it will be repairable.

Fortunately it was my car not the cali, looking at the picture above I would rather it was a total loss than have that one back but that's my personal opinion.

 

[Sawyer710]

I had someone scrape all down the drivers side. I was lucky that a local body shop is not only vw approved but used by vw too.
I was also with Comfort insurance.
I sent the quote from the body shop to the insurance then the insurance company and body shop sorted it out between them.
Because body shop is vw approved, it comes with a full guarantee.

Thanks for this, we have a nearby VW dealer who has a repair centre, and the vehicle still has 2 years warranty, so I am going to push to send it there so that the warranty is still valid and it should also come with a guarantee from there.

 

[WelshGas]

Thanks for this, we have a nearby VW dealer who has a repair centre, and the vehicle still has 2 years warranty, so I am going to push to send it there so that the warranty is still valid and it should also come with a guarantee from there.

Also some repairers won't take commercial based vehicles because of size.