- Update -
Firstly i forgot to mention that when all this first happened the insurance company had me booked in with a local bodywork shop . . . . . . . .
Now i had driven past this shop a million times before and had noticed half repaired motors lying about on the street and the thought of my van being left with them filled me with dread. So i asked the question to my insurance company "Are they VW approved?" . . . after a while of short holding music they reply was . . . . . "oh you want a approved vw repair do you?" . . . . . . . "ER YES I DO !" was my answer.
So it seem that there are various levels of insurance approved repairers . . . .
There is basic general repair . . . . . . repair firms that are listed with insurance companies with the basic requirements.
Then there are general + manufacture specific approved repair companies . . . . . . ie VW.
The there are general + manufacture specific + commercial approved repair companies . . . . . . ie VW CV.
So it seams that the T6 is classed as a VW commercial vehicle . . . . fair enough. . . . . . . 6 hours later they had located a VWCV approved repair center, all be it 40 Miles away from me.
No problem as they dropped of a hire van on a low loader and took our T6 straight to the repair center . . . . . . i was mesmerized watching the tracker web-page update as it made its way to St Albans. (but now im much happier knowing the fact that these guys are supposed to be VWCV approved....... and not just a basic standard repairer that would give it a go. =]
Now on with the series . . . . . . . .
here are a couple more pics of what happened.
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The assessors called yesterday . . . . . . . the damage requires a new side on the van and new door with folding mirror etc.
estimated cost . . . . ? £12000 (inc vat) - ouch!
The bummer is im VAT reg, so i have to pay the VAT and claim it back.
lets look and see what needs to be done:
The assessor said that it need: A new side, A new door, A new mirror set, + Paint . . . . . so basically what we assumed.
well and new door and mirror is easy right, they can be ordered pre painted so just bolt on. . . .so simple.
now lets look at the side.
removing the interior ply-lining you can see that the internal bracing looks to be undamaged from this pic . . .
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so that seems good, just the outer side panel then.. what does it look like?
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so you can see that most of the inner outer panels are just bonded together . . . . .
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The original panel needs cutting off, there are a mix of plug, seam and laser welds.
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The new panel is fitted with a mix of bonding, plug welds and seam welds.
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so my original worry was that the roof section was laser welded by robot in the factory . . . . . . so would the new panel that would be human seam welded be as good and straight.true?
and as mentioned above that correct cavity protection would be carried out to prevent future corrosion?
well armed with the above knowledge i had a chat with the repairers.
they assured me that they were VWCV approved repairers, and that they would follow the manufacture repair guidelines and use genuine parts . . . . . . . .
They also said that this was common damage on panel vans and that they had done a few before already. . . . . fingers crossed right.
So now its been assessed we had to wait for the 3rd party to admit fault before anything can proceed.
and dont forget that the £12000 was just for the repair, they will then add on the hire van, other costs and there fees . . . . . so who knows what the final cost will be? . . . . . im gonna guess now at £17000 to £19000 inc.
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Dellmassive`s -- "how I Done It" -- Thread
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