WE'RE NOT HAVING MUCH LUCK WITH CARS THIS PAST YEAR.

[Teletubbie]

blue faced bearded haggis chomping maiden seekers

That's got to be a band name at some point!

Hey K, hope the motoring woes are sorted out ASAP.
I would of thought that replacement of a right-off where clearly no fault of the owner should be pretty painless.
Hope it turns out that way.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

That's got to be a band name at some point!

Hey K, hope the motoring woes are sorted out ASAP.
I would of thought that replacement of a right-off where clearly no fault of the owner should be pretty painless.
Hope it turns out that way.

Thanks.
We've been dealing with one of those accident management companies because Mrs K is 100% innocent.
There's one company that came via the lease company and another that I have a free policy with through the Musicians Union.

My wife chose the former one this time and they deal with our insurance company, cover any excess and provide a hire car.
The hire car arrived last Tuesday and the transporter came and took the damaged car away but it's got to wait for 2 weeks before an assessor will look at it.
The subframe looks like it took a battering and the steering column is definitely broken, so with just 850 miles on the clock, I'd recon the lease company will be keen to have it written off.
Hopefully we'll know by the middle of next week.

The hire/courtesy car is almost an identical replacement, except it's an automatic, I had a brief run in it yesterday. It's been years since I've driven a non stick shift car. I didn't know where to put my left hand because with these windy roads here you spend 75% of the time driving with one hand on the gear stick.

 

[ficelles]

I don’t drive much, I took my car out for for a spin on Saturday night after realizing I hadn’t started it in more than a month. It’s two years old now, and I’ve only managed to put about 6000km on the odometer. Needless to say, it doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. By the time I need to replace the tires, new cars will probably be all electric and self-driving.

The biggest problem I have with my 24-year-old SUV is that I drive it so little, the immobiliser keeps draining the battery down.

That really is a catalog of bad luck, @Kandinskyesque !!! I stopped driving lease cars years ago and stick to the XJ Cherokees I know and can buy for cash. I'm not that mechanically-minded but I can fix a lot of things myself having had five of them.

 

[Teletubbie]

Thanks.
We've been dealing with one of those accident management companies because Mrs K is 100% innocent.
There's one company that came via the lease company and another that I have a free policy with through the Musicians Union.

My wife chose the former one this time and they deal with our insurance company, cover any excess and provide a hire car.
The hire car arrived last Tuesday and the transporter came and took the damaged car away but it's got to wait for 2 weeks before an assessor will look at it.
The subframe looks like it took a battering and the steering column is definitely broken, so with just 850 miles on the clock, I'd recon the lease company will be keen to have it written off.
Hopefully we'll know by the middle of next week.

The hire/courtesy car is almost an identical replacement, except it's an automatic, I had a brief run in it yesterday. It's been years since I've driven a non stick shift car. I didn't know where to put my left hand because with these windy roads here you spend 75% of the time driving with one hand on the gear stick.

Good that they've provided a hire car. Hope it all gets resolved soon.

 

[ficelles]

Hey K, hope the motoring woes are sorted out ASAP.
I would of thought that replacement of a right-off where clearly no fault of the owner should be pretty painless.
Hope it turns out that way.

Insurance companies have a way of turning the most straightforward claim into a nightmare... years ago I went out to my car to find a small dent, and a polite note on the windscreen apologising, admitting fault, and giving full contact and insurance details. What could possibly go wrong? Direct Line turned it into a year-long ordeal.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

The biggest problem I have with my 24-year-old SUV is that I drive it so little, the immobiliser keeps draining the battery down.

That really is a catalog of bad luck, @Kandinskyesque !!! I stopped driving lease cars years ago and stick to the XJ Cherokees I know and can buy for cash. I'm not that mechanically-minded but I can fix a lot of things myself having had five of them.

I wouldn't trust my Mrs with anything other than a lease car (from previous experience). I'm not sure if she knows how to add screen wash so having a lease car for her means even wiper blade replacement is a case of her driving into a Halfords Service Centre and they do it.
My son and I keep it clean, top the wipers and check the tyre pressure for her. Personally I blame her upbringing, her dad was a car mechanic and a stickler for well maintained cars so he did everything for her.

As for my own car, I used to maintain my own LR Freelander but it's been a while since I've done anything of that sort. My son does all sorts of maintenance like spring and exhaust changes.

When fitness allows me to travel down to Staffordshire to pick up my own car (rebuilt 2003 L200), the guy who builds them is going to give me a crash course on maintaining it. I'll probably spend a couple of days down there doing that.
With spring on the way I hope to pick it up next month and double it up with a wee road trip around England's green and pleasant land.

Where, I'm not sure, I've still never seen the Henge, Bath, Oxford or Cambridge but I've got a bit of a hanker to see Stratford again and cross off seeing one of Shakey's plays at the RST on my bucket list.

 

[arlum]

I'm sorry to hear about all of the car problems but must say I've really enjoyed the geography lesson. In spite of the hassles involved I'd love to live further out in the country. We're not in an urban area by any means. More like the edge where suburban and country meet. With all the fields and trees so close I wish we were in them rather than next to them. I'd just so open and peaceful.

 

[Bruxist]

My truck, a 2012 nut and bolt rebuild Mitsubishi got badly damaged in an attempted theft last June.
It got shipped down to the guy who built it for repairs 350 miles away and has been sitting in his warehouse ever since.
Hopefully in the next month or so I'll be fit enough to pick it up and he's also giving me a wee crash course on the truck's upkeep.

This means since then I've been car sharing with Mrs K's SUV, I haven't used it much due to limited mobility but in mid November the lease company refused to authorise an MOT certificate repair, despite Mrs K paying a monthly maintenance levy on top of the lease. This rendered the car illegal on the road and they attempted to terminate the lease with 24 hours notice, while trying to upsell her a new lease at the same time.
After some legal advice, we still have the car and the issue is now in the hands of the Financial Conduct Ombudsman.

It meant sharing my son's car between three of us and as a result of priorities, my son's job came first, followed by my wife's job as well as her helping my daughter with childcare, (and Christmas) meaning my luthier school night classes had to go, as well as missing several medical and hospital appointments (the downside of rural life).

Things began to look up 2 weeks ago, when Mrs K took out a lease for a new car, another Nissan SUV. Health means I haven't had the chance to drive it yet despite it being available all week when Mrs K was working away in Dublin.
She got home last night and ever the workaholic was up this morning to go to her art class followed by the afternoon remote working from the community business hub in the village 2 miles away.

As usual she parked in her usual spot.
Around 4.30pm this evening she heard a lot of sirens but didn't look out the window as she was on a call with my consultant.
When the call finished at 5pm she nipped out the door to grab a coffee only to be confronted by a red car on its roof in front of her, and police, fire and ambulance (and locals) all around.

Apparently the drivers of the red car, two French tourists, had tried to negotiate a two lane 20mph main street by pulling round the parked cars on the side of the road, instead of waiting until the road was clear, accelerating into the oncoming traffic at speed, swerving when they realised their error, crashing into Mrs K's shiny new SUV shunting it 10 yards onto the pavement and with enough momentum to flip their own car onto its roof.

Surprisingly nobody hurt, fortunately it happened 15 minutes after the school bus dropped the local kids off.
Mrs Ks car looked only mildly damaged until my son looked underneath, it's mangled, a write off.
I've saw the CCTV from a local hotel, very bizarre looking and fortunate that Mrs K wasn't leaving the business hub at the time.

It looks like we're back to being a one car family again.

To give you an idea Mrs K's car was where the white van in the photo is and the flipped car ended up just outside the building on the top right of the picture...

View attachment 1083722

Oof. Sorry, man. That is rough.

 

[ficelles]

Where, I'm not sure, I've still never seen the Henge, Bath, Oxford or Cambridge but I've got a bit of a hanker to see Stratford again and cross off seeing one of Shakey's plays at the RST on my bucket list.

I've gigged in Stratford, nice town. Didn't see a play though. If you go to Bath try and make it on one of the days there's a market in Queen Square, the French market day there was always very good especially if you like cheese

 

[boris bubbanov]

That is some rough car luck , ouch . Could be worse though, as you mentioned. I bet you can’t wait to get that Mitsubishi back-
That sounds like a neat ride .
Also the fish and chips place in the background of your picture is making me crave some something fierce right now !

I'd rather see him get a large check (cheque?). Mitsu makes a few great components and a few vehicles that are well chosen for rental use, but owning one past 35,000 miles is a curse IMO.

 

[drf64]

Sacre Bleu!

 

[bowman]

Those are some tough breaks. Car problems are the worst. Where I live, we don’t need any tourists to cause mayhem. The natives are quite good at it and don’t need the help.

 

[tfarny]

Insurance companies have a way of turning the most straightforward claim into a nightmare... years ago I went out to my car to find a small dent, and a polite note on the windscreen apologising, admitting fault, and giving full contact and insurance details. What could possibly go wrong? Direct Line turned it into a year-long ordeal.

I get an angry email from Hertz about once a month because some Brit with the same name as me hasn't paid damages for the fender bender he got into down in Spain last year. They are pretty hacked off about it, but they don't seem to be able to believe that I'm not the same guy. Of course, I've also got repeatedly emailed bills from an arborist in Cambridge (expensive to cut down a little tree over there!) and quotes for bulk fertilizer from NSW.