Not a good bank holiday Monday for me :-(

[South-east boy]

Not a good bank holiday Monday for me! Basically, I was coming out of a side road at Asda's onto a dual carriageway with 40MPH speed limit. There were 2 lanes with traffic lights, the lights go green, my mind was wandering while waiting for the lights to change, so moved off a little slow, and as I was turning on the outside lane of the dual carriageway, the next thing I know, this car comes out of nowhere and smashes into me! :cry: Try to get out of the door, but couldn't open it, so had to clamber out of the passenger side. Luckily, 2 cars behind me stopped to give witness that the silver Almera clearly went through a red light! Called Police and 2 cars came with lights & sirens blazing! Got all details, but couldn't do anything with the insurance company until this morning as they were closed for the bank holiday. Got it insured agreed value with tons of receipts, pics and some trophies, so will see what happens. I just hope that they don't write it off It's booked into the show & shine at the Stonor park at Henley-upon-Thames this coming Sunday too! Great!

For those of you that are not into cars, I bought the Golf GTI 16V nearly 5 years ago, and have spent a hell of a lot of time and money on it. It's been resprayed, new wheels, new interior, cleaned and re-painted engine, new window seals and glass, new lights, high quality stereo equipment, quite a few rare and obselete parts and so many other things which you can't see. I take it to VW and other car shows where I display it and have won 18 prizes, so as you can imagine I'm pretty gutted and upset, especially when I have virtually got it to how I want. Only 16 months ago someone crashed into the back of my Polo when I was at standstill and wrote that off! Like I said, I just hope that the Golf can be repaired.


The offending car!:

[IainBusby]

I used to work in the car body repair trade many years ago and from the pics you've posted I'd say it's definately repairable. But it all depends on the value they put on it which might make it beyond economic repair as they say in the trade. But even if they write it off you can express an interest in buying it off them and getting it repaired yourself as lots of repairers quote much higher prices for insurance work than they do for private work.

[bornatbirth]

to bad for your gti

a cult classic, i wouldnt mind one myself.

[les_taxi]

aww thats a bummer good luck in getting it sorted

[Arthur Little]

Bad luck, my friend. Know very little about cars ... as I don't HAVE one myself ... but I hope the damage can be repaired in time for Sunday's show - especially since you've been looking forward to it so much. However, thankfully no-one was injured in the collision!

[RickyR]

Sorry to hear about this Tim, not nice when these things happen.

[South-east boy]

Sadly it won't be happening that quick Arthur, as the insurance assessor hasn't even called me yet to arrange to see it. Then it's wrangling between the insurance companies & trying to get the money out of the 3rd parties insurance company to get it repaired.

[Doc Alan]

I can sympathise Tim especially as cars mean a lot to you. I sold mine recently, which helped fund the Philippines trip!

[nigel]

Looks fixable to me! I once had a Yamaha motorbike which I bought brand new...I lost control of it down a country lane...hit a concrete post...fell of it....the bike then went into oncoming traffic and got squashed by a land rover! to say it got wrecked would be an understatement....I was picking up the broken pieces and putting them into bin bags!

I later examined the road where I had lost control and there was a farmers gate thingy where tractors come in and out leaving mud and stones on the road surface...seems I may have hit a stone in the road or something..

[gWaPito]

Unfortunately you will only get back what the car is worth in the trade and going by the registration, not a lot

This is the down side on spending loads on a old car.
Very bad luck SE boy.

[South-east boy]

I have agreed value classic car insurance, as there's no way I'm having them giving me a fraction of what its worth/the money what an average mk.2 Golf GTI 16V is worth if something happened to it such as this! Ones in this condition are quite in demand and go for a fair bit-just look on the website/forum called Pistonheads. There's well over £3k worth with just the interior, wheels & audio stuff and I could easily get £4k if I sold all the parts from it, as there's a lot of rare/sought after bits too.

[gWaPito]

No worries then SE boy. I hope it works out for you