Unfortunately they have just gotten your hopes up that there are any options on the table.
For the age of car and damage you described, it will be a write off. I'm sorry that is not what you are hoping for. Your car is likely worth around £300-£400. The parts alone will be probably more than that. Factor in labour and you are way over your car's value.
It's annoying that those people weren't truthful with you.
I was robbed then?
If the accident is your fault you lose your excess.
Only if you make any claim for your own car.If you just scuff your towball cover when you reverse into someone data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7//static.avforums.com/styles/avf/smilies/facepalm.gif and don't need it repaired then you aren't charged anything (until your policy goes up on renewal data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Three options?
1) They write it off and offer him £200?, he takes that or barters the value up.
2) They write it off, he takes the final offer and buys it back for its scrap value.
Either of those options mean he coughs up the excess.
3) He makes no claim on his own car and scraps it himself or fixes it.
Yes, that could be the options. But from what he said I think they gave him the hope that it wouldn't be a write off. Which it will be in any case.
If he took your option 3, would the insurance still class it as a write off or would they just close the case and not send the info to DVLA?
That’ll be a Cat C write off. Assuming the car is on your driveway you could buy it back as salvage. But if the car is only worth £400, it ain’t worth it. Even if you get all the parts from the scrapyard, you’ll be ploughing money into a 17 year old car on a Cat C. Remember that some insurance companies won’t insure Cat C cars.
A Ford Focus is a common car, so i would be scouring Gumtree / AT / Ebay for a suitable replacement.
Probably too late for that as it's already in the hands of the assessors. But I don't know.
Hi everyonethanks very much for all the input.
I don't really know what I was hoping for reading the outcome of all this. Like I said never had to deal with it before
Really liked that carbut it's old and worn out (I know the feeling)
Would I be better just phoning them back and asking them to not report to the insuranceThen just decide what I want to do.
Best option would seem to be to scrap it or sell it as spares if its going be a wright off.
Paying the excess and getting an offer won't add up to anything more than scrap value anyway will it ?
It’s already reported to the insurance though. Not much you can do now other than await the response from the claims management company.