My avensis repaired at last

[cooper12000]

Hi all as some of you are aware I had a coming together with a ford Mondeo a few weeks back.  I have now bought the salvage and had the car repaired myself. 

However I am not happy with the way Toyota (my insurers approved repairer) have handled it.  For a start they tried to value the car 3k less than it was worth that was sorted by the insurance assessor to be fair.  They then put in a quote of 4.5k for spares etc.  75% of the bits listed were not needed.  At one point I did ask them if the chassis leg was bent because the door was hitting the wing and the wing was sticking out at the front.  I was told "dunno there is something wrong with it but I haven't looked because its dirty."

 

When I turned up to collect the car from them baring in mind I had a call the night b4 saying if I didn't come and get the car by close of business the next day they would put it out on the street where it would of got tickets at the very least if not stolen or impounded.  Toyota didn't want to give me the car first of all they told me that I couldn't take it with out a release note (I told them I needed their e-mail and or fax the insurance company would shoot one straight over to them) Then they told me there was storage fees to pay and an inspection fee.  when I asked to use their phone to call the insurance company he changed it to storage fees.  then when I said I would pay the fee  he told me I couldn't take the car anyway as I wasn't allowed to take it they had to send it straight to scrap as it was a write off.  I said well the insurance have deemed it as a cat c.  I pointed out cat c was repairable but would cost more than the car is worth.  he tried to tell me it was cat b not cat c.  I had a copy of the engineers report with me and showed him it was cat c at which point he called me a word beginning with  w and told me to f off and take the fing car then.

 

I will certainly be putting in a compliant to my insurance company about it now it is all sorted and I have the appropriate receipts from my repairers however I have a couple of questions.

1) is it worth registering a complaint with Toyota???  if so how do I go about this

2) While I appreciate the car still might of been a cat d it is now registered as a cat c.  is there anyway of changing that now as I have settled with the insurance company?

 

sorry for the moan

coop

[FROSTYBALLS]

Presumably the insurer's Approved Repairer was a Toyota dealer. Don't see that Toyota would be interested as the issues are regarding the dealer's position as your insurer's Approved Repairer, and the treatment you received. Toyota would probably refer the matter to the dealer's management. 

Likewise the insurer would probably do the same - they would have a contract with the Approved Repairer but as part of the contract would expect the Approved Repairer's management to handle any complaints through their complaints process.

Your best recourse would be to find out the details of the Dealer Principal for that site, the complaints process they use, and write to them. Keep the letter to the point and polite. I would also be inclined to copy your insurer into your correspondence.

I wouldn't have thought the fact that you've settled with the insurance company would have any bearing on which category the car was written off under. Both categories C and D are repairable. Up to 26/10/15, vehicles written off as a Cat C required a DVSA Vehicle Identification Check in order for a V5C to be issued once repaired. This scheme closed on 26/10/15, and the VIC no longer applies to Cat C write offs.

[Heidfirst]

7 hours ago, cooper12000 said:

I will certainly be putting in a compliant to my insurance company about it now it is all sorted and I have the appropriate receipts from my repairers however I have a couple of questions.

1) is it worth registering a complaint with Toyota???  if so how do I go about this

Just bear in mind that Toyota Insurance is not actually Toyota the manufacturer but is a subsidiary of the largest Asian insurer, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance.

So, Toyota GB & ANDI may both be interested in your opinion of the way that the approved repairer handled things but only  from their respective points of view i.e. if the approved repairer is a Toyota dealer then Toyota GB would be interested if you felt that the dealer was not up to the standard that you expect of a Toyota dealer but they would almost certainly ask the dealer for their comment too. As Frosty says perhaps your best bet would be to write to the Dealer Principal but as you haven't actually had the car repaired there I suspect that the best that you would get is an apology.

If you do want to take it up with Toyota GB then write to Toyota CS or you can always write to the MD.

I imagine that ANDI would be similar.