Ive got a dilemma....

About a month ago I crashed my van called Bumble which I did quite a bit of work on. As can be seen in my blog: http://eru-bumble.blogspot.com  8-)

When it was towed away I stripped all the important valuable things off it for fear the garage would steal them or not see their real value. So van is now a basic plumbers van missing stuff like alloys, lowered springs, clear lights, head unit, ect. In fact most things apart from the non removable stuff like the two side windows, sunroof and tints.

The crash was a front end damage:


Chassis looks possibly ok so might be repairable via a new front end - hmmm. Engine seems to be ok i.e. no visible damage, although the radiator has been pushed back to about 1cm in front of it.

Insurance have offered £1500 (think I should dispute this?) for the van and stated I could then pay £150 (+£45 to redeliver) to buy it back. They stated that I could only buy it back if I was going to repair it tho as they had agreements with garages for scrap value.... im planing on stating im repairing it and then state I gave up I suspect they made this up to get their mitts on a potentially good scrap value money earner.

Now here is what im thinking .... I take the insurance money and then buy it back. Then sell engine (about £500-800 for an 1.9 ABL right?) and brake the remaining van for my fellow T4 forum users. Id love to get it back on the road and totally loath to see my hard work go to waste but im thinking the recession might enable me to pickup a new van for about the 1-2k mark.

What would you do folks?

is the 1500 there first offer ?   - if it then dispute that, say was worth more, try to give examples of smiler vans worth more, and show all the work you did to it...

(as long as youre in no hurry for the cash, because theyll take there sweet time with it!)

aim for £2500 settle at £2000 (or £1750min - play it by ear)

if you have plenty of time/space to break it... then yeah, strip it down and sell off the bits :-)

I was thinking about disputing it but have an issue ... ive not declared any mods to the insurers and am a little worried they wont pay out if they realise ive added side windows/sunroof etc.

I got a £250 full comp excess so the full offer is £1750.

buy it back & use the money to do it up?

Quote from: ERUI was thinking about disputing it but have an issue ... ive not declared any mods to the insurers and am a little worried they wont pay out if they realise ive added side windows/sunroof etc.

I got a £250 full comp excess so the full offer is £1750.

Yeah that being the case Id take the money without question - if they find out you havent declared things theyll jump straight on that and you could get nothing!

Quote from: Rivkid

Quote from: ERUI was thinking about disputing it but have an issue ... ive not declared any mods to the insurers and am a little worried they wont pay out if they realise ive added side windows/sunroof etc.

I got a £250 full comp excess so the full offer is £1750.

Yeah that being the case Id take the money without question - if they find out you havent declared things theyll jump straight on that and you could get nothing!

2nded

3rdd

Van is coming back tomorrow as I bought it back off them. Got them to add £100 onto claim and not actually write it off as I may fix it

Scrapping vehicles is at an all time high imo, the prices of scrap purchased from consumers has increased, and the influx of new breakers on auctions sites has increased, so there must be money in it.

That said in tight times i know i wouldnt be buying new bits when i could be buying second hand (which i do anyway, cus im tight)

I would either do it up or scrap, you might in fact make more money from breaking it in your garden, ive done it on a few motors in the past.

scraps come massively down again

£130 odd per ton last summer/autumn - now back to about £40