Hi all, today I accidentally drove into the back of someones car while trying to park. We won’t be going through insurance so I will be paying in cash. Does anybody by any chance know roughly how much this would cost to repair? I think it’s a 2014 Kia Venga. TIA
Agree. We had someone dent the side of our car in a car park. Very little visible damage but because of sensors it cost €650 to repair. Required new panel.
Have a read of this thread, particularly DirectDevil's advice and proceed with caution.
Once you have agreed to pay say €600 for a repair, there's nothing stopping the other party coming back and saying that another issue was found and seeking much more. At that stage, you're on your own as you have admitted liability and your insurer won't cover you.
This might be of interest to you. This happened to us many years ago.
If the person you hit wants to use their garage do the following. Tell the person to bring the car to their garage and you will pay the garage directly. Then ring the garage and tell them the exact same damage to same model car but told them it was my wife’s and you need to get it fixed before she got back. Get a quote from them for the work by email.
At first the person wanted cash. We said no get it repaired at the garage. When the owner said car was ready to collect go to the garage to pay. Their price was twice the price of the quote we got for the same work. We paid the garage the quotation amount on the email and told them if they wanted to bring us to court we would sue them. The manager in the garage told me that the owner of the car asked him to double the quote so pay for their holiday. Be very careful. Sometimes you are better to go through the insurance.
Then ring the garage and tell them the exact same damage to same model car but told them it was my wife’s and you need to get it fixed before she got back. Get a quote from them for the work by email.
We thought it was strange but they did. I have to say they did not have a great reputation in the car trade so maybe that has something to do with it. Now this was a good few years ago.
I was thinking that. The bodywork industry is full of sharp practice but these days, even the most shameless of them would baulk at giving customers cash kickbacks from insurance jobs. And with good reason, the insurance companies would blackball them if they found that going on.