frequently asked questions

In most cases yes. It falls into the question of liability being admitted by the third-party insurance company. Until we receive notification from your insurer that the excess has been waived, unfortunately the excess stands. We will give you a written receipt for the excess that you pay, this will enable you to claim this amount back if and when liability has been agreed.

Yes, in most cases you do have to pay the VAT prior to us releasing the vehicle back to you. Insurance companies are not VAT registered and therefore unable to claim the VAT element. However, if you are a fleet driver, inevitably your accident management cover these costs for you. Please check with them prior to booking your car in to see if this is the case (we don’t want to give you any nasty shocks at the end of the repair process).

Betterment, making better, is a general term used particularly in connection with the increased value given to you i.e. If a tyre on your car was more than 50% worn at the time of the accident and the tyre was damaged in the incident, your insurer could argue that they are improving your position financially by fitting a brand new tyre. On these rare occasions, the insurer could ask you to contribute towards the cost of replacing the tyre. This is what the term betterment means.

We use an electronic tool to assist the damage appraisal called Audatex. This is an industry standard tool mandated by almost all insurers which measure repair times in six minute units. The times are actually provided by the vehicle manufacturers and Motor Insurance Research Centre based in Thatcham (UK). The paint is calculated by the square decimetre, the pricing information is supplied by Audatex in conjunction with the major global paint manufactures. The parts are calculated by the manufacturers list price. We have little or no say in what the claim costs.

Please refer to the above, even though you may think that your car has only sustained some minor damage, it’s a question of cost. The cost between the value of the repairs and the perceived value of your car are two very different things. Most insurers work on a percentage basis, this varies from one insurer to another, as a rule of thumb, if the repairs come in at 85% of the value of the vehicle your insurer will total loss the vehicle.

Usually your insurer will not allow you to retain the salvage as they effective buy your car from you when the car is deemed a total loss, however this can vary from insurer to insurer. If you’re a third-party claimant (i.e. not at fault) you have the right to retain your car, but your settlement from the at fault insurer will be reduced to take into account the value of the salvage that they would have received from a salvage agent.

Your car will have been valued to include any and all parts fitted to the car at the time of the incident, you will have to negotiate with the insurer on a case by case basis to see if they will allow the removal of said parts, but again, your settlement figure may be reduced to reflect the removal of the parts.

Most Body shops can only work on a four-and-a-half-hour day when projecting how long the repairs will take. This is down to the fact that your car isn’t the only car within the repair process at any one time. You must also allow for drying times of paints and fillers etc. Your car will move through several departments throughout the repair process, MET Strip, Panel, Paint Preparation, Paint Spraying and MET Refit. When the repairs are completed, your vehicle will go through a quality control process to ensure that all works have been carried out to a satisfactory standard. 

Please try to remember that we are repairing an accident damaged vehicle for you, this is a very skilful manual process, there are no robots involved unlike the factory where your car vehicle was first constructed. Things do go not as planned from time to time unfortunately. Invariably when you have to order a part from the dealer, it won’t come painted or with any parts attached it, we have to paint it and build it from scratch, the supplier only supplies us with a primed bare shell of a panel, the rest is down to us.

An ECD is exactly that, and expected completion date. When we carry out the initial inspection/estimate on your car we cannot be entirely sure that we have seen all of the damage. You never know until the car is fully stripped down what the full extent of the damage will be. Often extra parts will be required to be ordered from the parts suppliers, this can and will add additional time to the repair cycle. Occasionally the tiniest part can cause the biggest problems as we won’t be able to put your car back together without the part being in stock. 

This isn’t always possible due to damaged parts being hidden behind plastic shields that are not visible until the car is taken 

When your repairs are authorised, we will send you a tracking link via SMS with your job number that will enable you to log onto our website so you can keep track of your repairs. You can of course call the reception team and they will be happy to get you an update from the workshop manager. Or if you’d prefer we operate a CMA style of management system that is able to send you either email or SMS updates when your repair goes through certain trigger points within the repair process. We don’t turn this on for every customer as in past experience people don’t want to be ‘bombarded’ with automated repair updates.  However, if there are going to be significant delays with your repair, the reception team will be in contact to keep you up to date.

Your insurance company specify within their contract with us to wash the exterior, vacuum the interior and remove any dust that may have been in the car whilst the repairs have been carried out. We do not completely valet the car after the repairs. However, if you wish to upgrade your Bodyshop clean, please see our special offers section on this website for a competitive quote for this work to be carried out. 

Unfortunately, we can only specify AM or PM collection and delivery slots. This is because, sometimes we get emergency recovery’s that are blocking traffic. These must take precedent for obvious reasons. We also don’t know what the traffic conditions will be like on the day, but rest assured, we will always call you before we set off to make sure that it is a convenient time for you. 

The following statement has been written by RM Paints to try and explain why this sometimes happens: 

On the O.E production line plastic parts are painted offline and then fitted to the already painted car. This is because the car has an electro deposited primer and electrostatic applied top coat, which is baked at 160-180C. 

Plastic components are not conductive enough for this application and will also distort at the above temperatures, this will lead to colour differences between plastic and metal parts on the original finish.

From a refinish point of view colour differences can occur due to the different absorption qualities of plastics, the same paint can be applied to different types of plastics, which can absorb solvents and resins at different rates which will result in a different colour match.

The effect is more so with high silver content colours because of the orientation of the aluminium flakes is affected by the drying rate, the drying rate in turn is affected by the substrate absorption.  

The absorption rate on metals is a lot lower but the effect can be seen if you were to remove all of the paint from a sign written van, and repaint from metal, the sign writing will be seen from some angles due to the differential absorption into the metal from the previous paint system.

With some metallic colours with a high ‘flip’ the effect can be dramatically changed by the angle at which the colour is seen. Plastic components fitted at a slightly different angle at which the colour is seen. The accuracy of the colour match can only be assessed by viewing at the same angle and with the same light conditions, this is not possible once the plastic components have been fitted to the car.

Your warranty will normally be three years for all Labour, Parts and Paint, however certain insurers request a lifetime warranty be applied to your repairs. In this instance ‘Lifetime’ means as long as the car is still legally owned by you the warranty stands. However, this needs to be discussed on a case by case basis with both us and your insurer. 

Please talk to us, we are not unapproachable. We respectfully request that you call us before you ring your insurer. In almost all circumstances your complaint can be resolved quickly. Please try to remember that we are repairing an accident damaged vehicle for you, this is a very skilful manual process, there are no robots involved unlike the factory where your car vehicle was first constructed. Things do go not as planned from time to time, whilst this is unfortunate, there are always reasons why things have gone wrong, it’s never intentional. 

We have been trading since May 2000, we do our absolute best to make sure everyone is happy.