Down......but not out?

[Beak Freak]

Had a bit of a moment on Monday which resulted in me headbutting the tarmac and my pride and joy skating along on a cylinder head! Recovering slowly and as they say it only hurts when I laugh....luckily that's not been much of an issue this week.

The local MBW dealer has run up a quote of around £4500 in damage, which for an 11 year old 850GS, will I am pretty sure mean a write off. However I am pretty sure that the quote they have prepared will be the absolute maximum costs, for example they have quoted for a new tank at £980 and there is only the tiniest of scratches on it which I would happily live with.

I really just wanted to know what my options are in terms of dealing with the insurance company (I am fully comp). Given that there is nothing seriously bent and it's just a question of unbolting and bolting shiny bits on I would be keen to keep the bike and take on some of the work myself. I am guessing that the insurance company will "make me an offer" on what they consider the bike to be worth, is it possible to take their offer and buy back the bike and use the money to buy the replacement parts?

Given MBW main dealer labour rates and removing some of the items that don't need replacing, I cannot believe that the costs of getting the bike back on the road will be anything like the quote.

Any advice/tips greatly received.

 

[Comfy Old Boots]

Depends on what needs replacing. How much is you premium going to rise? Can you do the work yourself?

I chose not to go the insurance route recently and still don't know of I made the right decision.


...

 

[(RIP) DitchWater]

Any advice/tips greatly received.

I've had the misfortune to have a bike run over and deemed beyond economical repair. I bought the bike for a pitance, recieved an insurance company cheque, and rebuilt the bike.

Get well soon.

 

[Beak Freak]

Pretty comfortable doing the work required, damage is primarily to the cockpit area so probably a new frame and headlight frame. Other bits such as indicators, beak etc. will need to be replaced.

Premiums currently £149 per annum with protected no claims so not too worried about that, just want to try and remove sentimentality from mt decision making!

Boots: in your case, did you decide not to make claim at all? and if its not too personal a question, what makes you unsure if you made the right decision?

 

[Paul Young]

I had a very similar situation some years ago, with my old R80GS. It was written off as being uneconomic to repair so I negotiated the payout then negotiated the buyback of the wreckage. It was made a lot easier by having the bike in my own garage rather than someone else's storage... ISTR the figs were £2800 settlement with £175 taken back for the cost of the salvage so I got £2625 net. I then spoke to Motorworks after getting a list of all the replacement parts needed & they sourced the parts - new where necessary & secondhand where it wasn't. They invoiced me separately for the new frame so that I could retain the original registration by providing just the new frame details to DVLA instead of a long list of parts whose origins were from several bikes. Tot up too many points & DVLA will reissue you with a Q plate so I'd check into the current regs for this & work within the points scale for retaining your registration.

I'd broken my scaphoid in the accident & paying for the replacement parts & for a local bike shop to rebuild the bike cost the grand total of £1900 so I ended up nicely in pocket & still sold the bike 5yrs later with 102k miles on it for £1500 so I'd recommend that you do it. The bike was ready to ride before I got my cast removed

Good Luck

 

[wessie]

£4500 would be more than an 850 is worth on the mainland - as you are in the CI there may be local market factors to take into account plus a different legal jurisdiction.

If you were dealing with a UK based insurer then they would send out an assessor/loss adjustor to see if he/she agreed with the BMW dealer. This is not a guarantee as the assessor may decide the tank is repairable rather than needing to be replaced. Assessors are very happy to negotiate ways to reduce their employer's liability and as long as there is not a safety critical fault will let you keep the bike as repairable.

For me, if the assessor wanted to make the bike a category C/D write off then I'd let the bike go to a salvage auction and bank the cheque. You may have a different view.

 

[Beak Freak]

update (if you're interested) and a bit of a rant

Finally managed to sort out the whole mess to a situation that I am happy with. The bike was declared a category C write off, which was not surprising given the MBW dealers quote of over £4500. I was offered a valuation of £2700 which was disappointing as it would have left me with having to spend more to get a replacement bike. I did seriously consider a new 1200 but couldn't justify to myself the extra money and ended up buying the "salvage" which the insurer valued at £300.

So I am now left with my original bike which is still rideable (so hardly what I would call salvage) and £2400 to fix the bike up with. This is really where it starts to turn into a bit of a rant.....the estimate was over £4500 which was reduced to around £3500 when I said that the tiny surface scratch on the tank could be lived with. This was then subject to an "inspection", some of the items that were deemed to be replaced were quite frankly not looked at all, for example a scratch on the main wishbone apparently required not only a whole new part but also hours of labour to remove and replace, when in actual fact a quick squirt of Smootherite would have done the job, the brake fluid master cylinder was down for replacement £250, actual repair cost £9 to replace the lid which had a chunk out of it.
I think I will be able to repair the bike myself for less than £1000 and that includes buying some tarty bits from Wunderlich, Touratech etc. This will leave me with a better bike than I started with (which can be reassessed and no longer classed as cat C) plus £1400cash, if it wasn't for the pain of the cracked ribs then I might do it every week!
My concern is that the insurers so readily paid up that amount and didn't appear to challenge the engineers report at all, we all end up paying for this on our premiums which go up every year (I should point that because I'm now so old and have a riders policy that my premiums will increase by only £7-8 for next year because of the claim), given the state of the economy it seems ludicrous to me that so much slack in the system is tolerated. Or is this just an industry cartel carrying on regardless?

 

[Boxergs]

Rip off dealers

The above just goes to show what a rip off MBW dealers really are. I suffered a similar incident a while ago, I ended up with a broken collarbone, bike slid down the road merrily wearing the nearside rocker thru, with various other n/s damage.

Bike = 11 yr old 1150 GS with over 100,000m on it.

Was recovered to BLD (Bikers Legal Defence) at Huddersfield who estimated damage at £1430 inc labour!

Most expensive replaced items included
Screen - Ermax clear AM Givi 110.50
Replacement aux spots and bracket 238.80
Lh engine rocker cover 96.67
Top box givi black 52L AM 144.00


Lots of other minor stuff all as a result of a long slide down the road

Total Cost of New Parts = 783.36
Standard Labour charges = 192.50
Paint Labour & Consumables = 191.25
Couple of sundry items = 25.00
Vat = 238.42
Total = 1430.53

So....draw your own conclusions....

Even so....when I got it back I had to top up the oil as they hadn't, it wasn't even visible in the sight glass and took more than 1.5L

 

[Steptoe]

Park lane recently gave an estimate on a R1200GS that had been knocked over while parked on it's side stand.
The quote was for £4721. Including a new exhaust.
The owner pointed out that the bike had fallen on the R/H side, and the exhaust was on the L/H side Oh dear.

I did an estimate, and with new genuine parts from BMW it came to £1K mark.

So go figure that out.

I've got a copy of the BMW estimate, and to be frank it borders on fraudulent... But the insurance companies don't seem to care.

 

[DrFarkoff]

I had to reframe a K1200LT because an insurance assessor wouldn't allow us to have an M6 bolt lug TIG welded back on the frame

It was a locating lug on the engine side of the right hand side of the massive lump of alloy that the footpegs attach to

Never would have been seen and would not have damaged structural integrity it was for the side bars that he black plastic and chrome "fins" attach to

Does anyone have any idea how much room you need to strip a K1200LT se down to component parts all for the sake of a wee alloy lug

Edit found the photos again I reckon there was 5kg of torx screws and small bolts never mind suspension or frame bolts

You can see the lug on the inside of the frame just by the two petrol pipes in the photo below

and that area was about 5 metres by 4 metres and the only thing not off the LT were the 04 boxercup side-panels that were set there while it was being serviced That black lump to the right is the front section with the screen motor arms etc and headlamp

 

[Vern]

When mine was written off, I made sure that the bike was in my garage, so they had to deal with me. Trailered the bike to BVM and trailered it home again.

I asked the man about buying the salvage back, and he said to just keep it as it would cost more to have it recovered from a residental address.