On 30th April my wife had a crash in her Discovery 3 (her fault she pulled out on a 3 tn truck) and was struck at 50mph on the OSF wheel. The car suffered extensive damage and was recovered to our insurers recomended repairer. I expected the car to be written off, however I was told it would be repaired.

16 weeks later after lots of phone calls and visits to the repairer and excuses as to why they had not yet finished the work, I was invited to inspect the car as it was complete and ready to go. Luckily there was a problem with the air suspension and I refused to accept the car back. It was sent to the main LR dealer to be inspected.

I called them two days later to be informed that the there was a missing chassis mount bracket on the OSF, a missing lower track rod end OSF and the brake pipe OSF was twisted and not working. In all, £900 worth of extra repairs, plus the vehicle was, in their words, "a death trap" and another serious crash waiting to happen.

I now have the vehicle back 19 weeks after the original crash, fully repaired at the insurers cost with a written report on its satisfactory state from Land Rover. It still has a few little niggles that will be sorted this week, however, the insurers have only offered £300 in compensation for the amount of time (19 weeks) we have been without a vehicle and no appology has been forthcoming from their repairer or them.

Where do I stand in regards to compensation having been without my vehicle for a total of 19 weeks and potentially having my life put at serious risk by incompetent mechanics at the insurers approved repairer?

I will never again give in to the enormous pressure that was put on me to accept the job being done at the insurers approved repairer. Anyone else that does, for anything more than a car park ding will regret it I am sure - like we have.