Well the car is repairable. Apparently the cost is just under a grand including the VAT!
How the wife could do that much damage whilst parking heaven only knows!
To be replaced are; front bumper, ns wing, ns indicator cluster, grille (though I thought that was OK) and three other bits that were mentioned but I forgot. Oddly enough the headlights are deemed to be OK at the moment. I thought that them having been pushed back may have damage their mountings.
The old bumper had suffered previous badly repaired damage by my mother when she had it, so a new one of those is a bonus.
With any luck the car will find its way back to us early next week.
H
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Spot on, Hugo. Left Foot Braking. Makes all the difference. Anybody driving an automatic should learn to use & should use the left foot for braking whilst manoeuvering. It's like second nature to me now, and I swap between autos & manuals with no trouble.
It means there is no opportunity for confusion between the two pedals. One foot firmly on each of them!
It also allows you to speed & slow the car at will - with a manual you use the clutch to slow the car; with an auto you only have the brake to do this.
Do it!
Further to earlier discussions, there is no benefit to trying to move the left foot from somewhere where it is safely tucked away to the brake rather than using the right foot. But when a potential need for urgent slowing is anticipated it works a dream.
Thanks, HJ! (Thanks, Hugo, BTW for plumbing advice way back in another thread.)
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Oh dear indeed, The old left foot braking on auto bruhaha again.
Pray do tell, How can someone who cant be trusted to use one leg to drive ever get the hang of using two?
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Hope the insurance is protected, if so you've got a right result.
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Hope the insurance is protected, if so you've got a right result.
Actually, it's funny you should mention that.
This is a 2nd car policy, which attracts the same discount as the main vehicle and it comes with full no claims protection. 2 mishaps in 5 years, so she's got to be good from now on....
All the while she builds up her no claims and I build up a collection of 2nd hand Almera bumpers!
Hugo
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My Grandad's Honda Civic won't allow changes without your foot on the brake, and it also has a nice thing on the dashboard showing which gear the car is in.
I drove an automatic for over a year, and discovered that I never needed to take my foot off the brake when I was reversing, as the car had sufficient "creep" to move at an OK speed anyway.
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An update,
Life was getting a little boring and I needed a real buzz of addrenalin, so I let SWMBO read this thread for the first time.
Well, the week after she and the children went to London (by train) while the car was being assessed.
In addition to the shear catalogue of spares, the repair centre have also noticed a bent slam plate/panel (sits under the bonnet). Why on earth didn't they open the bonnet to look at it for the first time? was my question. Apparently the damage to this part was only slight but enough to warrent replacement. So it was back to the insurance etc.... It will hopefully be ready this week.
Her courtesy car is an 52 Automatic 5 door Kia Rio. It's a similar size to the almera but much more basic. I personally wouldn't buy one unless it was very very cheap, SWMBO doesn't like it, but apparently it is more lively than the almera.
I have to take my hat off to the wife - Yes I do, otherwise she beats me up.... No seriously, before May she would not drive any car, recently she was reluctant to drive another automatic, but she's taken to this like a duck to water. I can honestly say that she is one of few people on the roads who's driving skills outweigh her confidence.
So, Hopefully, rebuilt Almera will be back to fight another day soon.
Hugo
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>>Life was getting a little boring<<
What? The Backroom? How can that be - it's a hub of...livliness!
On a serious note, I remember your posts about getting her back behind the wheel and when you got your Mother's Almera. It's great news that she is driving again. I suppose it's better to be more skillful than confident.
Good luck with the Nissan
--
Adam
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One of my uncles - about 65 at the time- owned a very nice Daimler 2.5 V8 (based on Jaguar Mark2) with automatic transmission. He had a nice new brick garage built with up and over door etc in around 1972.
Second time of use - when parking it nose first - he accelerated instead of braking. From about 20 yards from rear wall of garage so was able to build up some speed and get a run at the wall:-)
Result: one hole in rear wall, one Daimler with totally demolished front and an insurance write off!
He gave up driving that year:-(
madf
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Well the wife's car is now back home.
Total cost to us was £120 excess plus £160+ that I spent having a deep scratch repaired on and around the filler cap.
A job that should have taken 1 week took over 3!
The reasons are as follows.
1) Damage to the slam panel was missed by the estimator but picked up when the car was being repaired, so the car waited 3 to 4 days whilst insurance authority was granted and the panel arrived.
2) The car was due to be delivered back to us last week when the bodyshop casually mentioned that the bonnet needed a quick polish, and then it would be dropped back. When I asked why they were not repairing the paint chips on the leading edge from where she hit the wall, they said they did not include these in the estimate as they weren't part of the damage caused by the accident. My head couldn't get around that logic.
I told them in no uncertain words that those paint chips were part of the accident and could easily be explained by virtue of the fact that the grill was knackered and both headlights had been pushed back about an inch and a half. they said they had to contact the insurance company for authorisation, which would take 24 hours as the insurance engineer was not in that day.
The insurers duly gave their authority. I stated to the insurers that I had asked for some unrelated damage to be repaired at our own expense and therefore was not in the habit of trying to pull fast ones on the policy. The insurance company were excellent that's Norwich Union for you.
Today I went to pick it up from the bodyshop, who I must say appear to have done a very good job. The nissan garage where I bought my van was on the way home so I popped in there to see if they could give it a quick look over to check it is how it should be but the expertees were at lunch. Oh well, another time, and I don't think there are any probs.
So the car now has a good front bumper, perfect rear NS quarter, no scratches on the wings, as they replaced the NS wing and had to blend in the offside wing. The only remaining issues are the OSR passenger door, where some panel deformation has taken place then been repaired badly in the past, and a couple of scratches on the OSR wing behind it.
We are so pleased to have it back. That Kia Rio we had as a courtesy car was a real lump to drive. Every time it changed gear it felt like someone was rear ending it. SWMBO thought that it was 'nippier' that the Almera. It was not, it just made much more noise and you really felt the road. When you shut the door it sounded worse than the one in my K reg discovery. It seemed that several bits of metal had been put in there at the factory and forgotten about.
So now wifey MUST be careful with it! We'll see shal we?
Just need to sort out the judder when braking hard. ABS seems to work OK. Over to technical with that one....
Hugo
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