Hi,

I was driving my Mini Cooper (2011) on my new housing development. I drove over a speed bump which was quite high, and as the car came down from the speed bump, the bottom of the car (sump tank) caught a raised drain directly after the speed bump. This resulted in the entire engine oil being leaked across the road.

I didn't realise until around quarter mile down the road the oil light came on. I didn't drive the car any further and had to have it towed to a garage.

The garage have said that it doesn't look to have damaged the engine, and it will cost £800 to fix everything due to no after market parts being available.

However, I was hoping to get some advice on how to proceed. The roads aren't the responsibility of the Council yet, and are technically meant to be maintained by a site management company. They have refused to admit it's their fault.

I'm not sure whether to:

1) Go through our insurance and call on their services to repair the vehicle and attempt to reclaim the costs from the site management.

2) Pay the repair costs ourselves and file a small claims court case to try and build a case to recuperate the costs.

There were no signs on the road to say raised drains would be higher than the rest of the surface. The speed limit is 20mph which wouldn't have been exceeded due to only just turning out of our street and having to brake to go over the high speed bump.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions on the best way to deal with this.

I have attached a picture of the drain and road after the incident. As you can see the oil has poured out after coming in contact with the drain. The speed bump is located where the picture was taken from.

Problem with going thru your ins co. is that regardless to your non fault..i bet your premiums next time will go thru the roof.

how have those responsible duffed you off?

we need to see the exchange of correspondence please

[one multipage PDF only...read upload]

dx

To be fair it's quite normal for this type of thing on new build estates, the finish surface is usually done once the heavy machines go.

However that drain does not look too high, certainly not the 100mm or so gap under the car. Were you possibly going a bit too fast and the resulting landing compressed the springs quite a lot?

But realistically a sump will set you back about £50 and is easy to fit for a mechanic, I would not expect any more than £200 and that would include a new filter and oil.

Personally I would not go near my insurance company with that, as said you will pay it and more next renewal.

Find a local garage and get it fixed.

Problem with going thru your ins co. is that regardless to your non fault..i bet your premiums next time will go thru the roof.

 

how have those responsible duffed you off?

we need to see the exchange of correspondence please

[one multipage PDF only...read upload]

 

dx

Hi, the exchange of correspondence has been verbally. I have put it into writing with them today, and I’m awaiting a response.

They have said, this hasn’t happened to anyone else in 18 months on the development site so it must be your fault.

They can’t see what’s caused it and they said they’ve filmed others using the same road and don’t believe they’re liable for this reason.

To be fair it's quite normal for this type of thing on new build estates, the finish surface is usually done once the heavy machines go.

However that drain does not look too high, certainly not the 100mm or so gap under the car. Were you possibly going a bit too fast and the resulting landing compressed the springs quite a lot?

 

But realistically a sump will set you back about £50 and is easy to fit for a mechanic, I would not expect any more than £200 and that would include a new filter and oil.

Personally I would not go near my insurance company with that, as said you will pay it and more next renewal.

Find a local garage and get it fixed.

The Mini bounces quite a bit of over this speed bump due to the height of the bump but hasn’t done any damage previously.

There are a number of ‘obstacles’ in the road before the speed bump which make it difficult to get to excess speeds, as you’re trying to avoid them beforehand.

Thanks for the sump price advice. We went to our local ATS who are usually quite reasonable. That’s a big difference in what you’ve said as a price compared to their quote.

Is this thefirst time you have driven over this?

measure the height and width of the speed bump and also make enquiries with the planning dept regarding their presence.