I am hoping someone with a similar experience can help. This morning I was about to park behind a parked vehicle and did not stop in time causing my bumper to be quite severely bashed in and the front parking sensors have gone funny but the other vehicle just suffered scratches. Anyway, contacted Hastings and gave all the details and explained the incident and the lady I spoked to (Lauren) was polite and helpful. In the end, she told me Albany Assistance will find me a local garage who handle all the repair work which I thought at the time was good. Anyway, I was put through to them and after the formalities, I was told the "local" garage was 25 miles away. I explained the journey there would be at least 40 minutes on a good day and more if there is traffic so hardly "local". Also, I need to drive the vehicle there just for an estimate which is a good hour and a half journey there and back. But i was told that is the closest approved garage to me and when the car comes in for the work, I will be provided a courtesy car so the journey back will be fine. (After reading about the courtesy car issues here, it does not sound that attractive at all.) Anyway, I then googled the garage and it is a Vauxhall garage who is going to handle my Volkswagen Golf. So I called Albany back to ask can i not use a local garage of my choice and one who has more experience with VW. They said, they can cancel this job now, and I should call Hastings back to explain that I would like to use a more local garage so I did. Unfortunately it was about 1pm and Hastings do not think people need to make a claim on a Saturday afternoon because their offices had already closed. Sorry for rambling on, but the question is, I will now need to wait until Monday before I can talk to anyone at Hastings about it so is it likely they will insist on using Albany or can I choose my local VW dealer which is 5 minutes drive away or even a local independent German car specialist which is 2 minutes WALK away rather than a Vauxhall workshop 25 miles away. Does the fact I turned down Albany now delay my car getting fixed anytime soon? And will Hastings 'persuade' me to stick with Albany by incurring fees and hoops to jump through? Any help or words of comfort is much appreciated, I just don't want to stress too much over the weekend. Thank you.

Evening. On Christmas eve i ran into the back of someone else. 100% my fault and because of the holidays the car couldnt be inspected until Jan 8th. It is perfectly drivable. Took it to local repairer that esure uses and it needs front bumper, front cross member, both wings dented and both headlights. Had to call insurer twice to get dates to get the car booked in and was booked in tomorrow 26th. The repairer has called to say that the courtesy car has a fault and we will need to wait till thursday. Not much of a problem as things like this happen but i had arranged a day off work and not off until the weekend again but they are closed. Although they are a large dealer/repairer they cant give me any other car. So the next date is now the 2nd week in Feb. I have been very patient in waiting in the car being booked in but this is too long for me now and want my car fixed as this is what we pay insurance for. So i have a few questions. - The repairer is Lookers (landrover) and after searching online, they probably wont be using genuine parts. My car is a 5 year old Vauxhall. Should i be concerned about this. Should i chose my own repairer as usually when there are problems (with me anyway) at the start there will be more to come :razz: Ive tried to call esure but have been on hold for 30 minutes and fed up now. ta

I was in an accident may 2012, vehicle was repaired at an approved repairer and went back about 4 times due to rubbish repair jobs (body work out of line, missing parts, fault parts etc.) all was rectified after several months. Now just over a year later I've come to changing the bulbs in my headlights (both of which are brand new headlights) to find that both of the clips on the wiring looms that go into the headlight are broken, one completely shattered and have just been bodged back on to the back of the headlights, also one of the "mushroom" reflectors have been cello-taped into the light fixtures and these are supposed to be brand new. This damage did not exist prior to the accident (had the car 6 month prior to crashing and had already changed the bulbs once so know this didnt exist) so was either done during the accident (highly doubtful due to screwdriver scrapes on the broken plastic) or done by the garage when doing repairs. So been back in touch with the insurance as have a 5 year guarantee with the repairs, they arranged an "independent" assessor to come out, he's been out today to look - and i do mean just look! he didnt even see the clips only pictures I had taken because he didn't want to take the light out, anyway he had also called the man from the garage who did the repairs to come look at the damage also and so he came out - the reason I quote "independent" is that these 2 were like best mates and had clearly known each other years and were sat in the car talking for 15mins after the assessment. Now the garage have accepted that there is no excuse for the cello tape in the headlight and are willing to rectify this, but refused to admit it would have been them who caused damage to the clips and said "one of my guys would have told me if they did this and we would have sorted it back then" clearly knowing its a costly job to fix as it would need new wiring looms, but as he said he has no evidence that they didn't cause the damage as it wasn't mentioned when they did the repairs or questioned with me and they don't have any pictures showing they were in tact. Now I know what the call from the insurance is going to be like next week, them saying the garage are saying it wasn't them who caused it, but I want to know what grounds I have to take this forward as they are the ONLY people who have done anything with my lights between my bulb changes and was clearly damage caused by them or they would have mentioned it as part of the claim. I can see the timescale between them repairing the car and me noticing it being an issue, but this is not something you would ever notice without stripping out the lights so have only just noticed this. Any advice on action I can take against the insurance/garage if they do refuse to take liability for the damage caused? Thanks Adam

Hi guys, I had a minor (sub 10mph) altercation with a car park barrier and have decided the best bet is to get my insurance company to fix it for me rather than source a bumper etc etc. The car was running fine apart from a light tapping coming from the engine so because of this a arranged for the repairer to Flatbed my car to them for repair. I arranged for them to come pick my car up at their leisure and take it to their approved repairer of my Mitsubishi Evo , Arnold Clark Vauxhall in Paisley . Fair enough I thought since its only some light bodywork that's easy to sort out, I wanted the paint to match perfectly to bring the car back to its usual lovely condition, this was the reason I never done the job myself. The approved repairer turned up with flatbed and another bloke and he then proceeded to drive my car away to the garage rather than flatbed it the 30 odd miles to the worksite going directly against my wishes and what was arranged via my insurer. Anyway I get a call from the garage saying my engine is 'knocking like a ****' and has serious issues. I have informed my insurance company what the garage has said to me and they will be in touch with them apparently. Where does the liability in this case lie? My insurer or the approved repairer? Thanks in advance guys. Matthew