My car was hit in a work communal carpark !

[pgantley]

I parked next to a van (which had been there for approximatly 3 days) at work in the communal car park in a business center. When I got back to my car, the drivers door is beyond repair and is going to cost in the region of £800 to fix. No details where left by the other driver and no one witnessed the incident.

My problem with this apart from being hit is that the business center manager tried to get CCTV footage but explained the cameras where pointing at a tree at the time !! the other camera just takes reg plate numbers. Again, not working.

Iv contacted the police and as its an offence, it was on private property, they can take action with relevant details,but thats as far as they will go. My insurence explained, yes I can claim but without any details from the other driver, ill be left to pay, my premium will double and I'll lose my no claims of 8 years....

 

Somthing doesnt click here, any help much appreciated.

 

[Bang!]

You dont really know if it was that van, as it could have left & whoever tried to park there next did it.

 

I'd say the door is more likely to be written off by someone parking rather than somone driving away.

 

Is there any paint left by the vehicle that did the damage - cops can identify vehicles from the top coat/undercoat combination, although they normally prefer drinking tea to doing this.

 

Other than that all you could do would be shove a large notice on your car, and parking it where it was hit, asking if anyone saw anything.

 

Cheapest fix is the same coloured door on a similarly aged car from a breaker, as it will have faded/changed the same as yours (newly painted doorskins can look obvious for a long time). You only need to match the paint as the interior/lock/mirror/drop glass can be swapped.

 

Doing that would be likely to cost less than your excess, be less detectable, and save your NCB.

[pgantley]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. That's a good point, but, my whole car was moved away from the wall I parked up against by about a foot. I park really close with the boot to the wall with the idea that it makes it difficult for someone to get into.

There was a bit of white paint left, oddly a lot of paint on my car had gone but not much on the floor ?!?! I had no idea the police could do that, I may re-approach them to ask about that.

I'v started looking for a similar door, I think like you say, it's probably the way to go to keep costs down.

 

Thanks.