My Rant

[ROLMDL]

This is my tale of woe about the last 13 weeks and the events that have taken place during this time...

To start off, ehres some pics of my car now..

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That's 1 mint looking XR6T there mate nice job love the style

your gone for and the typhoon front bar that just hot

[RHR]

Wheels look great

[86gav]

Sorry guys got interrupted. Well, exactly 13 weeks ago tonite a good mate of mine was drving car, doin the usual thursday night fat laps, all was well and it was a great night until about 1130 when we were on the way home.

We came out of a roundabout that truns into a sweeping right hand turn next 2 a traffic isalnd, he pucned it and at the top of 2nd he goes for 3rd but fudged it and tagged 1st, I stillto this day do not know how he did it. So anyway here we are, sliding towards this traffic island, in 1st gear, locked up and boom, over we went.

So after the dust settled we got out all appears sweet apart from the bent rims and the smashed bar, until I get under and have a look, the gearbox crossmember was snapped and ther was a hole the size of a 50c piece in the floor under the centre console, the zorst is wrapped itself up in a ball undr the diff and ther was a keep left sign jammed under there aswell. COps rock up, statements are taken, tow truck comes and shes towed away.

SO, the next day after getting home at 4:30am after sorting all the business out with cops and the towie, I arrange for the car to be taken to my repapirer of choice and call my insurance company (who shall remain nameless). Fast forward to monday and the assesor has a look at it and gives them the go ahead to satrt fixig it, Quote comes to $20,536. SO from this point on I assume all is sweet and set about ordering various aftermarket parts to replace genuine items that were damged and all is well.

So after about 2 weeks I get a phone call from Insuracne company sayin theyve had to freeze my calin and a private investigator will need to speak with both of us, im told this is normal procedure in this situation ( singel vehicel accident, late at night, performance car etc. etc). SO I ahve my interview with the investigaor and he has no problems at all with my, or my mates story once again I assume all is well and hope to have the car back soon.

Another 3 weeks goes by and still no word. After numerous phone calls to the insuracne company with no avail I finally talk to someone who'll give me some answers, they say they'll need a copy of my traffic history (which I'll be the first to admt isnt pretty, but still, they insured me even with my record). I do this and eventually im told that they would be denying my claim as I falied to disclose a few minor details and that my policy was now cancelled.

So here I am, no insuracne and a repair bill for $20+k. SO long story short I gathered the funds and the repair work starts agin. My T5 was destroyed so I fitted a Mal WOdd T56. The dump pie and exhasut was completely destroyed so I fitted a SMB 4" dump, 5" ballastic cat and got a 4" mandrel into twin 3" exhasut made by local exhaust guy. Ordered the BF F6 bar from AWC and got the wheels repaired by depulu wheels on the Gold COast.

Which brings me to yesterday, finally got the bcak and I couldnt be happier. The repair job is second to none and the Gearbox is absolutely amazing. But ther is a down side.

What should I do with my "mate" ( I use that term loosely now) who was driving? He isnt accepting any responsibility at all. I dont wanna sound like a *beep*, and I no it's my fault the insurance didnt pay up, but I think maybe he should wear at least some of the blame. He hasnt done squat to help me with this and I think its not on.

[phantomchic]

hey there gav

first question ... have you got some independent advice about your insurance, if not it would be worth it. A good place to start is with the Ombudsman for insurance, you can ring the said insurance company to get the phone number. I would be posing the question that they gave the go ahead and I assume you have that in writing, the work on the vehicle had already commenced at their go ahead when they retracted the claim!!!!

Friend.. its kinda back on you IMHO, you let him drive, it might just be one of those things you have to learn from along with the fact that he has played possum since the event, not such a "great mate" afterall

shazzy

[Mercury Silver]

I had a similar experience when I was in the Navy. I had actually lent/left my car with some toe rag when I was on Xmas leave in Queensland. It was only a VK but was in near showroom condition, insurred for one week and my first nice car. To cut a long story short and a whole bunch of lies less than she produced, I got my insurance barely. It took nearly a year. All the while she was still on the same ship. I wanted to kill her & do some very nasty things to her SV5000 at the time. I never did though, I believe what goes around comes around and I'm sure life has fukhed her over somehow.

I learnt one massive thing out of the whole thing though and it still stands with all of my mates to this day. If they jump in my car I get the keys to theirs & vicky verka. If there are no keys of any value to swap then there is no drive simple as that.

This is a hard lesson you will learn here but look at it this way buddy, you will never have this happen again, and if you are lucky you have manged to do it while you are young like myself and in ten years time you wont have even missed the money.

[Fat-Tony]

They way I follow it is, I don't thrash the crap out of other peoples cars if I'm driving them and likewise with my car, first instance I caught someone giving my car to much stick, I would be saying pull over hero, enough is enough, your not insured ect.

[ducatijb]

Take the 20k out of his hide mate...should leave him with 20k's worth of medical bills

[sixfan]

well...

If the insurance had decided to cover, they probably would have chased him for the costs, if he has admitted driving and you want to get narky, small claims court in all probability, will cover you.

We have a strict policy (from hangliding) my toys are your toys, but if you break it, you buy it.

even if you want to stay friends with him, there will always be that little reminder whenever you see him...."He owes me $20,000"

go the ombudsman first as phantom chick recommends as I think it's a spurius reason to refuse your claim (you weren't driving) and a reasonable person would believe that your intention WAS to disclose your entire driving record if there is only one or two convictions you missed.

The Private inestigator thing is B.S, there's only one reason he got involved, the costs for the insurance company were high enough to make it worth a try.

On a side not, if you'd said to them, when they asked for your driving history that it was all disclosed when you got the policy then there would be NO WAY they could have sourced it from the police.

I'm glad you've got your car back and it looks great and it's even better to hear that the whole thing hasn't dampened your enjoyment of the car!

Tell us who the insurance company was /is so we don't wind up in the same boat...

Edited 21/12/06 07:35 PM by sixfan

[jEtONiT]

a decent mate would've at least helped you in the finance department I reckon..

[JBomb3000]

That whole story really sucks mate Tell us who the insurance company is so we can all stay the hell away from them