An impassioned plea

[gareth118]

My father, Graham Monk, is a member of this site and a dedicated vr4 owner. Our family owns a vr4 twin turbo legnum estate (apologies for any incorrect terminology!) and my dad in particular loves it to bits. Unfortunately whilst holidaying in the south of France we were in a road accident. All parties concerned were absolutely fine, the car however was not. My father as you can imagine is completely heartbroken and we are adament that come hell or high water we will get it fixed for him. However the insurance company has deemed that on their end it wouldnot be worth them paying to get the car shipped back to the Uk as they think it is a write off and wish to scrap it in France. I must point out that the collision was not head on and we think is something that with time and money can be fixed. We think that we can afford to transport the car back but what I am looking for from you knowledgable people is any modicum of help or advice that you can give me that will hopefully get our "mitsi" back on the road again : )

Many thanks in advance

[peter thomson]

There are plenty of body panels between various people breaking VR4's so I'm sure that it can be repaired one way or another.

[miller]

First off,

Get your car advertised on this delivery auction site
http://www.shiply.com/couriers/?ref=122489&gclid=CKzO2P3q65sCFY4U4wodmTzW6Q

What you do is you advertise your load requirements to delivery companies/truckers etc etc, Intention is that anyone going the other way potentially can make some money returning the other way.

I know of one chap who had his L300 Delica carried home from Spain after the engine blew using this site.

Get it back here and then ask the insurance to assess it possibly?

Good luck

Mike

[Davezj]

yep plenty of parts available from people on this site and all the knowledge you will wever need to know.
what is you dads username and is he a member.
you will find people a bit more forthcoming with personal help if he is a member. Buy the sounds of it you are going to be facing a large bill anyway.

get some pics up and some of the more experienced people on here will be able to give an honest opinion of weather it is worth repairing and what the rough cost might be. but more pics means more accurate advice.

[Turbo_Steve]

That's some pretty sound advice!

I'd add that there are people breaking complete cars on here, so even if the chassis is twisted (!!!) if your committed enough you could re-shell it.

It really depends how much effort you care to spend, how mechanically able you are, and how much the insurance company will give you to fix it.

[Roberto]

what is you dads username and is he a member.


A mod should be able to answer this, TheVee especially.

Hopefully you can get the car back and sorted, never nice to see one die.

[pitslayer]

From my point of view, whilst a car does carry some sentimental value, depending the damage, it could cost you a lot to fix, and I mean alot.
Body panels removing and spot welding new ones in not going to be cheap
Body and frame jigging, not going to be cheap, might even be bent in ways that cant be repaired
Look at mechanical components if they were damaged

The costs would/could be astronomical, for car which yes might be priceless to yourselves, but worth about 4k, might be worth, getting it back having a look, if its going to need serious work, then I would consider breaking it for any good parts left and buying another

sorry thats how I see it, but post pics up, so people can get a better look and understand what the damage is

[elnevio]

What is the damage like - any pics?

[gareth118]

sorry for delay I'm on a nintendo dsi so its a bit tempermental! I can't get any pics atm because the car is ages away in a french garage and we have no way of getting there. My dad is deffo a member i'll have to get the details off him he even has the keyring! Also we have been looking into private transportation and currently have a quote of 850 to take it from france back to the UK. The insurance company are yet to assess the car first hand but we are assuming they will declare it a write off. Once we get the car back to england we are intending on having a good friend who owns a small garage to assess the damage himself and see what he thinks the cost might be.

Thanks for all the advice so far!

Thanks for all the advice so far

[Nutter_John]

where in france is the car ?

and I assume it is not driveable , if so why is it not driveable ?

[rees]

tho i appreciate the sentimentality , it would be worth taking the payout and buying either an exact same legnum or better ! they're cheap as chips these days!
you could / would probably end up better off than the vr4 you started with

you cant put a cost on agro, paperwork, time, fustration etc , but if you could ... it would be high .

if you ask me it would be financially ,practically and emotionally ...just better and more logical to take the pay out and buy another or upgrade .
if its a silver pre facelift then you shouldnt have anty dramas at all replacing it for a newer , lower mileage equivilent or better

[White Lightning]

Can you give us some more details or the car (age, mileage, model etc) and perhaps we can gauge the value a bit better ... and what sort of damage was sustained?

[gareth118]

right the location of the car is at a french garage no idea of the location buti would say its at least an hour away from Cahor. Sorry but I'm not particularly knowledgable on the particulars of the car all I can tell you is that it is a legnum twin turbo vr4 estate with a touch screen on the dashboard which we have had an tv and satnav system installed into if that helps at all. Regarding the damage itself the impact was on the right hand side of the car (if you're looking at it from the front) which from what i can recall has bent the wheel in and jammed it but as i mentioned before i don't have any pics and can't remember much so as soon as I find out more I shall endevour to post it! The insurance company want to scrap it in France meaning we would have nothing for spares if we bought it back from them which is plan b if its not feasible to fix it, to sell it for parts and try to get a new 1. I know sentimentality could cost us a lot but this car is almost a member of the family its been on 4 holidays with us and has seen us through thick and thin so if it is even remotely feasible to fix it we will try. We want to try and do this for my dad he completely blames himself when he shouldn't and i don't think i've ever seen him so down as he was then so we want to do the most to help him.

Again thanks for all the advice now I know why my dad is a member everyones so helpful! : )

[miller]

If its only one side it may not be as bad as you think. The insurance company factor in repatriation also to the repair bill which im assuming they have quoted off the most expensive company.

[White Lightning]

I have found your Dad /yes

His username is legnum1 and having looked at some of his old posts I can see that it is a '96 Legnum that he owns.

[gareth118]

Thanks White Lightning! A pretty obvious username when i think about it...Also its a dark green legnum if that helps as someone was saying something about silver earlier

[rees]

yeah i was just sayin they're common , green maybe not so much
i still think you should buy another - your dad loved it because its a legnum , like i do mine - theyre all awesome cars!

[White Lightning]

having read his old posts though he does mention that the car is in near perfect condition ... and the only post I can see he made about problems was some slight issues with the auto box which would appear to have been sorted with an oil change.

[gareth118]

yeh he has put a lot of time and money into it as i'm sure all of you have we're leaving for the UK tomorrow as we can't get a courtesy car so we're taking the train but once we get back I should hopefully to update you helpful people on the status of the car

Thanks for the help I'll try to update ASAP

[steve190]

Is it anywhere near Strasbourg? I'm going there tomorrow for a training course for a couple of days. Could get pics so the more knowledgable cna assess damage and repair options.

[Nutter_John]

hmmm i recon you could do that journey there and back in just over 40 hrs with a car transporter .

There is a place in St Albans that hires car transporters for around £100 per day and it would cost around £250 in diesel , £100 ferry

so ... i recon if you recovered it yourself it would cost around £750 to recover the car if you did it yourself with a mate and shared the driving

[miller]

have you tries this site at all?


First off,

Get your car advertised on this delivery auction site
http://www.shiply.com/couriers/?ref=122489&gclid=CKzO2P3q65sCFY4U4wodmTzW6Q

What you do is you advertise your load requirements to delivery companies/truckers etc etc, Intention is that anyone going the other way potentially can make some money returning the other way.

I know of one chap who had his L300 Delica carried home from Spain after the engine blew using this site.

Get it back here and then ask the insurance to assess it possibly?

Good luck

Mike

[legnum1]

I've finally found my son's entry - it makes me proud!! He did this completely without my knowledge. The car is in a small garage in Montdoumerc which is about 50km from Cahors. It's a '96 Finesse green Legnum with about 50k on the clock. It's just had a stainless exhaust fitted, new Goodyear F1's, Kenwood integrated Sat Nav and TV. Interior was leather, moonroof etc etc. It (was!) immaculate, hence my devastation. No pics yet but the impact was f/n/s crushing the wing/bumper/headlight and distorting the bonnet. The car wouldn't roll due to the wing jammimg the wheel. There may well be damage to the steering but until it's on a ramp I won't know. The assessor is supposedly looking at it today but I confidently predict that they will say no to repatriation based on the value of the car. Initial enqs with Anchor recovery gave me a quote of 850 plus VAT to bring it back within 3 or 4 days. I'll try the auction site recommended and see if I get any response. Thanks for the advice so far and I'll post some pics asap.

[Turbo_Steve]

Ohhh Another Finesse Green! I thought it was just me and Lee!!!

Without seeing some pictures, it'd be difficult to tell the damage, but as you know the wing is a total loss anyway I'd be tempted to mutilate it to get the wheel free : at least it's mobile then, and you can find out how bad the steering is etc.

At £850 it is almost worth getting someone to bring the neccesary parts from the UK, come over and fit them just to get it driveable: It really all hinges on what damage has been done. Would it be possible to get a full damage report from the garage, and stick it up here? Even if it's in French?