scubapics

Admiral all the way I got no claims at no extra cost. I insure my sister and my mum on my zed even tho I have no intention to ever let them behind the wheel it gets the cost down a fair bit so might be worth a try.

On a negative note tho there was a thread on here the other day saying admiral were rubbish if you ever have to make a claim..so just dont crash!!

That may have been my thread about crumpled Z. It was elephant who are also admiral. My moan was about Albany Assistance. To be fair, since telling elephant that I do not want to deal with Albany, they've handled everything without any signs of hitch at all. They've authorised the work with the repair center of my choice which was not the cheapest quote that I provided. So hats off to elephant although it's not over yet as they say.

Jim

Take the wheel off or you will certainly damage the wheel around the center cap and probably the cente cap too. You may want to put them back on if you don't like the look of the ones your replacing with (if that's what you are intending to do).

Personally I would give the guy a break and show him the £350 written quote and ask for the cash with a week.

 

He could have just done a runner.

 

I would then get it fixed wherever I felt comfortable, probably leave the bumper, someone is only going to bump it next week in tescos....

I gave the other chap the choice and he decided to go insurance route.

Elephant called me today to confirm if I wanted a hire car or not which I don't. They were actually very helpfull this time and confirmed that they have waived my excess and that they will pay the repair center of my choice directly in full. So that's good news I think.

Next task is to make sure the body shop is aware of my "exacting" standards. i.e. I don't want to see any paint / overspray lines on the inside of the door frame or on the metal work you see when you open the tail-gate.

 

Look up Prestige paintowrk at J12 of the M4 - top quality paint shop and will do an awesome job.

Bit too far away for me but thanks.

I call ed my insurance last night - Elephant. What a epic that was. About an hour on the phone. Not my fault so i don't have to pay but they wanted to use a company called Albany Assistance which is covered by my legal insurance part. Hmm I thought. Passing me over to some third party company. Not sure about that. So whilst I was on hold I checked them out on the net and could not find any good reviews about them. Just a nightmare to deal with by all accounts. So eventually got through to Albany, wasn't happy with the way things were going so got transferred back to Elephant. Told them I don't want to do deal with Albany and that I want to select my own repair centre.

Was all rather vague over the phone so I'm not convinced that this is all going to work out ok.

Ho hum. I guess that's what happens when you go with the cheapest insurance.

I might have been better off doing this privately for such a small amount.

http://www.350z-uk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=40562

 

Similar sitation a few months ago with some advice about insurance claims.......if you can get his insurance details to claim from directly then I would take that route - notify your own though.

I read that thread. Not very nice position to be in. I would have called the police to the scene. Any sign of aggression and it's a call to the police to sort it out.

Luckily the chap put his name and number under my windscreen and followed it up later with insurance details via email after I phoned him.

Incidently I just called the repair center that wanted to put a new bumper on the car. I really don't like them now. Very pushy, wanting be to use some company to handle the claim instead of using my insurance company. It's all sounding very back handed to me. Another thing I live by, if it doesn't sound right, walk away. So I will not be using them either.

When's your renewal of the insurance? If for some reason they cannot claim it back before renewal it might hit you... was warned and rightly so in the past

January.

Yes, just give them a call and register the claim. The rest is up to them. Where are you based bud, we may be able to recommend a bodyshop. Kuro isnt the worst colour to match.

Crowthorne / Bracknell / Hook / Hartley Wintney.

Perfect Paint in Sandhurst have got good reviews plus they were the ones wanting to replace the bumper.

Ok. Insurance it is and new bumper. I won't sleep at night otherwise. That's if the insurance co agrees with the estimate.

How do I go about this? Through my insurance I assume. They then claim back through the other party's insurance.

What colour is the car, some colours are very difficult to match. Make sure you choose a good bodyshop.

Kuro black.

An update.

Two more quotes. Neither of which think new bumper is needed. So I'm inclined to think that the first quote is taking the mickey.

So four quotes in total as follows:

1014+vat (new bumper)

574+vat (respray the whole bumper)

350+vat (remove bumper, repair, respray damaged area + pull/fill o/s/r 1/4 panel)

240+vat (remove bumper, repair, respray damaged area + pull/fill o/s/r 1/4 panel)

Seems no consistency. Except that the first two claim to deal with prestige cars. The second two are your run of the mill independent body shops. All been in business for 10 + years.

Jim

Someone in a white van pranged my O/S/R wing on Sunday in a car park. I wasn't present at the time and he at least had the decency to leave a not with name and number on my windscreen.

Just behind the fuel filler cap and just under the rear light. The lamp and filler cap is ok but the wing has been compressed. Also the bumper just below the wing has been scuffed and there is a crease in it now.

All seems repairable, can be pulled out, then filled and painted. And the bumper can be filled and painted too.

Got two quotes so far. First one thinks there is a bulge in the bumper and I should get it replaced - cost: 1 grand + vat. I can't see or feel the bulge and I think the chap is pulling a fast one. As soon as I mentioned that I wasn't paying for it and it could be an insurance claim has immediately wanted to put a whole new bumper on it.

Second quote: 350+vat! Pull the dent out, fill, paint and fill/paint the bumper. He sees no reason to replace the bumper at all.

Going to get a thrid quote shortly. Will update later.

My question is how to go about getting the money back. The chap sounds reasonable and honest. He's willing to pay or make a claim depending on the cost. If he's going to pay cash, should I get him to pay upfront? If he goes the insurance route, do I need to speak to my insurance? I'm just bothered about having the work done and then struggling to recover the cost.

I'll post photos later.

Jim

Fortis

http://www.fortis-watches.com/front_content.php

Very rare in the UK. You won't find them in the usual high street stores. An independent dealer in Fleet used to stock them. I got mine from a UK onliner dealer.

1500 W&D I'd be using more 3000 W&D for chips, especially if you havn't got use of a machine polisher

Yes, that's right. 1500 grade wet and dry and hand polished. Was not much effort at all.

Ive seen his bonnet, very impressive job

Ta mate.

WOW, Great right up!

 

Not sure I have the balls the to go at my paint with w&d though.

 

I take it it the same process with any colour? Are lighter colours (GM) easier or harder than black to hide your efforts?

Try it, you'll be pleasantly surprised. The 1500 wet and dry just matts the finish so it's just a case of polishing to bring back the gloss. Try the wet and dry and then polish on a small area where you won't notice first to get confident. Under the bonnet perhaps? On the underside of a door?

This process should work the same for any flat colour. Metallic you would need to fill with colour below the surface of the original paint, leave to dry a week, then cover with laquer, let dry for a week and then wet sand and polish. Without the laquer the metal flecks in the paint might rust. Ooh, actually you could mix the paint with laquer and try that as a one shot application.

Jim

Yes. I've done this on my Kuro. This is what you need:

1 BMW black touch up paint - halfords (it's the blackest paint you can get apparantly)

1 sheet of 1500 wet and dry paper - halfords

1 tube of Meguiars Scratch X 2.0 - halfords

Polishing cloths - oh, yeah, halfords.

1 pack of cocktail sticks - ah, supermarket ;-)

1. Clean the area.

2. Dip the cocktail stick in the paint. You don't want a lot, you don't want it dripping off the stick. Just a tiny blob. You will probably need to wipe most off the stick back into the touch up tube.

3. I place a cloth on the paint work, rest my left hand/arm on it and then put my right hand onto the left arm. It makes a very steady platform and gives accurate results. You then move your hand at the wrist up and down to position the stick onto the stone chip.

4. Touch the stick in the stone chip and let the paint flow into it. You want the filled spot to be proud of the old paint. Repeat as necessary to get the new paint just above the surface of the old paint.

5. Leave it a week to harden. Yes a week otherwise when you come to polish it you will just remove all the fresh paint and be back to square one.

6. Then using a small section of the 1500 wet and dry (not much wider than your finger and about twice the length of your end section of your finger) and some water gently flatten the filled chips. Work in straight back and forward motions. I did it up down, left right and then the two diagonals. Don't let it dry out when sanding, more water is better than dry. Frequently dip the wet and dry in the water to help flush away the sanded paint. Dry the chip to inspect the levelness. Don't worry about the dull finish. It will polish out as you will not leave any scratches with 1500 wet and dry, just a matt finish. Very light pressure needed. Any harder than just you finger weight and you will end up rubbing the old paint more than the fresh paint.

6. Once flattened down to the level of the old paint, use the meguiars to bring back to a gloss finish. Again in the same pattern as you used to sand the cip down.

Seal/protect with your choice of products - I use Zaino Z2 to polish/seal and Zaino Z6 between polishes.

Job done! Sit back, open a beer. Relax and smile.

Perhaps pick one chip to practice on first. You'll soon get the hang of it and be very satisfied with the results. The trouble is, once you've done the obvious ones you can end up with a bit of OCD and start seeing all the teeny weeny ones... That's the time to open another beer and leave it alone.

My secondary car is a Jeep Cherokee :-) Absolutely no problems on or off road in the 1 to 2 feet of snow that we had. The only problem I had was those inconsiderate 2WD people blocking the road! I mean really, don't you know that us 4WD people "do actually own the road"....

....when it's snowing ;-)

It's not often I get to overtake people in the Jeep. They appear just as annoyed as when I do it in the Z. A bit like today when I humiliated a Lancer Evo FQ-360 driver who thought he was the muts nuts.

But seriously folks. Be extra careful in the snow.

Jim

Does anyone know the thread size of the bolts on the standard rear box of the 350z?

Jim

Hope you all enjoyed the drive. I didn't half pour down on the way home for me as well.

Exhaust update for anyone interested. The chaps who fitted it for me were a complete bunch of bodgers. The rubber mount was indeed upside down. I removed the mount and the three sets of 10mm washers they had put in. One of the bolts was loose and would have come out eventually. On the other mount, there is a missing bolt. Looks like they stripped it when trying to put it back in! There is still some thread but needs a tap running through it. I'll do that when I get a replacement bolt from Nissan. No sign of copper ease anywhere. Considering they said one bolt had sheered/siezed you'd have thought they would have added a bit of copper ease on all the bolts. They didn't remove any of the covers attached to the bumper to remove the exhaust brackets so they must have forced everthing out of they way.

So it's not all back together with copper ease to make it easy to fit the stainless steel one sometime next year. The right side which was too high is now lower then the left one because they bent it to fit. It'll do. It's not too noticable and I'm glad I checked everything and corrected all their mistakes.

One more thing, the snapped off the earth strap on the exhaust. One end is still there snapped off on the chasis. Now I know that it probably wasn't salvagable but they could have told me so that I could have got it fixed.

On a positive side, I replaced my other clicky CV joint too this morning. All went well and is now back together.

I'm up for another meet at the same place. Food was great and that's all the excuse I need

Jim

Well now that I have had some supper and clamed down a bit I think the best I can expect of them is to make good the damage, provided they can. If they can't then I'd expect a replacement exhaust. If I don't offer them that, then I suspect the small claims court would favour me in a better light.

Jim

Yes, I am going back. But I want them to buy a new exhaust. Bending it back will stress the metal even further and it will rust all the sooner. It will also be even more out of round as they bend it the other way.

You just know they will refuse to buy a new exhaust at £450 so I can only threaten small claims court.

I wonder if RAC legal can help me out?

Jim

That Jim is why dealer get such a bad name, they probably don't see many Z's and haven't got a clue. Last time I went to Abbey they had 8 Z's booked in the next week, speaks for itself.

This wasn't a dealer. It's just simple mechanics. If it doesn't fit, check the mountings and bushsins are in the right place and orientation.

Jim

What is wrong with car mechanics?!?!?!

Just got back from visiting my Great Aunt in hospital and took a look at my new exhaust. The wonky one. The side that is higher clearly is angled downwards compared to the "good" side. Hmm I thought. Looked at it from the back and the outlet is not quite round. Oval and a little pinty at the bottom. Oh bugger. The muppets have used a crow bar to try and bend it down. Sheesh! I can even see the marks inside the exhaust on the top where the crow bar would have levered against.

So I took a look at the upper right rubber mounting only to find they have inverted the rubber which is the reason why it doesn't fit. So, £450 new backbox no longer straight or fully round. I could probably live with it not quite round but not straight.

The rubber will have to be repositioned otherwise it will wear out prematurely and that means the right side will now be lower than the left unless it gets bent back which means more stress on the metal.

Not happy. The way I see it they owe me a new exhaust but you know that's just not going to happen.

I really don't like letting garages get their hands on my cars. That's why I try to do all the work myself - that way only me to blame.

Jim

New exhaust on, should will be coming tomorrow. Rear box isn't quite sitting right mind. Bit high on the right tailpipe. Will have to look into that on Monday.

See you all there.

Jim & Co (Julie)

Well my exhaust has finally given up this morning on the way to work. Nothing fell off luckily but the rear box pipe has sheared off completely at the flange. Luckily it's just the rear box, the mide section seems sound. I can't wait for an aftermarket one to be made up now so have to go for Nissan standard box. At least it will be delivered tomorrow and luckily a local garage can fit me in on Saturday so I can still make the meet on Sunday