Option1 Sportscars

**A7ESK** Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:33 am

11th June Meet .

Just a note to thank you for inviting me to your Lotus Drivers Club meeting. Your members are very friendly and I was made most welcome. I hope my talk wasn't too boring !
A couple of people asked me about stone chip damage and costs to repair. We are offering a fixed price front clam respray for all elise models in standard colours ie none special pearlesant finishes or racing stripes etc. We will remove the clamshell, repair all stone chips and repaint the clamshell for £695.00 plus vat. Any accident damage is obviously extra and will be quoted for upon viewing. Badges and decals are also charged accordingly if required.
I hope this may be of interest to some of your members.
I look forward to meeting you again. In the meantime, enjoy your motoring !

www.option1sportscars.co.uk

Eddie King lol!

**Trigger** Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:37 pm

Looks like I will be making a trip up to OptionOne on Monday after a stupid woman in Tescos car park reversed into the front of my Elan leaving a nice contact mark on the bumper and fibre glass cracks on the clamshell directly above the bumper. Any advice on what I can claim for?? I am looking at having the bumper totally resprayed at one point anyway but of course the main issue will be to get the clamshell repaired and painted. Insurance company have been good so far though and hopefully will approve a quote I get from OptionOne for the repairs. Also hope to get away without paying for my excess of £900! Very Happy

**A7ESK** Sun Jun 21, 2009 11:49 am

Trigger wrote:Looks like I will be making a trip up to OptionOne on Monday after a stupid woman in Tescos car park reversed into the front of my Elan leaving a nice contact mark on the bumper and fibre glass cracks on the clamshell directly above the bumper. Any advice on what I can claim for?? I am looking at having the bumper totally resprayed at one point anyway but of course the main issue will be to get the clamshell repaired and painted. Insurance company have been good so far though and hopefully will approve a quote I get from OptionOne for the repairs. Also hope to get away without paying for my excess of £900!

Sorry to here that news but Frank the wright person to talk to .
I must admit i park out the way when i use these trolly's car parks .

Eddie King pale

**Trigger** Sun Jun 21, 2009 1:12 pm

A7ESK wrote:
Trigger wrote:Looks like I will be making a trip up to OptionOne on Monday after a stupid woman in Tescos car park reversed into the front of my Elan leaving a nice contact mark on the bumper and fibre glass cracks on the clamshell directly above the bumper. Any advice on what I can claim for?? I am looking at having the bumper totally resprayed at one point anyway but of course the main issue will be to get the clamshell repaired and painted. Insurance company have been good so far though and hopefully will approve a quote I get from OptionOne for the repairs. Also hope to get away without paying for my excess of £900!

Sorry to here that news but Frank the right person to talk to .
I must admit i park out the way when i use these trolly's car parks .

Eddie King

Will do Eddie, hopefully see him on Tuesday. The good news is the store have the whole incident on cctv so I have filed a T1 with the police so I can claim them as an independent witness to the accident. Hopefully the clam is just light crackeds and can be repaired, on the other hand a new clam wouldn't be at my cost! Stupid thing was I was parked a good 3-4 metres behind her when she started reversing.

**Atthelimit** Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:46 pm

Hi Chris

Sorry to hear about the bump to your car.

In order to get your claim properly sorted and the possibility of not having to pay your £900 excess up front to claim back later you need to speak to your uninsured loss recovery people. As you may recall there was a free offer to LDC members to register with an accident management service (prestige cars ) and they would do the work on the claim for nothing. May even lend you a car whilst yours in for repair. Did you register?

If not it might still be worth giving them a call, see LDC magazine chicane back copies for details.

You should be able to claim the cost of the repairs caused in the accident, (not a respray to the whole car)
Did I miss something here was the car involved an M100 or an Elise? Elise obviously a clam shell i.e. the whole front end and M100 front end is made up of a number of panels, wings bonnet, bumper etc, insurers will obviously only pay for repairs to the damaged panels and not the others.
Other claims can be made for out of pocket expenses,
phone calls, letters, time off work if not paid, and maybe a replacement vehicle whilst yours is in for repair.

If you cannot find the Prestige details give me a call.

Kim

**Trigger** Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:28 am

Must say Kim I didn't look as closely at the Prestige offer as I should. Is there an age limit though?

Anyway, the car involved was my M100. Got the car up to Option1 today and was immediatly greeted by Frank who gave the car a good going over for any marks etc caused by the accident. The plastic front bumper on the M100 had done its just and all those layers of polish did their job lol. There are several crack marks in the fibreglass on the front clamshell above the bumper caused by the stress of the bump. This can be easily repaired and Frank has quoted to paint the whole front of the clam as a localised repair and paint would look odd. I am also going to get the front bumper resprayed at the same time at a cost of £200, which I think is good.

It is my first year with Admiral multicar insurance as Heritage etc won't take me on till i'm 23. Insurance company are happy with the claim, I do have legal cover for a car if i need it, accident on cctv from Tesco (police have it) and a quote for the repair sent to them. Hopefully then this will go pretty smooth. Any advice though would be welcomed Kim lol. Thank.

**Atthelimit** Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:08 pm

Hi Chris

No age limit on the LDC Prestige Offer, its not car insurance its an accident management service so in fact they only get paid when you have a bump, so they love accidents!

Back to your case though, as you have started with your insurers I would stick with it unless you run into problems. The legal protection cover you mention, did it come with your policy? If so it should mean that you don't have to pay the excess up front or if the excess exceeds the repair costs you won't have to pay those as the legal protection policy should claim it all for you. As mentoned previously you are entitled to claim out of pocket expenses so if you have any make a list, get receipts where possible and let the legal protection people have it so they can claim this along with the other items.

If you have any queries or run into problems ring me.

Abbot Insurance
01162 333559

**Trigger** Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:24 pm

Update on my glorious situation...

Went to see Frank last Tuesday to have a quote for the insurance repair job. A few days ago after haggling with the Insurance Company that I wasn't going to drive another 100 miles to get a 2nd quote seeing as Option1 was where I wanted the repair to be carried out, I had an independent engineer assess the damage to the car. Funnily the engineer used to have an M100 and also even better agreed with the quote on what to repair and after calling Option1 the next day they had agreed on a cost and given the repair quote the go ahead.

This is the bad bit. Unfortunately even though I am fully comprehensive and the accident was in no way my fault, I am still being made to pay the £900 excess on my insurance, even if the third party claims liability in the mean time. The repair job is to my surprise more than my excess, so I have the car booked in for next week and hopefully the legal insurance people will not have any problems claiming my money back quickly.

So far then, great advice from Frank at Option1 and Admiral Insurance have only just upset me two weeks down the line.

**Trigger** Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:41 pm

Dropped the car off at Option1 last Saturday and went to collect it today, just a week later. I was quoted to have the front clam shell repaired and re-sprayed on my insurance claim and then to pay for the front bumper to be re-sprayed as well so that it would all match and with no stone chips etc.

Upon arrival the car was parked up out the front and the paint job was immediately noticeable. On closer inspection I was amazed at the repair of not only the small damage on the clam but also the small chip marks. As for the paint job ... I really could say it couldn't look better. The paint looks thick and the colour is a perfect match to the rest of the car. When speaking to Frank, he said that due to having a little spare time left over he had given the bonnet and head light units a fresh paint and lacquer as it didn't look right with the stone chips. You have to remember I was only quoted for the front cross unit of the clam and front bumper.

Without going into too much detail, especially since I am still over the moon, the service provided by Frank and Option1 couldn't have been better. The detail and care taken in the process is apparent and even help over the phone for my insurance claim has been a great help. I have heard a few bad things about Option1 but from my experience, you really do get a brilliant service and it is worth the higher cost if that's what bothers people. As they supply a portfolio CD with photos of the process I thought it beneficial to upload and share with everyone. If anyone if thinking of having some work done, come and have a look at the front of my car at Silverstone!

Option1 Sportscars June047