[bhaskaracs]

All,

Few months ago, my Hyundai Elantra met with an accident when I bumped into an elevated manhole made with cement. It was a medium impact. The front left portion hit the elevated manhole. Fog lamps, left front passenger door, entire front fender and apparently the air dam were damaged due to the impact. Visited Lakshmi Hyundai in Madinaguda, Hyderabad. They mentioned the above damages and gave me a quotation of about 65K. Eventually I filed for insurance claim and all of that. I paid the compulsory deductible and had to pay about rs. 2500. Rest was borne by my insurer. Bill came to about 63.5K.

A month ago, i gave my car for regular interval service at Kun Hyundai. The SA came back to me after discovering that the left front suspension is bent and he thought it was unusual without the car having met with any accident. He strongly believes this is due to the previous accident and it went undetected during earlier repairs.

Now changing the front suspension is an expensive affair costing me about 14-15K at least. Wondering if I have any recourse and if i can establish that this bent suspension is a result of the previous collision which went undetected, because of complete lack of attention to detail exhibited by Lakshmi Hyundai.

Now the additional challenge is that I did not renew my policy with BAGIC (because I felt they were not prompt in getting the survey done etc.) and chose SBI this time (commercially it was not very different). I am not willing to lose my NCB for successive years.

Need some guidance.

Thanks
Chandra

PS. please merge this with an appropriate thread if one exists.

[GTO]

Mod Note: Thread moved to the Insurance section.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by bhaskaracs

A month ago, i gave my car for regular interval service at Kun Hyundai. The SA came back to me after discovering that the left front suspension is bent and he thought it was unusual without the car having met with any accident. He strongly believes this is due to the previous accident and it went undetected during earlier repairs.

This is a difficult one.

Didn't you feel anything different when you drove the car after collection? The original insurers will typically turn around and state this happened after the claim. You will have a problem in proving this was part of the original accident.

Lakshmi Hyundai were clearly negligent in assessing the damage. It could also be that the insurance company were in cahoots with Lakshmi in overlooking this. I am guessing that you are in a different city from Hyderabad.

You would need to review the survey reports and see if the damage was captured on photos and try and reopen the claim. If no joy, approach the insurance omsbudsman. It might be a long shot but you need to prepare the case well.

[audioholic]

Typical highhandedness of the bodyshop guys. A simple wheel alignment would have spotted the problem during the stage of damage estimation. We faced the same situation with our SX4 a few years back. The car was T-Boned at a junction with the entire right hand side of the car taking a hit. Along with this, the front right wheel also bore the brunt of the crash with the alloy getting scratched. Back then, the whole side was replaced(new bumper, fender, driver door, rear passenger door and bumper). The bodywork was amazing and the paint was as good as factory finish. However, even though we had insisted that a wheel alignment should be done, the SA assured that there is no issue and he has checked it. I was not in station when my dad took delivery of the car and even though he insisted for alignment report, some lame reason was given that the printer did not have ink and so on but when he drove the car it was fine, and he was impressed by the paintjob so collected the vehicle.

Two months after the incident, my dad took it for routine wheel alignment where the technician spotted a bent tie rod and he could not adjust it since it was bent at the thread. My dad got furious at this point and called back the SA and took him to task. The SA told him to get it to the dealership and he immediately replaced the tie rod free of cost. However, yet again he did not offer alignment and report to my dad but convinced that there would be no issue since he has replaced the damaged part.

However, the relplacement only corrected the toe angle, but the camber is still bent and from the last six years, the car is still running with a slightly bent camber. All these years there was no issue, but lately the car steers left after going on some pothole or rough road. But there is no abnormal tyre wear or pulling on flat roads.

Coming to your case, one option you could do is to escalate this issue to Hyundai AFTER informing the SA who handled the bodywork. Perhaps, he might try to offer a solution to you instead of you having to escalate. If he tries to wash his hands off, then first thing you can do is to escalate the issue. If that doesnt work, then I guess there is no other way out other than replacing the parts yourself or making another insurance claim.

If you want to replace the parts yourself, first check what the exact misalignment is(perhaps post a report here) and then find out which is the damaged/bent part. After that you can replace that part or a pair of it.

I tried replacing the struts on my car, thinking that they might be bent but that did not work out. Now I feel its a bent knuckle or lower arm. Hence, you can try the same approach instead of replacing the entire suspension, especially if your car is still not yet as old as to require a complete overhaul.

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by bhaskaracs

He strongly believes this is due to the previous accident and it went undetected during earlier repairs.
Need some guidance.

Frankly this is quite a tricky and peculiar situation.

One thing for sure BAGIC is not going to be involved in this as you have changed the Insurance co. So any help would come either from SBI or Hyundai workshop.

SBI would help only if you raise a claim which confirms your fears of NCB loss. If your NCB should be untouched then only Hyundai can help you with this.

Since the SA firmly believes that the damage is due to previous shoddy repair which again was done in an authorized Hyundai workshop, the same can be raised with Hyundai management who if agree can then direct the workshop to either repair or replace the damaged part as a good will gesture (for which the previous Hyundai workshop will have to agree and I don't think they would do so). This entire process would be time consuming if you are ready to fight for it. Get the SA's from both workshop in conference call and have a clarity on the issue. Involve Hyundai management either directly or through social media. What ever is the case stick to your decision.

Alternatively if you need the car quickly, raise a claim with SBI and get done with the repairs and do away with the NCB. Insurance is meant for such eventualities.

Its a heart vs brain decision. If you ask me, my heart wants you to fight for it so that this is not repeated with other customer. My brain says to save time, get the repair done and enjoy the drive.

I am in touch with one of my Insurance friend to get more meat in this argument.

[Jaggu]

14 to 15k i would say it is really not worth all the trouble. Just pay and replace those arms, or if you don't want to spend money get an old arm and plonk in new bushes.

If you want to raise a dispute, then follow what Ajmat has suggested. But not worth the effort in my honest opinion.

[ani_meher]

As long as you are finding damages while the insurance is being processed, you have a good chance of getting them covered under insurance, even if they were not mentioned in the first approval. But once the accidental work is over and you sign on the line 'all the work is done to my satisfaction', you are basically saying that insurance company has no further payment to make for this accident.


This unearthing of pending damages will mostly be rejected by the insurer. You may try to push this on the SC which did the accident work, but it may be a tedious process.

[ACM]

Am facing a similar issue right now with my EcoSport.

Drivers door was ripped by a passing car as I tried to open it. The repairs missed out on the glass winder channel / motor though the door was replaced.

Issue is further complicated by a later claim on the rear door for a dent and so both my zero dep claims for the year are completed. Can not reopen the door case.

The glass at times jams while going up and then rolls back down.

I'll probably quietly bear the cost myself.

For the case under present discussion I would suggest either a used part or new replacement paid out of the pocket.

Hyundai can maybe be pressured to bear part or all of the cost. At least Labour can be waved off by the dealer who made the error and missed the damage.

[suhaas307]

I have a similar experience to narrate, when my parked car was damaged by an errant driver.

Upon inspection by the service chaps and the insurance guys, we received a quote and sent the car for service. It was only after we received the car post repairs did we notice that the insurance guys, (probably in cahoots with the service guys, as Ajmat said) had deliberately left out inspecting the internal damage that was caused due to the hit-and-run incident.

If I were you, I would take Jaggu's advice as it's not worth fighting over this. 15k is too small a figure to arm-twist the insurance and service guys.