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[mojo]

More advice needed im afraid fella's.

Some months ago a careless BMW delivery driver drove me off the road causing me to slam my omega onto a raised pavement.
The subsequent damage was to my two front tyres, also requiring  two new wishbones  & a new stabiliser arm. The Airbag light also came on.

As it happened the crazy driver who appears to make a habit of night driving without lights or indicators shares the same insurance company with me.

Initially the insurer messed me about, so i had the car repaired at my own cost & then claimed the invoice value back from the insurer.
The garage did warn me he wasnt sure if he could make the Airbag light dissappear.  But I needed the car back on the road asap so told him to go ahead.  After driving it a round a few times it kept illuminating, & so said garage would use tech 2 to clear the light but it would reappear.  

Now my insurer are saying this Airbag light fault was not  a consequence of my encounter with the raised pavement & was probably a coincidence or unrelated according to their engineer.  He has based his decision on seeing the Estimate and Invoice and without ever inspecting the car, claiming
 ".. the vehicle only has only sustained light damage to the suspension it could not have interfered with the airbag or its electric's."

I some knowledgeable peops on here need to tell me if there any sensors or w.h.y. which could have made this airbag light illuminate once I whacked it on  the kerb.  
It was a pretty heavy whack, but fortunately my good ole omega is as solid as ever.  I mean, just trying to keep the car on four wheels resulted in a hairline fracture to my wrist, which was in a sling for 3 weeks.

Is it worth getting an independant engineer involved, or should I just take the insurers decision  on the chin?

[FRE07962128]

More advice needed im afraid fella's.

Some months ago a careless BMW delivery driver drove me off the road causing me to slam my omega onto a raised pavement.
The subsequent damage was to my two front tyres, also requiring  two new wishbones  & a new stabiliser arm. The Airbag light also came on.

As it happened the crazy driver who appears to make a habit of night driving without lights or indicators shares the same insurance company with me.

Initially the insurer messed me about, so i had the car repaired at my own cost & then claimed the invoice value back from the insurer.
The garage did warn me he wasnt sure if he could make the Airbag light dissappear.  But I needed the car back on the road asap so told him to go ahead.  After driving it a round a few times it kept illuminating, & so said garage would use tech 2 to clear the light but it would reappear.  

Now my insurer are saying this Airbag light fault was not  a consequence of my encounter with the raised pavement & was probably a coincidence or unrelated according to their engineer.  He has based his decision on seeing the Estimate and Invoice and without ever inspecting the car, claiming
 ".. the vehicle only has only sustained light damage to the suspension it could not have interfered with the airbag or its electric's."

I some knowledgeable peops on here need to tell me if there any sensors or w.h.y. which could have made this airbag light illuminate once I whacked it on  the kerb.  
It was a pretty heavy whack, but fortunately my good ole omega is as solid as ever.  I mean, just trying to keep the car on four wheels resulted in a hairline fracture to my wrist, which was in a sling for 3 weeks.

Is it worth getting an independant engineer involved, or should I just take the insurers decision  on the chin?

No, I would not accept the insurance companies conclusion.  Your car was involved in a significant collision with a kerb, and did suffer mechanical damage.  The jolt did produce a fault with the airbag light (is the bag itself ok?; with such an impact was it not on the point of inflation?!) and so is part of the accident damage.  Therefore your car should be repaired to as it was before the accident.

What does the Vx dealer state on this?  May be worth getting advice from them.  Whatever happens I would fight this one!

[Mr Skrunts]

The problem here is that your company has cover on both drivers and seems obvious they just dont want to pay out.

Do you have Legal Cover on your insurance, if so then look into the options and get a free 30 minute consultaion with a legal solicitor.

By getting a colsutation you will be able to find out your options, from what I can see they are going for a low cost get out which is not what you pay your insurance for.

[Kevin Wood]

Absoutely it's a consequence of the accident. Point out that with the light on, an important safety system has not been re-instated after the accident and is now disabled.

Maybe the airbag had been triggered by the accident but failed to deploy?

However, I'd get the codes read out of the airbag ECU first. That might well give you some more ammunition.

Kevin

[mojo]

Thanks for all your quick responses.
Lizzie Zoom, cheers for the encouragement, I normally would take them on, but just dont fancy a fruitless game of, litigattion letter ping-pong, just  now.

Skruntie, I  did originally think this was the case so I wrote to the CEO.  The Executive office who are more polite than their claims dept, are also agreeing with their engineer.
They state as they werent involved in the accident repair and are so "in a somewhat compromised position"

Kevin, I wil find out from the garage what the code is and post back, but are you aware, techincally that is, if there are any sensors which could make this occur.  As the garage was saying, maybe the insurance company's qualified engineer knows for definate from the sensor/switch positions this could definatley not be caused by the incident.

 :-/

[Kevin Wood]

The code from the airbag ecu will tell you. I would say that either they have messed up during the repair and disturbed a connector or the ECU was shocked during the accident - maybe not in the correct circumstances to trigger the airbag, but such that it's now in need of replacement as it may be compromised.

Was the airbag light on immediately after the accident or after the repair?

Unfortunately, not handing over responsibility to the insurance company for handling the repair has probably weakened your position but it's still worth trying.

Kevin

[Albert1]

Unless things have changed in the insurance industry since I left my Claims Manager role, repairs under a comprehensive cover policy aren't affected by whether the insurer can claim their money back off a 3rd party (i.e. it's irrelevant that both drivers are with the same insurer).  Only the extras that are deemed "uninsured losses", e.g. a hire car similar in size to your car instead of a group A/B courtesy car, etc etc are affected by whether costs can be recovered from a guilty party.  In short, your insurer's stance isn't affected by who the other driver is insured with.

Unfortunately, whilst your legal cover people can give you general advice in this instance, they can't take up your case as the legal cover can't be used against your own insurer, and certainly not in a dispute with them about what is covered under your comprehensive policy.

The good news is that it looks like a case of under-educated numpties at the insurance company missing the bleeding obvious, namely that you're not claiming the airbag is damaged or has gone off or whatever.  It's the airbag sensor at the front of the vehicle that is damaged; so point out to them that it's the sensor itself that you want them to replace.

[perfferle]

Hey,
Just to add - The airbag light will also be on if the seatbelt pre-tensioners have been activated. You may want to have these checked.
Regards,
Stephen