[ChiragM]

UPDATE

I totalled my i20 N Line



Long time no update to this thread so here is a big one.

It was a fateful Saturday in early July 2022 when some of us decided to head out for breakfast early in the morning towards Belur Cross. The drive to the place was calm and peaceful accompanied by pleasant weather.

On the way back towards Bangalore is when things went wrong. I was right in between a few of my friend's cars, and because I was in the middle, I felt safe (Big Mistake). I distinctly remember this just seconds before the impact. We were all on the left lane overtaking another slow car on the right lane. I had maintained a good distance to the car in front. I had been asked this question - no, I was not distracted. I was not on my phone. The phone was low on battery and was charging. I had both hands on the steering wheel as well since I driving at speed. Unfortunately, the car in front of me lifted off the throttle. Brakes weren't applied so there was no visual indication. Without me realizing it, the gap between my car and the one in front reduced a little. I realized this only after the accident. The car in front proceeded to change lanes from the left to the right, overtaking a tractor in front of him. The second I saw the tractor and its trailer, my instinct was to brake hard. The road was not wet and I braked in a straight line. But the car slightly slid to the right, I overcorrected and it slid left, I overcorrected again and it again started going right. The car on the right lane was now much faster than me and went ahead. Meanwhile, the vehicle was going towards the median. The front left corner hit the right rear corner of the trailer. The rear of the car went up and the car landed perpendicular to the road on the right lane. I remember the impact, the car going up and landing back. I remember the airbags being deployed but no recollection of the deploying noise (I think the impact noise was high enough), no recollection of what people say is a distinct smell of airbags, no recollection of that smell even after I entered the car multiple times to retrieve my belongings. Also, thankfully, the car did not go to the opposite side of the road.

It took me only a few seconds to unbuckle my seat belt, grab my phone and get out of the car. Even though the impact was on the left, I saw that the right front tyre had completely come off the rim. I walked towards the back, went around the rear, saw the damage, crossed the road and went to the side of the road. Cars behind me were already parked and people were out. I just told them I am ok. I saw the tractor driver sitting on the side but I din't interact with him. Since I had people I knew around, they took care of the tractor driver. Due to the impact, he had fallen off the tractor and the tractor had gone down to the side and onto the service road and had stopped there (the main road is at an elevation when compared to the service road). The trailer had absolutely no impact damage, not even a scratch. Everything was borne by the car, resulting in such severe damage.

While some people took the driver to the local hospital in Kunigal, one person stayed back with me and the car. A patrol car from the local police station arrived and they said that it looked like a case of a tyre burst. They disconnected the battery. I tried calling Hyundai RSA but the connection was poor and I could not reach them at all. The cops meanwhile arranged for a tow truck. The towing vehicle eventually turned up and the car was towed to Kunigal police station. Most of the large broken parts were dumped in the car.

While I was waiting at the police station, I took a close look at the car. Regardless of the safety rating, I am happy with the way the car performed. I could see that the energy went right around the car and the roof without damaging the cockpit (except for the intrusion from the trailer). Even though the impact was on the front left, even the right rear three-quarter panel was damaged. The only bit of the car intact was the tailgate. I did not have a scratch on me, just a red mark near my neck due to the seatbelts. There were glass pieces all over me and the locals and cops at the accident spot asked me to remove and dust my shirt. SEATBELTS ARE A MUST, that is the main reason I came out alive and without injuries. Over the next two weeks, my nose hurt due to the airbags. A week after the accident, I visited the hospital just to have a chat with the doctor. I knew I had no internal injuries and that I should have gone earlier to the doctor. But the doc said I was completely all right. I also avoided airbag burn injuries due to my distance from the steering wheel. Seating position is important and don't sit too close to the wheel. My glasses got slightly bent due to the impact.

Even the rear right fender was damaged:












Even though the impact was on the left, the right wheel had come off:


Coming to the tyre, I was told that the stock Seat SecuraDrive tyres were crap and was asked to replace them ASAP. But I thought I could run it for sometime and decided to keep those. Its not just me, there have been other instances of i20s running these tyres lose traction under braking. A Hyundai service centre also later told me that they have had other accidents as well on cars running these tyres.

Things at the police station stalled as they realised there was an injured party. The station was right next to the district hospital so I went there to see how the driver was doing. I learnt that he had a hairline fracture and that he had to be taken to a private hospital a good 20-minute drive away. While some people took him to the hospital I went back to the police station. Meanwhile, some of my close friends reached Kunigal and after the people I knew who were helping me left, we went to the private hospital and met the driver to bring him back to the police station as they needed his statement as well. At the hospital, he underwent some scans, including a brain scan to ensure that there were no internal injuries. He was cleared of all issues and was allowed to leave. The hospital refused to give me his records as it was an accident case, but I took care of his bills. My friend and I took the driver and his son, who had turned up at the hospital, back to the police station. On the way, they wanted us to stop near the accident site and some people he knew joined us. They claimed that the trailer's axle was damaged by the impact and that it would take Rs. 50,000 to fix. We decided not to pay there and went to the police station. The cops were not really helpful with the situation and once it became clear that I would not pay and that I was ok filing a case, they became aggressive inside the police station premises, I paid them to avoid any untoward incident and they left promising not to file any case. Meanwhile, I needed an accident report from the police station and they were pushing me to not file an FIR and instead claim that the car hit a pole. With some push from my parents, we decided to sleep over this and return on Monday.

The car at the police station. The car was only 6 months old at the time of this incident:


Back to the police station on Monday. When they heard that we were to file an FIR for insurance reasons, the injured person's party showed up with a lawyer. The cops took their own sweet time to file the FIR. The tractor also had to be present during the time to file the FIR. It showed up with a temporary registration and no trailer. Once the FIR was filed, the next order of business was to get the vehicle released by cops. For this, we needed the approval of an officer sitting at the RTO to verify the damage. We got the documents ready for this, including printed copies of the wrecked car lying in the station. The RTO was in Tumkur and we went there around lunch and got the approval from the officer there by evening. The tractor owners also showed up as they had to follow the same procedure to get the vehicle released. I later heard that they had submitted false photographs and the officer caught it and refused to clear their release (I am guessing this has something to do with the temporary registration of the tractor). It was dark by the time we started back to Kunigal. Knowing that this was near the end of the procedure, I began contacting RSA for a towing vehicle to get the car back to Bangalore. It was around this time that I got a call from Hyundai stating that they had detected airbag deployment and called to check if I was doing ok (very quick Hyundai). We went back to Kunigal police station and submitted the documents and had the car released. However, there was a continuous delay in the tow truck reaching us and it was late night by the time the truck got there. It took sometime to winch the ruined car onto the truck and we were on our way to Bangalore. We reached Blue Hyundai showroom at around 2 am and we woke up the guards. We took the car near the service bays and dropped it there. It was a challenge to get it down from the truck as it was stuck and could not be pushed down owing to the damage. The car was then started and I noticed a transmission malfunction error on the instrument cluster. We could not move the car into the parking bay and since there was no one around to help, we left. The towing was free only to the nearest service center. Since the car was brought to a service center of our choice, we were charged for the extra kilometers.

The next day, we visited the service centre to see the car parked on the side. We met the bodyshop guys and filled out the insurance form. That was it and we left. First, from the insurance company (Bajaj), a person came home to take details of what happened and gathered photos of the incident. They then went to the crash site and matched the photos. A surveyor was assigned by the insurance company and was a point of contact for me. He was also known person for the service center guys. The service center then went ahead and got an estimate done, but took their own sweet time and needed multiple follow ups from me and the insurance company. The repair estimate came to ~10.3L and with GST and Labour, it was ~12.45L. My biggest gripe was that the car is equipped with a DCT but the estimate mentioned a case for a manual transmission. When questioned, Blue Hyundai service center mentioned that the DCT and manual are the same

This is where things got tricky with insurance. Ideally, if the claim is 75% of IDV, it results in a total loss. My claim amount was 75% of IDV. But then, I had RTI. For cases with RTI, my insurance company said that the claim amount should be 75% of the total RTI value (this includes ex-showroom + road tax). I disagreed. Now, knowing about the error message on the transmission, I asked the showroom to investigate the damage to the DCT and add that to the claim. I was pretty sure that the impact had damaged the internals of the gearbox. But the showroom refused to do so. They refused to touch the gearbox without prior approval from the insurance company. On my insistence, the insurance surveyor visited the dealership again in my presence to check the gearbox along with the service center. But only a visual inspection was done and it did not reveal any damage. There was no inspection of the damage on the inside, and the damage, if any, would be revealed only after repair. With the insurance company pushing for a repair, the service center tried to help me with a salvage buyer to get rid of the car and lessen losses, but I put this offer on the back burner to get to it if needed. They also clearly told me that if this car is repaired it is unlikely to be without issues.

At the same time, the bank my parents worked for had a tie with the same insurance company. They reached out to some senior ups and they must have sent in a message to the insurance company. While I was ready to fight with the insurance company on the 75% of RTI value comment, they reached out to me one day and mentioned that the RTI was approved. That was a huge relief for us. My parents wanted to take the full cash instead of a new car, but the cash loss option under RTI would give us a couple of lakhs less. So we decided to go with the new car option.

The next step was to sign with notary seal a few documents which the insurance sent us. At the same time, it was up to us to get the RC canceled by the RTO. The documents for this was provided by insurance. From the insurance POV, we only had a few days to do this but the RTO's ETA, if I remember, was somewhere around a month. We explained to insurance that it cannot be fast forwarded, and at the same time, dad went to the RTO regularly to push for the cancellation letter. We also reached out to a contact for help, but never went to an agent. Eventually, we got the letter.

Since it was RTI, the insurance company asked for three different quotations for the same car. We got three quotations, one each from Blue, Trident and Advaith. Incidentally, the lowest quotation was from Blue Hyundai, the same dealer I originally bought the car from and the same dealer where the car was now parked. Since the original car was a dual-tone, the booking had to be made for another dual-tone, but it was later changed to a single-tone variant. We also learnt during a small puja that I should not buy blue cars. So this time, we gave the dealer the colour choice between white and grey - whichever comes first.

Insurance identified a scrap dealer to buy the car, and once he had taken the car, they would pay the full amount. There was a lot of confusion here. The scrap buyer initially paid us the money but this was not accepted by the insurance firm since we would be getting a new car. We returned the money and when the scrap buyer paid the showroom directly, the showroom refused to accept it saying that the money has to come from our account only or the insurance firm. After a lot of back and forth, the insurance firm agreed to take the money from the scrap buyer and pay the showroom directly.

Now this is where I felt the Blue Hyundai service center could have been more transparent. Since I was in close touch with the sales team, they helped get us an approval from the service team for ~50% deductions in the parking charge. This was 30k+ by now. This was given on a condition that I buy the new car from them again. I was happy with this since I knew the parking charge was coming. But when we went to pay the bill, a ~20k estimation charge (~2%) was added to it and a ~50% discount was given on the total. In the end, I had to pay a large sum for both together. Still, fair enough as a showroom is expected to charge that. However, when I saw the bill, the estimation charge was shown as Rs. 5,000 and there was only a slight discount on the parking charge (not 50% as discussed). A known contact in the industry told me that dealers are not supposed to charge more than 5k as estimation charge and reflecting this in the bill ensured that I cannot escalate it to Hyundai. Also, Hyundai's policy could be entirely different from what my friend mentioned. I am really not sure.

Now all that was left was for the insurance to pay the balance fee and get a new car delivered. However, this took time, and time is something we did not have on our side. This time, my parents mentioned that we should not take delivery of the car between Dec 15th and Jan 15th due to auspicious reasons, we did not look at this last time. I gave the deadline to the insurance company and the dealership to source the car. Blue Hyundai managed to get a white i20 N Line N8 DCT and mentioned that the grey would take more time. After a lot of follow ups, I got a mail from the insurance company on Dec 14th morning that the payment to Blue Hyundai was done. The dealer on the other hand, was all set to deliver a brand new i20 to us and I made the balance payment. They had added the accessories, and even gave me complimentary door scuff pads and door visors. I did not want the door visors so I had that removed. The car had to be registered on 14th itself and due to a lot of cars being registered, the RTO portal crashed. The Blue Hyundai sales team, to their credit, stayed back late and tried registering from multiple devices, and even had people in other Blue Hyundai showrooms trying to register. In the end, the payment went through at 8 pm and we took delivery of the car. I returned a few days later to install number plate, fastag, and distribute sweets to the sales, service and bodyshop teams.

Under RTI, the insurance paid the ex-showroom and road tax of the new car, and also returned a part of the insurance amount paid for the old car.

To their credit, Blue Hyundai did a lot of things right and ensured good communication throughout. But I must make a special mention to the sales team at the Mysore Road showroom. The entire team went above to help with the insurance work, even communicating with the service heads on my behalf, and did everything possible to ensure that I took delivery of the car on the 14th.

In between all this, I had to visit the Kunigal court as I had the case against me pending. When my case came up for hearing and I went in, the judge asked me to pay a fine and told me to be careful while driving. The injured party meanwhile applied for a third-party insurance claim, asking for Rs. 25 lakhs. The case dragged on till April 2024 and they were finally awarded Rs. 2.5L.

After checking with the insurance firm, we also applied for a road tax refund from the RTO as the RC was canceled. We decided to let it take its time and not follow up regularly. After ~1-2 months, the refund, on pro rata basis, was credited.

All set for delivery:




At the temple the next day:


This time, the first thing I did after the temple formalities was to take it to Madhus and have the tyre changed:


Changed to MRF Perfinzas:


Tyre change in progress:


New shoes:


The white car is now more than 1.5 years old and has run 15,XXX km. I will detail my experience in another post at a later date.

Many thanks to my family and friends, and multiple BHPians who helped me through this process.

[sai_ace]

Chirag, that was an eye opener. Glad you are safe. Wishing you many many safe miles in the future with your new i20.

Also, glad you chose to discard those OEM tyres immediately - once bitten definitely twice shy.

For everyone else, let this be a reminder to ditch OEM tyres asap if it warrants. no point knowing that the tyre is bad but still living with it.

[freakmuzik]

That is some intense experience and super glad you were out all safe! Thank you so much for sharing this with us here. Such an eye opening experience and I'm sure no one can relate to the experiences you had to undergo.

It is saddening to see such procedural hiccups and delays still and the poor intervention of the police and all that threatening to add. Each time I tend towards the thought that things have drastically changed, I end up seeing such experiences from all sides that really brings down the confidence in the system. The RTI episode, the tractor guy, the policemen - if only everyone had more integrity and honesty, your process of 6 months might have gotten over in a month or a little more. I sincerely pray for humankind to become better. Sorry to go off topic but I really feel sad for the state of affairs and the emotional and physical pressure you had to undergo.

May your new car give you all the joy and infinitely many happy kilometers ahead.

[hemant.kamat]

@ChiragM Glad you're safe and thanks for sharing this with us.

@GTO Please consider moving this post to it's own thread. It will serve as a guide to those claiming Return To Invoice (RTI) during total loss

[shrk_18]

Glad to hear that you are safe. It requires immense courage to narrate an incident like this.

Thanks for detailing out all your experiences. This shows how the system is rotten to the core. If the police were doing their job in an honest manner, you would not have so much trouble. Most of the pain points are due to police non-coperation and inefficiency.

Wishing more miles with your new car

[ChiragM]

Originally Posted by freakmuzik

It is saddening to see such procedural hiccups and delays still and the poor intervention of the police and all that threatening to add. Each time I tend towards the thought that things have drastically changed, I end up seeing such experiences from all sides that really brings down the confidence in the system. The RTI episode, the tractor guy, the policemen - if only everyone had more integrity and honesty, your process of 6 months might have gotten over in a month or a little more. I sincerely pray for humankind to become better. Sorry to go off topic but I really feel sad for the state of affairs and the emotional and physical pressure you had to undergo.

Originally Posted by shrk_18

Thanks for detailing out all your experiences. This shows how the system is rotten to the core. If the police were doing their job in an honest manner, you would not have so much trouble. Most of the pain points are due to police non-cooperation and inefficiency.

Originally Posted by DasAuto1985

Glad you are unhurt and that is what matters in the end. It is sad and sickening that the police force are still, well don't want to use unparliamentary language here. They see someone just out of a traumatic incident and the only thing that runs in their mind is how much money can we get out of this. Pathetic!

Originally Posted by subho10

3. Looks like police was hand in glove with the opposite party. How was the settlement done in police station.

Thank you everyone. Since I am seeing messages on police inefficiency so I wanted to comment on that.

Yes, the police could have done more than what happened, but I think things could have gotten a lot worse than it did. Initially, to one of the cops at least, it looked like I came from a city to a small town, injured a local farmer and tried to get away with it. Once they realised that is not the case, they calmed down and talked to me nicely.

The police also were very helpful through this. Without their cooperation, this could have dragged on for a much longer time. Please note, I got the car out of the station on the first day itself. To me, this itself talks a lot about the cooperation. Yes there were some issues but these are expected in situations like this and in no way am I blaming the cops.

Coming to the insurance, the team I worked with mentioned that this was their first RTI, so it was new to them as well. They have to go through their hurdles also, while being cooperative with their customer - me.

I wanted to list out all of the things that could gone wrong so someone who is going through the same issues knows what to do and what is coming. I must say that everyone from the cops to the insurance to the RTOs to the Blue Hyundai sales and service teams did a wonderful job through this entire episode. Hiccups and delays are expected due to the procedures that need to be followed.

Also, I missed mentioning, thanks to the wonderful work by the Blue Hyundai sales team, I took delivery of the car without doing a PDI. Firstly, in all this, I did not have time for a PDI, and them being transparent + helpful gave me confidence to place my trust in them.

[Rohit_Quad]

Holy !! That is one scary ordeal. Thank god you came out of all the mess in the end.

[DasAuto1985]

Glad you are unhurt and that is what matters in the end. It is sad and sickening that the police force are still, well don't want to use unparliamentary language here. They see someone just out of a traumatic incident and the only thing that runs in their mind is how much money can we get out of this. Pathetic!

[subho10]

Horrible crash. Grad to see you come out safe from it. The car has taken the hit well and there was no cabin intrusion as all the crumble zones did what it was meant to do. Sometime these NCAP rating does'nt portray real world situation.

Few questions
1. Did the tractor including the trailer had valid registration papers and insurance. Trailer also need separate RTO approval.
2. Did police verify license of the the tractor driver.
3. Looks like police was hand in glove with the opposite party. How was the settlement done in police station.

[ChiragM]

Originally Posted by subho10

Horrible crash. Grad to see you come out safe from it. The car has taken the hit well and there was no cabin intrusion as all the crumble zones did what it was meant to do. Sometime these NCAP rating does'nt portray real world situation.

Few questions
1. Did the tractor including the trailer had valid registration papers and insurance. Trailer also need separate RTO approval.
2. Did police verify license of the the tractor driver.
3. Looks like police was hand in glove with the opposite party. How was the settlement done in police station.

I agree. The car took the hit well and did its job.

To answer questions 1 and 2, no. I did not pay attention to these points. I am not sure what transpired between that party and police on this.

[Gotcha]

That's a pretty bad crash and it feels sad to see the car in that state but thankfully you're safe. So the main cause of the accident was poor braking due to the CEAT tyres? I've already heard a lot of complaints about them having more road noise and wearing out sooner. One of the reasons why I bought a base i20 Magna is only because it came with conventional steel wheels and OEM Bridgestone tyres.

Originally Posted by ChiragM

Coming to the tyre, I was told that the stock Seat SecuraDrive tyres were crap and was asked to replace them ASAP. But I thought I could run it for sometime and decided to keep those. Its not just me, there have been other instances of i20s running these tyres lose traction under braking. A Hyundai service centre also later told me that they have had other accidents as well on cars running these tyres.

[Vikash Kumawat]

Glad to know that you are safe, seatbelts play main role in an accident, In this March seatbelt saved me in a car accident which doesn't have airbags.

This process of insurance claim and too much rounds to showroom, too many calls to Insurance Company, police station, courts are too hectic and energy draining procedure, I can imagine the amount of stress you have gone through ( or maybe going ), I hope you are now recovered and enjoying driving your new N line.

[nidhin0816]

Glad that you came out safe from this incident and have the confidence back to drive again.

During panic braking its important to stay in straight line, irrespective of whatever tyres you were on wrong steering inputs will result in losing complete control.

Ceat Securadrives are pretty good with wet and dry grip this is based on my usage in extreme rains in Kerala and complete dry weather in TN.

There could be many things that went wrong that resulted in the crash such as the speed carried, the steering inputs, the braking, reaction time etc.

Hyundais aren't known for their braking either.

Wishing You a Million miles with the new Nline.

[MotoBlip]

The accident sounds terrible, but I’m glad you're safe and have recovered. The entire ordeal sounds like so much work, happy to hear that the chapter is now closed and you can enjoy your new car. I don’t know much about total loss cases, so I have a question—apologies if it sounds insensitive. You mentioned applying for RC cancellation and receiving a refund. Was that refund supposed to be transferred to the insurance company? I assume since they paid for the new car’s road tax, they’d want that amount back.

[rpunwani]

Thankfully you were unhurt and there was no loss of life - the tractor driver also was saved with a minor injury.

Kudos to you and your family for following the correct procedures with the police, insurance company and RTO.

Totally agree that seatbelts are a MUST at all times.

I too had a bad experience with JK tyres on my Mitsubishi Lancer in 2003. On two consecutive days, the car spun around on hard braking. Thankfully no one inside the car or outside got hurt and no damage to the car. Came back to Mumbai and changed tyres to Michelin.