[Guna]

Looking at the way the bumper is deformed and snapped out in few places, they are likely to go for replacing the entire bumper. If you go to an independent garage, they can manage to bring it back to shape but I think some of the alignments/gaps will not be perfect.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by skillerpal

2. It occurred to me that I could get it repaired in a neighborhood garage given the damage isn't extensive, however i fear any future warranty/insurance claims might be voided/hampered because the car was worked upon in an unauthorized workshop.

3.Also, I might need the car soon to visit my ailing grandpa, which is another reason I want to get it atleast partially fixed and get the full repair done later, but that would again be an issue with the insurance/warranty?

Unless some major mechanical component has been damaged, this seems like a simple bumper replacement, and very likely, the wheel arch liner as well. There is no reason why this should affect warranty. Most workshops (at least those of some repute) have tie-ups with insurance companies so at the most, you won't get cashless but insurance shouldn't be a problem either.

The bigger problem here is availability of parts; unless the bumper can be easily straightened out so you can drive the car freely, FNGs are unlikely to stock a new bumper. I'd suggest going to the ASC with a mechanic to check out the issue for a temporary solution.

Beware, the ASC might sneakily charge a parking fee if you end up not getting it repaired from them.

[skillerpal]

Originally Posted by Guna

Looking at the way the bumper is deformed and snapped out in few places, they are likely to go for replacing the entire bumper. If you go to an independent garage, they can manage to bring it back to shape but I think some of the alignments/gaps will not be perfect.

I see, if a full bumper replacement is the way to go, I'll just stick it out with the ASC.

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Unless some major mechanical component has been damaged, this seems like a simple bumper replacement, and very likely, the wheel arch liner as well. There is no reason why this should affect warranty. Most workshops (at least those of some repute) have tie-ups with insurance companies so at the most, you won't get cashless but insurance shouldn't be a problem either.

The bigger problem here is availability of parts; unless the bumper can be easily straightened out so you can drive the car freely, FNGs are unlikely to stock a new bumper. I'd suggest going to the ASC with a mechanic to check out the issue for a temporary solution.

Beware, the ASC might sneakily charge a parking fee if you end up not getting it repaired from them.

The parking fee thing did occur to me, can't do anything about it now, the vehicle has been there for 20 days.

My biggest issue is somebody messing with the car, I've heard and read a few swapped parts stories and it alarms me especially that their is no acknowledgement of the condition the car arrived in at the ASC.

[sole_rider]

I never thought i will post anything ever in this thread. I just had an accident. A minor one. But Could have been a fatal one had i didn't swerve to the left. One scooter guy came on the right side on a blind corner at Agumbe ghat. I was going from Koppa to Manipal. He escaped with minor bruises. He was very apologetic. I am so lucky nothing fatal happened to him. He told his mother got an accident at koppa so he was on his way to meet her. He shared his pan card, phone number etc.
My right tyre got burst. Right mirror is gone. Right side of my car got several scratches and minor dents. I was lucky there was some shoulder space on the left side of the road so that i could safely swerve to save him.
Now I am stuck on a curve with a flat tyre. Please suggest what should be my next course of action? Can i drive slowly to a safe place where i can sit and change tyre?

[Sushil Pingua]

Originally Posted by sole_rider

Now I am stuck on a curve with a flat tyre. Please suggest what should be my next course of action? Can i drive slowly to a safe place where i can sit and change tyre?

Call your dear ones to this place of incident immediately and if you find anything/anybody aggressive against you call the local police - PCR van.
Looking at the pictures it doesn't seem possible for you to drive with a flat tyre.
So lock your vehicle and take a cab/taxi/tempo to the nearest locality and bring a mechanic along with you who can fix your car.

[sole_rider]

Originally Posted by Sushil Pingua

Call your dear ones to this place of incident immediately and if you find anything/anybody aggressive against you call the local police - PCR van.
Looking at the pictures it doesn't seem possible for you to drive with a flat tyre.
So lock your vehicle and take a cab/taxi/tempo to the nearest locality and bring a mechanic along with you who can fix your car.

That guy on the scooter already left. He told me he will pay for the damages. But from the small interaction i had with him i think he might not be able to.
I have only my sister at koppa. But i told her what happened and also told her there is nothing to panic. My major concern now is as i was going down, putting my car on the jack would cause it to slip.

[Sushil Pingua]

Originally Posted by sole_rider

That guy on the scooter already left. He told me he will pay for the damages. But from the small interaction i had with him i think he might not be able to.
I have only my sister at koppa. But i told her what happened and also told her there is nothing to panic. My major concern now is as i was going down, putting my car on the jack would cause it to slip.

Ok.
From your pictures the current location seems a desolate spot. If not then you can change the spare wheel yourself.
You cannot drive your car and take a flat tyre on a curve/turn.
To put the jack up you need to place big stones/bricks under all wheels to avoid the car rolling down and cause slippage.
If you can then take lift from some passerby and bring a garage boy from the nearest populated area to help you out.

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by sole_rider

That guy on the scooter already left. He told me he will pay for the damages. But from the small interaction i had with him i think he might not be able to.
I have only my sister at koppa. But i told her what happened and also told her there is nothing to panic. My major concern now is as i was going down, putting my car on the jack would cause it to slip.

Get some stones and chock the rear wheels. All 3 wheels if possible.

Plus get the handbrake on.

YOu should be able to safely change the wheel after that.

I was actually worried about you getting hit by another vehicle. Please ensure that the hazard triangle is put on the side where the visibility to oncoming traffic is sufficient.

I assume you know how to change a flat.

[sole_rider]

Originally Posted by sridhu

Get some stones and chock the rear wheels. All 3 wheels if possible.

Plus get the handbrake on.

YOu should be able to safely change the wheel after that.

I was actually worried about you getting hit by another vehicle. Please ensure that the hazard triangle is put on the side where the visibility to oncoming traffic is sufficient.

I assume you know how to change a flat.

Thank you for your support. I regained my senses and confidence. Now started changing the flat. Put warning triangle at a distance safe to me, put stones on all the tyres except the flat. Already loosened the wheel nuts.

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by sole_rider

Thank you for your support. I regained my senses and confidence. Now started changing the flat. Put warning triangle at a distance safe to me, put stones on all the tyres except the flat. Already loosened the wheel nuts.

Take your time man. Dont hurry; be careful when there is traffic.

DO let us know once you have safely changed the tires.

[sole_rider]

Originally Posted by sridhu

Take your time man. Dont hurry; be careful when there is traffic.

DO let us know once you have safely changed the tires.

I changed the tyre. Now i can drive again. Thank you for your support. My sister had a contact at Agumbe checkpost. He called me and asked me to go to nearest police station which is Hebri and inform this incident there. Otherwise i will not be able to claim insurance. Is this true?

[gischethans]

Originally Posted by sole_rider

He called me and asked me to go to nearest police station which is Hebri and inform this incident there. Otherwise i will not be able to claim insurance. Is this true?

Reaching out to police is not necessary unless there is damage to life. Insurance can be availed without that.

[sole_rider]

Originally Posted by gischethans

Reaching out to police is not necessary unless there is damage to life. Insurance can be availed without that.

Thank you. I contacted the service center. They also conveyed the same.

Originally Posted by sole_rider

He told his mother got an accident at koppa so he was on his way to meet her. He shared his pan card, phone number etc.

Apparantly this guy lives close to where I live. I realised this after I came back to my place. Also a lady had lost her life in a road accident yesterday in Koppa. From his address on the driving licence we confirmed that it's indeed his mother. We went to his house today morning to convey my condolences. I couldn't see the boy who was riding the scooter but we spoke over phone. He was still sorry for what happened yesterday.

[sole_rider]

A quick update on my car's insurance claim and repair process:

Car is still at Shruti Motors, Shimoga MASS body shop. I dropped my car there on 20th. They shared 31st as the expected date for the job completion. Luckily claiming insurance was a smooth affair. I was a little worried in the beginning of any additional legal formalities that may arise because of the involvement of another vehicle in the incident. But everything went smooth. Only sore point is, the response from the service centre and the SA was very bad. First three days I couldn't get any updates on the jobs carried out. I only received a few photos after multiple follow-up calls and a couple of calls to the maruti customer care and fianlly a call to the shop's GM.

Details of the works carried out:

From the above list you can see that they have added JK Vectra 205 60 R16 tyre as the replacement for the tyre I had on my car. My car has Bridgestone Ecopia EP150 175 65 R15 tyres as stock. Also they have entered charges for the right side mirror twice. They might be trying to trick the insurance claim or it could be a genuine mistake.

Only after going to the service center in person I will know the quality of the works as well as the real truth about all these things in the job card.

Originally Posted by sole_rider

He told me he will pay for the damages. But from the small interaction i had with him i think he might not be able to.

This person who was riding the scooter came to visit me after a few days. He is a 20 year old boy and was still sorry for what he caused. He was more worried when I told him I was actually planning to move back to Kerala by this month's end as my sister's internship have completed. So this incident is going to delay it. I tried to comfort him by saying he don't have to worry about the repairs because the insurance will take care of everything. I don't want to be a cause of concern for him as he was already grieving from the loss of his mother. He then offered me to pay the insurance difference amount and the NCB loss. Which I agreed.

Originally Posted by Sushil Pingua

You cannot drive your car and take a flat tyre on a curve/turn.
To put the jack up you need to place big stones/bricks under all wheels to avoid the car rolling down and cause slippage.
If you can then take lift from some passerby and bring a garage boy from the nearest populated area to help you out.

I actually rolled down a few hundred meters with my hazards turnedon expecting some more space on the side of the road where I can comfortably sit and change the flat. But as soon as I saw the sign board for the 14th curve, I parked my car to the leftmost side of the road and decided to change the tyre from there itself. By this time I was back to my senses. Some time later when I was tightening the wheel nuts back after putting the spare tyre, a person on his two wheeler stopped by and offered help.

Originally Posted by Sushil Pingua

From your pictures the current location seems a desolate spot. If not then you can change the spare wheel yourself.

You are correct. This place was absolutely desolated.This was between the 13th and 14th curve when going down. At first I was very worried to jack up the car. Maybe because of the shock I had from the incident. I was more worried about the person on the scooter. He was climbing up at a very high speed, completely on the wrong side of the road. Because of the speed, he couldn't handle properly so came super wide on the corner and hit me. After a few days of this incident when he came to meet me he revealed he was on his phone on his left hand and was controlling the scooter with his right hand.

Originally Posted by sridhu

Get some stones and chock the rear wheels. All 3 wheels if possible.
Plus get the handbrake on.
YOu should be able to safely change the wheel after that.
I was actually worried about you getting hit by another vehicle. Please ensure that the hazard triangle is put on the side where the visibility to oncoming traffic is sufficient.
I assume you know how to change a flat.

Thank you for these words. Yes, I did exactly this. I put stones on all the wheels, put the handbrake on, placed the safety triangle at a safe distance, also turned on my hazards.

Originally Posted by sridhu

I was actually worried about you getting hit by another vehicle. Please ensure that the hazard triangle is put on the side where the visibility to oncoming traffic is sufficient.

This was worrying me as well. Cars and other vehicles were going down very fast on the curve. Another cause of concern for me was that as I was stranded on a curve, most of the drivers won't be expecting someone stranded there. Also, because of the warning triangle, vehicles going down had to leave some space on the left side of the road. This can cause a surprise for the vehicles climbing up. So sensing danger, I rushed to change the flat and wanted to complete it as soon as possible and cleared the road.

Originally Posted by sole_rider

asked me to go to nearest police station which is Hebri and inform this incident there. Otherwise i will not be able to claim insurance. Is this true?

I visited the Hebri police station and explained the incident to them. I asked for an accident repair. They tried to contact the person who hit me but he was not picking up the phone then. So the police told me to come back next day, they will try again to contact the other person. They didn't want any more hassles to happen in the future if the other guy decides to file a complaint against me. But I didn't go to the police station next day after I came to know there will not be any problem for me to claim the insurance.

Originally Posted by gischethans

Reaching out to police is not necessary unless there is damage to life. Insurance can be availed without that.

You are right. Submitting forms for the insurance claim was a smooth affair. I submitted all the original documents - RC, Insurance, Driving license and Aadhar and PAN card at the service center, they took photo copies of it and returned it. Then I had to sign on some papers which they had prepared. THe next day the insurance surveyor called me and asked for the details also asked if the other guy who hit me had any injuries.

[VIZ]

My Maruti alto car met with an accident two days back in NH44 after Thoppur Tollgate in Tamilnadu. A car which was going one vehicle before us decided to suddenly stop in the middle of the highway and all the vehicles at the back had to brake emergency. I managed to stop in time without hitting vehicle at the front but a Bolero from behind rear-ended my car, as it was hit by a Swift from behind.

After checking with the local Maruti Mechanic at Thoppur, he informed us that car is drivable. He helped us to remove stuck bumper from tyre which enabled us to drive. We came back to my inlaws home at Bhavani, TN driving back 110KMs.

On checking with the local Maruti service center (Ambal service center, Bhavani), they quoted 60K for repair. After insurance claim, they informed me that I need to pay 30K from pocket. Another local workshop (Sri Sakthi Auto care in Kumarapalayam) quoted 25K for repair without insurance. They informed me that since I have Maruti Insurance, they cannot claim insurance and I need to pay the entire amount from my pocket. Another local workshop quoted 70K and I need to pay 35K after insurance.

All three service providers informed me that they need to completely replace back bumper, back dickey and front bonnet completely.

Can you pls advise which option is best?
Should I check any other good service center near Bhavani, Erode district?