Quote from: Splash and dash on January 27, 2026, 11:11:42 pm

Quote from: AuRavelling79 on January 27, 2026, 10:12:24 pm

My Van is Cat S. My wife's car is too.

But it was me driving when the little scrote pulled across in front of me and wrote it off.

That was July 2023.

Insurance (with Howdens/A-Plan) no different.

But. I know what happened. If I didn't then I would want to be very sure it was thoroughly checked over by a competent person and try to find how it happened.

I also have a Cat S VW Touran! Saw the Transit slowly reverse into it and crease the front wing. As it was 19 years old it was written off.

Got paid £1300 after buying the salvage for £300. Got a pre-painted new pattern wing for £150 and paid Dan the Man £300 to fit it.

But. Again - I saw it happen in 2025.

Cat s is structural damage and or suspension damage so a dent only in a wing isn’t cat s

That's what I said to the insurance company. They insisted it was because it was a significant dent and 'might' have caused damage to the inner wing and/or suspension (it didn't but I didn't definitely know until the wing came off) the value of damage exceeded the value to repair.

It’s very easy to assess if the inner wing and chassis  leg are damaged by simply lifting the bonnet and taking a look the crumple zones will clearly be damaged,  to check quickly and simply if there is suspension damage just measure the wheel centres both sides of the car that will show up anything untoward in a couple of muinits , I was a sprayer / panel beater years ago and we used to do the assessments for several insurance companies

Went up to VW in Glasgow, they had a VIP event to sell vans. Ordered a suspension bolt that fell out when I didn't tighten it enough. £16 for 110mm bolt so nothing seems to be cheap now. Took a test drive on the new Crafter, it was great but everything seems to be on the screen like adjusting the heating. There is a button to start the van rather than a key. All in all that's the way forward but it still has a dry belt and made in Germany so I will need to save up.

I have the Berlingo, have had 4 over the years. I have a 450 tank which is plenty for my work, rarely run out of water. There’s quite a few models with different payloads, make sure you get the highest rated model which I beleive is 950kg payload, drives like a car even fully loaded.

On my old 04 plate citroen relay I could just splice into the return to tank fuel line. The return pipe went all the way to the bottom of the tank.
Then there was a change in eu regulations for manufacturers and this fuel line now wasn't to reach to the bottom of the tank.

On my 62 plate Peugeot Boxer, I had to remove the fuel pump, drill and fit a connector/adaptor with a pipe down into the tank, and connected my heater to that. I had to be careful how I routed the pipe to the bottom of the track so it won't interfere with the fuel level sender unit. That pipe also wasn't too go to the bottom of the tank.

My van has an inspection cover plate inside the driver's cabin floor. So I didn't need to drop the tank. Not all vans have this inspection cover. In that case, the tank has to be lowered/removed.

The other part of this new eu regulation for fitters was that they weren't to drill a hole in any part of the tank that was plastic to fit the standpipe. They could only do this if the tank was made of steel.

This is a bit of a minefield.

There is/was a video on YouTube of someone showing how to fit a standpipe into the plastic tank of a Citroen Relay by partially dropping the fuel tank. He also made a scoop to collect the plastic cuttings from the drilling process so those those didn't drop into the tank. He removed the fuel pump to do this.

Quote from: AuRavelling79 on January 27, 2026, 10:12:24 pm

My Van is Cat S. My wife's car is too.

But it was me driving when the little scrote pulled across in front of me and wrote it off.

That was July 2023.

Insurance (with Howdens/A-Plan) no different.

But. I know what happened. If I didn't then I would want to be very sure it was thoroughly checked over by a competent person and try to find how it happened.

I also have a Cat S VW Touran! Saw the Transit slowly reverse into it and crease the front wing. As it was 19 years old it was written off.

Got paid £1300 after buying the salvage for £300. Got a pre-painted new pattern wing for £150 and paid Dan the Man £300 to fit it.

But. Again - I saw it happen in 2025.

Cat s is structural damage and or suspension damage so a dent only in a wing isn’t cat s

That's what I said to the insurance company. They insisted it was because it was a significant dent and 'might' have caused damage to the inner wing and/or suspension (it didn't but I didn't definitely know until the wing came off) the value of damage exceeded the value to repair.