Been pranged

[jumbojake]

my dashcam is a thinkware f770 ... it fits really snug to the glass, behind the mirror & hard to see outside the car ... the wires are totally hidden in the roof lining.... fed up of crazy BMW drivers onthe M25, woried about exactly this scenario.

[chr15gb]

My last car was a 5 Series, it was only when I bought that when I decided I needed a dashcam.
Accepting there are an awful lot of idiot BMW drivers, it is also true to say pretty much every other road use hates BMW cars and are out to kill them.
Seriously, it is crazy the amount of times I was getting cut up, my other half called my 5 Series the Invisible car such was the lunacy I faced whilst driving.

Since owning the Lexus, driving has become a much more relaxed affair, I don't get cut up anywhere near as much as I did in the BMW, hence I dawdled about fitting the dashcam.

I gave the Mobius to my daughter and bought a DDPAI (http://en.ddpai.com/m4plus.php) on the back of a Technoman review. I've had it about a year now sat in the garage.

I didn't want anything stuck to the windscreen but in light of recent events, I installed it yesterday.
I need to sort out the power as it is plugged into the socket in the centre arm rest. The supplied cable wasn't quite long enough so it travels under the passenger floormat lol.
I also need to sort out the bottom of the door pillar/dashboard segment as I couldn't get the cable hidden.

 

 

[Linas.P]

17 hours ago, chr15gb said:

I gave the Mobius to my daughter and bought a DDPAI (http://en.ddpai.com/m4plus.php) on the back of a Technoman review. I've had it about a year now sat in the garage.

I have DDPai as well, I just was not a big fan of looks of m4 Plus, so I have Mini instead (still 1080p @30 or 720p @60FPS).

What I like most - it is invisible from outside, so I am not worried somebody going to smash my window to steal it.

[chr15gb]

Car handed over to the garage this morning, estimate is £1,045 worth of damage.
Car will be with them for 4 days so I'll get it back early next week.

Called Insurance as I haven't heard anything, LV say the other guys Insurance haven't responded yet. They said they have to give it 14 days before escalating.

Ref the dashcam above, I am not at all sold on the DDPAI model I have either, it does look a nice unit, but not as a dashcam if that makes sense.
Early days yet but either I can't work it out yet or it doesn't function the way I woud like but on high settings, I can only get 2 minute segments, too short in my opion, I'd rather 5 minutes each at least.

Also the folders have tmp folders inside every option (video, pictures etc) all completely filled with hundreds of (what appears to be) duplicate movies or jpg.
It means on high settings I can only fit about 15 minutes recording on a 64Gb SD Card before it overwrites, that's terrible, but I might have something set wrong.

No idea what the jpg files are, they won't open on my PC or in any picture software I can find.

[Linas.P]

That is weird, mine one only has 3min segments, I cannot change it but I consider that just right. In 1080p I can fit whole week of driving ~ 10 hours, at 720p it would be like 16-17 hours in 32GB card. The .jpg are actually recorded there as icons for the app, but it doesn't generate them for me automatically - only when I connect the phone and try to download segments. It seems DDPai is designed to work with phone app, otherwise I don't believe there is other way to change settings - but that is actually what I was looking for. As for downloading videos I still take the card out as it is much quicker than wi-fi. I have 2x32gb cards and I change them every second week, so that if I get fine or something I would have 7-14days of evidence.

[dougie175]

1 hour ago, chr15gb said:

Car handed over to the garage this morning, estimate is £1,045 worth of damage.
Car will be with them for 4 days so I'll get it back early next week.

I wasn't for off with my it will be over £1000 worth of damage after all!

Hope everything goes OK with the repairs and you are happy with it when you get it back, if anything isn't quite right feel free to post some pics and I will help with how to approach the resolution with them.

[chr15gb]

Got it back today, looks okay to me but the light wasn't the best. I'll look more closely over the next few days.
The garage gave me a large bundle of paperwork but none if it details exactly what was done.

Still nothing from Insurance so at the moment I have lost my No Claims to get the car back.

 

[Linas.P]

Sorry for pointing that out,  I am sure you happy to get it back,

I might be wrong but it seems like quite a lot of orange peel on the paint. Now that is not necessary a bad thing - maybe they tried to match it to the rest of the car and not to make it completely flat as it would stand out too much. I don't know what was agreement as well - did they left it to fully cure before flattening ?

My point - as long as it matches with the rest of the car - is is good job, but from what I know Lexus have rather flat paint with less orange peel. 

 

 

[chr15gb]

I see what you mean about the orange peel.
I'm no expert by any stretch but I have tried to take pictures which show this effect on the rest of the car, very difficult to take a picture of.
Looking at a right angle, it looks a smooth mirror finish but from an angle, with the right reflections, you can see the same effect on the rear panels too.

I'm happy with the job they've done but I probably need to wait for a few rainstorms, bright sunshine, muddy, dusty cycles to see if it remains the same.

I looked all though the dashcam footage for anything of note whilst it was in repair but aside from setting some kind of World Record for the amount of times it went up and down on a lift there is really nothing to see. I know where their paint shop and detailing workshops are!

I've left these two pictures at the same resolution my phone took them at (4.5Mb each) so you can see more detail.

In other news, it passed its MOT today with no advisories :)

 

EDIT: doesn't really show it on the forum, it is more clear if you can zoom in.

[bobmc]

Glad you've got your car back looking non the worse for the experience. Hope you get sorted out with your insurance - I'm with LV as well but it's up for renewal soon so I'll see what the meerkat comes up with this time as I suppose they're all pretty much the same - when it comes to actually doing what you pay them for!

 

[Linas.P]

5 hours ago, chr15gb said:

you can see the same effect on the rear panels too.

As per my point above - the good respray not necessary needs to be flat, but blend in i.e. if other panels have some orange peel.. then it should have as well. Indeed it is quite hard to tell from pictures, but from your description it sounds like it blends in perfectly... which means  

Good luck and hopefully your insurance going to put it right for you..

[chr15gb]

Called LV again to chase it up.
The other party are disputing my claim but oddly (and fortunately) have acknowledged what lane he was in, they believe he was in the correct lane to turn off and are making further enquiries???

They said it could be another 4-6 weeks of dispute before it escalates to solicitors (if they haven't buckled and paid up by then).

[Malc]

I wouldn't hold your breath over this ..............  when i had, nearly 7 months ago, a zero damage to my car and 100% their fault gentle knock the Claims Managers said " soon "  and 6 months is " no time at all " in the world of insurance claims ............. AND we are not there yet !

and I'm not making a claim and the other party had their work completed at a cost of just under £1k and paid for it from their own pocket too

so I wouldn't bank on a quick and easy settlement tbh

Malc

[madasahatter]

5 hours ago, chr15gb said:

Called LV again to chase it up.
The other party are disputing my claim but oddly (and fortunately) have acknowledged what lane he was in, they believe he was in the correct lane to turn off and are making further enquiries???

They said it could be another 4-6 weeks of dispute before it escalates to solicitors (if they haven't buckled and paid up by then).

I had a right do with Lv protected no claims and tried putting a no claim against me.

 My old vehicle was hit on the road. Off street parking 3rd party admitted there fault and my vehicle was not repaired due to none genuine wheels.

Remember not my fault Lv sent a claims adjuster to my house. I was not claiming from them but the 3rd partys insurance. I never found who they were but

suspect they were insured with them also. That was 2 years ago car was a skoda vrs hit on back pillar by a van door caught by the wind. I live in a dead end

road. Name on company van was esh homes from the north east. They would not accept the quotes from painters i gave them. So good look with Lv .

[chr15gb]

Update:

Just got off the phone with LV.
The other driver changed his story and now claims he was going up the A4174 and I crashed into him.
LV have suggested as it has been countered with a different story of events, it is a 50/50 shared liability.

I cannot put into words what I think about the guy who hit me.

LV suggested I can take it to court on my own but have said that in cases like this it will certainly be a 50/50 from a Judge.

Advice, comments welcome.

[NemesisUK]

Your word against his, without witnesses it's always going to be 50/50

[chr15gb]

Yup, expecting someone to tell the truth seems a tall order in this day and age.

[Texas]

Simple  'Find' yourself a witness then.....

[rayaans]

Were there no traffic cameras etc?

When someone reversed into my father in law, I sent the local council an email to see if they could see anything. Luckily they did and sent me the footage with all identifiable things blurred out due to data protection but the main thing was that my FILs car was stood still whilst another car reversed and hit him.

[Linas.P]

13 minutes ago, rayaans said:

Were there no traffic cameras etc?

When someone reversed into my father in law, I sent the local council an email to see if they could see anything. Luckily they did and sent me the footage with all identifiable things blurred out due to data protection but the main thing was that my FILs car was stood still whilst another car reversed and hit him.

Good shout, but that seems to be a little late now...

What about driver changing story, was his previous story recorded anywhere. Just by virtue of the fact that he has changed the story it would already be prove that something is wrong.

As well was police informed? Am I wrong to assume that in case where drives disagree whose fault it is police should/could be called and should attend? 

[is200 Newbie]

A related question...

If you have an accident and you call the police to resolve or take statements etc. The other driver cannot wait and does or does not leave contact information before driving off but has actually stopped after the accident to see if everyone's all right or to see what damage is done, would this be classed as leaving the scene of the accident?

[chr15gb]

I did go looking for any traffic cameras after the event but couldn't see anything likely to cover the roundabout.

I have learned that rather than start taking photos, I should have hit the video Recording and captured the post crash discussion. It was completely about his rights to turn into the Retail Park so if I had it recorded, it would have blown his current pack lies wide open.

A couple of months ago LV informed me he had admitted to being in the right Hand Lane. I thought that was great news at the time but I have now found out he said he was in the right hand lane going the same was I was, up the A4174. He claims I moved into his lane hitting him.

I argued with LV that my lane is correct as I turn left a bit further up to go home so I had no reason to move into the right hand lane.

I'm also annoyed with LV that they would simply bend over. Despite all the moans from Insurance Companies about fraud, they seem to endorse the practice by not challenging in any way a statement which is, on the balance of probabilities, false.

Another moan about LV whilst I am on my soapbox, they have not contacted me once throughout all of this, I have phoned them everytime. All I have ever received is an auto generated email in response to the ones I have sent.

I'm still inclined to take the guy to Court out of principle.

[NemesisUK]

12 minutes ago, chr15gb said:

I'm also annoyed with LV that they would simply bend over. Despite all the moans from Insurance Companies about fraud, they seem to endorse the practice by not challenging in any way a statement which is, on the balance of probabilities, false.

Simple economics, it's cheaper for them to pay 50% than to fight in court, or chase, make enquiries etc, etc.

13 minutes ago, chr15gb said:

I'm still inclined to take the guy to Court out of principle.

Principles cost, not just financially either ... 

[Spacewagon52]

Did you have legal cover with your policy? Sorry if I have missed this point.

[royoftherovers]

9 hours ago, chr15gb said:

I did go looking for any traffic cameras after the event but couldn't see anything likely to cover the roundabout.

I have learned that rather than start taking photos, I should have hit the video Recording and captured the post crash discussion. It was completely about his rights to turn into the Retail Park so if I had it recorded, it would have blown his current pack lies wide open.

A couple of months ago LV informed me he had admitted to being in the right Hand Lane. I thought that was great news at the time but I have now found out he said he was in the right hand lane going the same was I was, up the A4174. He claims I moved into his lane hitting him.

I argued with LV that my lane is correct as I turn left a bit further up to go home so I had no reason to move into the right hand lane.

I'm also annoyed with LV that they would simply bend over. Despite all the moans from Insurance Companies about fraud, they seem to endorse the practice by not challenging in any way a statement which is, on the balance of probabilities, false.

Another moan about LV whilst I am on my soapbox, they have not contacted me once throughout all of this, I have phoned them everytime. All I have ever received is an auto generated email in response to the ones I have sent.

I'm still inclined to take the guy to Court out of principle.

Check to see if you have legal cover on your policy and confirm that it will cover your cosst of going to Court. If it does then when in Court, remember that he has to lie, thus committing perjury whilst all you have to do is tell the truth.