Pop Up Hood Activation - Shocked at cost of repair

[xcdriver]

Back at the end of January I had the misfortune to collide with a large roe deer on a country road in Dorset. The car was recovered the next day and taken to a body shop in Exeter. There was no damage to the bumper , grille, or lights, only the pop up hood had activated.

Just over a month later I have the car back, and when I picked it up I asked for a copy of the bill that my insurance company paid. The cost shocked me. I was expecting it to be in the £4 to £5k range after reading other posts on here, but it was way more than that at a total of £8304.30 with the VAT. The parts cost alone came to over £5k!

My car is a low mileage 2016 is300h Advance so the repair was authorised, but if it hasn't happened already I would expect an older high mileage example to be written off for this.

 

[ColinBarber]

This is why our insurance premiums are going through the roof. Everyone from manufacturers, body shops, hire companies and dealerships all making easy money from insurance work. 

[Bounce75]

That is absolutely ludicrous, there should be an investigation into this sort of profiteering.

[Notamech]

Honestly its very similar to whats happening with health care insurance in the US. And frankly no one cares because we live in corporatocracies where insurance companies have strong lobbies. 

[CypressPhil]

Wow, that’s a crazy amount! Makes me want to fit some of those ram bars that they fit on Police cars in the states. They’d also be handy for dispensing instant justice on people who don’t merge in turn!

[DBIZO]

On 3/3/2024 at 8:20 AM, xcdriver said:

Back at the end of January I had the misfortune to collide with a large roe deer on a country road in Dorset. The car was recovered the next day and taken to a body shop in Exeter. There was no damage to the bumper , grille, or lights, only the pop up hood had activated.

Just over a month later I have the car back, and when I picked it up I asked for a copy of the bill that my insurance company paid. The cost shocked me. I was expecting it to be in the £4 to £5k range after reading other posts on here, but it was way more than that at a total of £8304.30 with the VAT. The parts cost alone came to over £5k!

My car is a low mileage 2016 is300h Advance so the repair was authorised, but if it hasn't happened already I would expect an older high mileage example to be written off for this.

 

The pop-up mechanism with controls alone is probably £2k plus labour, yes. Plus you need a new hood. I narrowly avoided it to activate, but some cable come lose and the ECU reported error. The ECU alone is quoted at over a grand I think, but luckily, it was not an actual ECU incident just no signal. In car over 5 years, in an accident, the pop-up hood activation can easily push the car into write-off territory when added to the repairs. A feature that doesn't benefit you and is a joke when you have 2.5-tonne people mowers roaming the streets.

[tvshacker]

It happened to me also recently, but I didn't hit anything. I was going through a bit of a rough patch of road, but I didn't feel the impact of going over a significant hole or bump and the hood popped. The dealership found some scratches under the front bumper and assumes that's what caused it.

I'm exchanging emails trying to get more details about the incident: exact speed I was driving and how the system is supposed to work (if there's a speed from when the system activates) etc.

Some years ago I hit another car from behind and the pop up hood warning came on, but it didn't actually pop the hood, and that time the front bumper was cracked, so I'm a bit "flabbergasted" at my situation.