Salvage

Back in July I and my mum went out for a day trip to Weymouth which despite some jiggery-pokery involved in parking the car was a very pleasant episode, until it concluded being bumped from behind by another car at a roundabout outside Wareham. To me, braced against the pedals and steering wheel, it didn't feel like very much, but we ended up going to the hospital to make sure nothing too deleterious had happened to mum - not the best end of the day's proceedings - and the car's boot door was nastily buckled.

There was nothing mechanically wrong with my not-very-old Renault and my intention always was to keep it going for a few years until electric vehicles become a little more feasible for the ordinary consumer, so I was a bit dismayed when the AA announced that they were unwilling to fund a repair. The garage was obliged to quote for the maximum amount the work could possibly cost, more than the value of the car. As I didn't want to scrap a perfectly decent vehicle for the sake of a buckled door, what I had to do then was negotiate over a price to buy it back from the AA so I could get the work done myself. As a vehicle which had been technically written off, it would then have to have a new MOT test to declare it roadworthy. 

The garage has had such a Summer backlog of work that the repair has only just been done, and after everything has been taken into account and the new MOT test carried out I have actually emerged with a profit of a few hundred pounds, although I would rather not have had the bother. I imagine many people would just have accepted that the car be scrapped and taken the AA's valuation to get another, but that seemed so very wasteful to me. I do have a bit of a horror at throwing things away unless they are worn out, especially in These Times.