Rob7seven
Senior Member
My formerly pristine C300 was slightly damaged in a minor collision on a French roundabout a couple of months ago. In the small town of Dinan in north Brittany, a young French girl in a Fiat 500 attempted to pass on the left hand side, and then cut across in front of me to head for her exit. Not a good idea as the road wasn’t really wide enough, and in any case she misjudged it badly, scraping the whole side of her car along the left front corner of mine. Damage to mine was limited to one end of my front bumper, and a cracked headlight glass, and as I discovered when I drove away, slightly deranged steering geometry, the wheel had got a hefty thump, but no airbags. Gendarmes were called but weren’t interested, no photos or reports. Once details had been exchanged, they advised me to leave, and physically restrained two members of the watching crowd who seemed to be friends of the young girl. My car wasn’t really safe to drive, the steering was a bit vague, so I parked in a side street and sought help. Mobilo were no help at all, the nearest MB Dealer in St Malo said that they wouldn’t be able to even look at the car for two weeks, and AXA Assistance were uncontactable. I tried to call them on the Euro and UK numbers I had, but no calls were answered, this was at about 6pm in France, 5pm in the UK. My UK Insurers tried the same numbers I’d called, with the same result. They also called their usual contact at AXA, who failed similarly to get any French phones answered. Anne and I were forced to spend the night in our car, and with some difficulty, I sorted everything out myself the next day, recovery, a quick repair and our future hotel accommodation, and all in French of course, mechanics everywhere tend to not be multilingual.
Now I’ll come to the real point of this post, damage to my left light assembly is confined to the 2 inches or so of the glass at the side, which is intact, but extensively cracked. I went to see Startech, who will be having the car in for a service and MOT next March. Their guy thought that the MOT tester might consider that the cracked glass could obscure the turn signal if viewed from the side of the car, resulting in a fail. The lights all work perfectly, there’s no damage to anything other than the glass, so only the indicator light could be minimally affected. The car is a 2020 C300 W205, and is it possible to get damage of this kind repaired? I checked eBay, and there is replacement glass advertised at about £40 each, but all made in Lithuania, and the suppliers’ feedback isn’t encouraging, so that’s out. I have to get the car repaired, but is there any UK alternative to a new unit at about £1400, probably around £2000 or more all-in.
Helpful advice please!
Now I’ll come to the real point of this post, damage to my left light assembly is confined to the 2 inches or so of the glass at the side, which is intact, but extensively cracked. I went to see Startech, who will be having the car in for a service and MOT next March. Their guy thought that the MOT tester might consider that the cracked glass could obscure the turn signal if viewed from the side of the car, resulting in a fail. The lights all work perfectly, there’s no damage to anything other than the glass, so only the indicator light could be minimally affected. The car is a 2020 C300 W205, and is it possible to get damage of this kind repaired? I checked eBay, and there is replacement glass advertised at about £40 each, but all made in Lithuania, and the suppliers’ feedback isn’t encouraging, so that’s out. I have to get the car repaired, but is there any UK alternative to a new unit at about £1400, probably around £2000 or more all-in.
Helpful advice please!
