A3 end of lease damages query

[Rc1938]

Once again I am on this forum because I've done something to this car - I must be a terrible driver . I unfortunately had a run-in with a fairly large animal on a country road in the rain at night, leading to bump to my front offside wing - to be honest I'm lucky I only clipped it...

Anyway, it won't be long before I'm coming to the end of the lease on this car, so I am wondering what Audi is likely to be like regarding damage fees for this. I've been quoted upwards of £1.2k by various places to get it sorted (they all want to replace the wing and then need to paint match into the door etc) and I've read Audi's end of lease damage fees document which just seems too good to be true (£100 for a small component of damage and only £10 more for a large one, including "complete bumper"????).

Am I likely better off handing it back with the damage and seeing how badly Audi actually sting me or getting it repaired beforehand - this is my first lease so I'm not sure how they are with things like this? Anyone with any experience of handing back leases, particularly with damage like this, is appreciated as if I'm somehow lucky enough to only have this cost me £110 I will take it any day (who wouldn't lol)!

Very sad/embarrassing pictures for reference:

 

[KXL]

Ouch, not sure if you had already returned the car (and found out the cost) but I had a fellow parker in my residential car park that scrapped my bottom right front bumper area leaving white paint (said person denied it when I asked if they were willing to pay towards fixing that part of my car, though there was only 1 white car there and he also had some scratches on his bumper side facing me). Anyway for the Volvo V40 that I used to have, they charged me around £230 or something like that post collection inspection. Tried to appeal but was turned down. However they did not hit me with the £100 did not service the car fee. It was Covid lockdown time though.
Anyway in terms of the other car that hit me who denied it, during Covid he did not insure nor tax the car (as he was abroad) and probably did not declare it SORN. It got towed and disposed / sold on. That's Karma for you!

 

[Rc1938]

Ouch, not sure if you had already returned the car (and found out the cost) but I had a fellow parker in my residential car park that scrapped my bottom right front bumper area leaving white paint (said person denied it when I asked if they were willing to pay towards fixing that part of my car, though there was only 1 white car there and he also had some scratches on his bumper side facing me). Anyway for the Volvo V40 that I used to have, they charged me around £230 or something like that post collection inspection. Tried to appeal but was turned down. However they did not hit me with the £100 did not service the car fee. It was Covid lockdown time though.
Anyway in terms of the other car that hit me who denied it, during Covid he did not insure nor tax the car (as he was abroad) and probably did not declare it SORN. It got towed and disposed / sold on. That's Karma for you!

Yup it was not a happy day when I did it . It's not been returned quite yet so unsure of the cost, but I haven't had it repaired yet either. Having had zero experience with handing back a lease I am now just worried about the potential fees based on some horror stories I've seen on different forums about particularly nit-picky BCA/Manheim/etc inspectors! It does sound even from your experience that the financing companies seem to pick and choose what they want to charge for, which seems to be the general consensus I've seen elsewhere too :|

Glad karma got that guy, made you feel a bit better haha

 

[KXL]

Yup it was not a happy day when I did it . It's not been returned quite yet so unsure of the cost, but I haven't had it repaired yet either. Having had zero experience with handing back a lease I am now just worried about the potential fees based on some horror stories I've seen on different forums about particularly nit-picky BCA/Manheim/etc inspectors! It does sound even from your experience that the financing companies seem to pick and choose what they want to charge for, which seems to be the general consensus I've seen elsewhere too :|

Glad karma got that guy, made you feel a bit better haha

Saying that however the car before that (Seat Ibiza) was mint. I did scrape the front rims, but as they were gloss black, nail polish sorted that temporarily (lasts 4-5 months before touch up required). However I got a very mean inspector. He claimed there were dents on the side rear panel 3 door, so part where there is no door, greater than the requirement of wear and tear and will be billed. I protested and he replied something like 'well that's why I'm the inspector, I see things others don't.' I appealed and the person on the phone went through the pics with me, and decided, no charge and it was cancelled.

The A3 that just gone, had 0 stone chips, and 3 very minor door dings on front driver door, and one (quite deep) ding on just 2 inches from the front passenger door front panel, I should have mutiple curbed alloys but I rotated them @ 2 yrs and touched up with alloy paint. The inspector was very happy and said it's collecting mint cars like this where this job rewarding. I challenged him to find the one large ding, he went around twice and found it, but he didn't write it down, he said if he couldn't find it after 2 goes, not going to record it.
I didn't get any notice whether there were any charges £0 or whatever, returned end Aug, so going to assume no news is good news. £0 in damages.

My very first car a Seat Leon, had mutiple (un sightly) stone chips, several door dings (obvoius ones) and 3-4 obvious scratches. It was my first car though was wise to use the scourer side of kitchen sponge to remove bird poo. Left visible scratches, but made less visible after T-cut. £0 charge for that vehicle. Go figure!

So 3 vehicles returned with £0, 1 Volvo V40 returned with £200 plus of 'damages'

 

[Jsimba]

Once again I am on this forum because I've done something to this car - I must be a terrible driver . I unfortunately had a run-in with a fairly large animal on a country road in the rain at night, leading to bump to my front offside wing - to be honest I'm lucky I only clipped it...

Anyway, it won't be long before I'm coming to the end of the lease on this car, so I am wondering what Audi is likely to be like regarding damage fees for this. I've been quoted upwards of £1.2k by various places to get it sorted (they all want to replace the wing and then need to paint match into the door etc) and I've read Audi's end of lease damage fees document which just seems too good to be true (£100 for a small component of damage and only £10 more for a large one, including "complete bumper"????).

Am I likely better off handing it back with the damage and seeing how badly Audi actually sting me or getting it repaired beforehand - this is my first lease so I'm not sure how they are with things like this? Anyone with any experience of handing back leases, particularly with damage like this, is appreciated as if I'm somehow lucky enough to only have this cost me £110 I will take it any day (who wouldn't lol)!

Very sad/embarrassing pictures for reference:
View attachment 282647View attachment 282648View attachment 282649

From the photos, it doesn't look like the paint has been damaged, only the bodywork, is thst coreect? If so, you might find a paintless dent repair service can sort the damage out for you at a fraction of the cost of replacing the whole panel.

Many of them offer mobile services too and the results can be completely unnoticeable when complete.

Definitely worth looking into if you've still got the car and want to make sure you're not handed an unexpectedly large bill when returning it

 

[Rc1938]

From the photos, it doesn't look like the paint has been damaged, only the bodywork, is thst coreect? If so, you might find a paintless dent repair service can sort the damage out for you at a fraction of the cost of replacing the whole panel.

Many of them offer mobile services too and the results can be completely unnoticeable when complete.

Definitely worth looking into if you've still got the car and want to make sure you're not handed an unexpectedly large bill when returning it

Yes it purely is the bodywork, no paint damage. I will look into it as I agree a whole new panel seems excessive when the paint is perfectly fine

 

[Simon50s]

If it was me, I'd probably go for the dent removal service to make it as less visible as possible at minimum cost.

Years ago I bought an ex-lease Ford Focus from my company straight from lease company at trade value and collected it from the driver. It had a small dent on one rear wheel arch which I think he was nervous about. I assume that was already taken into account with the price I paid. Anyway, it was in a really awkward place and would have cost me several hundred to get fixed. Paint wasn't broken and it wasn't that noticeable so I never bothered getting it fixed LOL. I think the lease company was happy to get shot of it without having to arrange any repairs themselves. My first and last Ford after many issues with it later LOL.

 

[JKP]

It's indeed amazing what the professional PDR fixers can achieve. I've used them twice and both times the result was completely flawless. The guy who did the first one, a small dent on the fender of my old Golf, even said that there was a small "scar" left after the fix but I couldn't see it myself at all. That cost me only €150 (more expensive nowadays though), less than what my insurance deductible would have been. The dealer's repair shop would have billed €750 of fixing it by painting, and I guess the result might not had been as good.

Got that dent in the airport parking. It wasn't very nice to come back from a holiday just to find out somebody had damaged my car.

 

[Simon50s]

I’ve only once used a dent removal service. Years ago when I had a Peugeot 306 with several minor body dents. They came to my workplace and removed them all without leaving a trace. It was well worth the money. It’s impressive what they can do.

 

[Rc1938]

I've inquired with a few PDR people near me and all of them are saying it looks "too far gone" to be able to be sorted with PDR
No one else seems to agree that it can't be pulled out apart from the people I ask to sort it haha!

 

[JKP]

Of course there's a limit to what can be done by PDR, but it's an art of skill, so the most handy guy might get it sorted even if somebody else says it's impossible. The dent I had on my Golf didn't look like much but the first PDR guy told it can't be done since there's a double layer of sheet metal folded. The another guy who fixed it didn't see that as a problem at all.