Sorry to see this. If you are able to repair, i have a scottie donor car for mine (identical to yours). If i can help with any parts, feel free to PM me.

Thanks for the offer but having just moved some pipe work to have a better look at the damage I can see that the front end of the side rail is buckled. Gut feeling is that it isn't fixable without spending a lot.

If that is the case and I have to claim on the insurance, how does the excess work? Is it taken off the whole claim or just the damage to my car?

Anyone who has had their coop written off and bought it back here? How much did you get from the insurance and what was the buy back cost?

May be worth looking at C2D's thread.

Just to update; I took the coop to Rog yesterday and he pointed me towards the shop 100yards down the road that does his body repairs. They quoted about £500 to pull out the damage if I get the bumper/bonnet for them.

As I got in to drive the car over, the smell of the leather on the hot day gave me flashbacks of when I bought the car!

I'm giving the focus owner £500 cash and I'll be saving for a couple of months. When I've got some money saved I can decide whether it makes more sense to save the coop or buy a younger one and transfer the bits I like.

My heart says the former but my head says the latter at the moment. We will see.

Ouch. Number of times I have done what you have and slammed on the breaks just in time! Scared my son half to death!

She looks salvageable if you put in the effort. It annoys me that you pay for insurance and yet because of the dreaded write off you can't claim to fix your car.
If you have no claims protection then maybe claim for Focus car and take the write off money to fix your car?

No can do. 600 excess and my no claims isn't protected. Just handed over £500 to the owner of the focus. Not a nice feeling even though she was nice about the whole thing. I'm due some good karma soon.

Well I'm back on the road as of 5pm yesterday!

After acquiring a bonnet and bumper in the correct colour from a very nice forum member called Ash(if my usually crap memory for names serves) in South Ockendon, my repair quote dropped from £500 to £250. I gave the car to the nice people at Laindon Vehicle Repairs just down the road from PowerItalia at closing time on Monday and by closing time on Wednesday I was cruising home.

Apart from a couple of stonechips on the new bonnet and the fact that it takes slightly more coersion to shut, it looks great and god I've missed driving it!

Total cost of my 1 second concentration lapse:

Focus repair: £500
Bonnet, bumper, foglight and grille inc. delivery: £190
Body repair: £250
Puncture repair: £10
New bulbs, bits, bobs: £20

= £970

But I'd have spent more than that on the insurance hike if I'd claimed, I'm sure.

Thanks to everyone who offered help or advice. Truly a great forum.

Glad it's sorted Mike