This is a friendly reminder to all you car lovers out there to be wary of the insurance company you are dealing with. I will be leaving Shannons and taking all our 3 cars and our home and contents insurance policies back to GIO or AAMI as soon as our policies expire.
Please take the time to have a read of our recent experience:
We are not going to deal with Shannons insurance (Suncorp) anymore as they are absolutely hopeless in handling claims on behalf of the customer. They took our car to a dodgy workshop of their choosing who claimed to replace and fix some engine and electrical issues after flood water damage in the April 2015 storms, but the car went back 4 times for the same check engine and traction control error codes on the dash. We were left dealing with the workshop directly to fight to get our car repaired properly for 3 months. Shannons wouldn’t write the car off because their policy states that if the interior of the car doesn’t get effected by water, then they can repair it.
History: Flood water went over the bonnet and into the intake manifold (into the engine) and engine bay electrics so they said that they could have that fixed for less than writing the car off (which is insured for $8900). So they spent money on paying the workshop to clean the engine, pull apart the intake, replacing filters, oils, change alternator, removed and cleaned sensors, removed ABS brake sensors and replaced ABS module etc and the problem still existed!! For 3 months we have been waiting with our car in and out of the workshop whilst they were trying to diagnose and chase the same reoccurring electrical fault.
We were advised that if I had opened the door and water came into the interior of the car, it would have been an instant write off. I answered why would I be so stupid to open a door and exit a vehicle with my 14 year old son in dangerous flash flood waters with trees and power lines coming down around us and with debris flying around in high winds? Looking back now we should have just opened the bloody doors and let the water come in and risk walking home in the torrential rain and high wind storm, however all power was out, streets were cut off with downed power poles and trees and not even the mobile phone network was working to call for assistance. So we stayed in the car whilst I kept trying to start it and managed to get it out of the water and hobble it a block or so home kicking and screaming as it was not happy moving at all.
Anyway, after 3 months of it being off the road for weeks on end at the workshop trying to diagnose and fix it, then coming back and forth to our home only to find the problem still existed, then waiting days or a week for re-booking it back in whilst the car lay dormant in our front yard, we got sick of the non-action from Shannons to represent their customer!!!
They had already committed to repairing the vehicle and spent $$ on having work done, that the last thing Shannons wanted to do was to pay us out the insured amount of $8900. They didn’t even supply us with a replacement vehicle to use in the meantime. They are a joke of an insurance company when it came to this particular scenario. I'm sure that if the vehicle was involved in a smash or water entered the inside of the vehicle it would have been written off immediately, but for what we had to endure without a 2nd family car for kids weekend sports, getting lifts from other people, reorganising our weekends around one car only, work etc it was terrible.
In the end the workshop got jack of the car that they pushed it aside in the corner and didnt touch it. When we pressured them for action they went quiet for a while then came back to us with a bullshit story about water leaking from the heater core unit onto the ECU (which is protected by plastic sheeting anyway) and that it was a 'maintenance issue' and not covered under insurance. Mind you, they 'allegedly' already looked for water leaks under the dash and from the firewall when it first went in for flood damage assessment and they couldn't find any evidence of water in the car whatsoever. However now, all of a sudden after 6 weeks in their possession there is radiator fluid leak in the footwells??? They quoted us $4600 for repairs for the replacement of the heater core unit, ECU, modules, labour etc!! I got so pissed off that I claimed that they purposely pressure tested the system and blew the heater core to cause that because the problem was not there previously to my knowledge. I later found there was evidence of a small drip leak over time, but nothing that could have wet the ECU or made us aware of the problem as our carpets were dry. Anyway, I picked the car up and noticed a great amount of radiator fluid soaking the carpets that wasn't there before the floods nor after the floods, but it was there now!! The assholes blew the heater core unit wide open. I know for certain we had no electrical issues prior to the floods, but now, they claimed the ECU was damaged from a severe water leak. Oh and whilst they had the car all this time, it ran out of rego in July.
Angrily we picked the car up and I bought a wreck at my own expense to do the work that they had quoted us $4600 for. Therefore I replaced the heater core, replaced and recoded the replacement ECU (which showed no evidence of water damage or burns on it etc as it was covered by plastic) and I also replaced TCL module and the problem still existed!! It had nothing to do with the original ECU as I had suspected because it never got wet!! So I just spent my own money, time and effort to do the work that they quoted us $4600 for and it still didn't fix the problem!!!
So I took the car back to them again with exactly the same fault it went in for originally. Two days later they call us up and said that the car was fixed and that it was ready for pickup. I asked what was the issue? They said it had a faulty ABS module - which is something they claimed they had replaced weeks earlier.. and that was it!
So basically we went through 3 months of bullshit, spending my own time and money on repairs etc, for them to turn around and say it was a faulty ABS module??? And Shannons didn't do a thing to help its customer try to recoup costs for time and monies spent on repairing a vehicle that had a misdiagnosed fault! This is bullshit!
I suspect the workshop quoted a high repair cost on purpose in order to have the car written off. They simply just wanted the thing gone because it took up space in their workshop for so long and they couldn't diagnose the fault. However, Shannons kept pressuring them back to fix it because the assessor had already committed Shannon's money to carry out repairs and they didn't want to end up writing the car off in the end and lose more $$ in a payout.
So the person who loses out here on both accounts is "ME"... "THE CUSTOMER". Lost time, rego, monies, weekends, insurance, frustration, everything.... including possibly a lost engine too!!
Now the car is back in our front yard, unregistered and unloved. I can understand why my wife has gotten jack of it and doesnt want to drive it anymore.
Me on the other hand, I just spent money on the bloody thing to fix it. So I guess we are at that stage of whether to re-rego it, or get rid of it.
The exhaust stinks bad and I suspect the engine internals are damaged, but the car has 300,000kms on it so no proof of flood water damage as the engine has so many kms.
I do have a 130,000kms replacement engine and transmission for it from the wreck though.
I guess it depends on my wife whether even if I change the engine and transmission over, if she still wants to keep the car, but I don't think she does now.
So here I am again, probably going to spend more of my time and effort and money fixing it just in order to sell it - yet another cost to me brought about by dodgy workshops and crappy insurance companies.
Screw them all!!
Edited by EVO-00X, 09 August 2015 - 02:37 AM.
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Im not sure whether to fix it or sell it off for parts at the moment but let me know
