Serious rant alert!

Spent a couple of hours washing and polishing the tin top on Saturday afternoon. Had it looking brilliant.

Sunday spent the day in the sun, with the car parked in a very secure car park, covered by CCTV, alongside a dozen chauffer driven limos.

Monday go to site, car still perfect.

Tuesday go to site, car still perfect.

Wednesday, go and have a look at a few new enquiries. Car still perfect.

Wednesday afternoon the car is parked right outside the house. At 2.30 pm swimbo comes home from work. Walks right past my car, no damage.

3.00 pm the next door neighbour's roofer arrives to put a new chimney pot on the stack. He accesses the roof via a bleep off set of ladders. He works up there until 5.00 pm when he packs up and goes.

5.20 pm we go outside to get in the car to go for dinner. There's a massive scratch in the bonnet and a crease!

It's about 2 foot long! Not only is there a scratch but a grey plastic / rubber substance ingrained in the paint / scratch.



And isn't just a scratch, it's creased the bonnet too!



In this shot you can see where the car was parked and where the chimney pot the roofer was working on are. He put his ladders in the garden, just below the satellite dish to get access to the roof.



I've spoken to the roofer, who came back round to see the damage, and he's totally denied it. However he didn't have any ladders on the roof of his van when he came round (left them on a job!). He also says he didn't see of hear anyone else hit / damage or walk past my car.

What do I do? He's adamant that it wasn't him. I'm not convinced that the damage to my car was caused by a passing ufo / meteor / act of god / random vandal at the exact time he was working on the roof.

Anyone know where to start cleaning it up? I've got some T-cut out the back.

I've got the blokes number and I know where he lives...

Mike

It's one hell of a co-incidence! Tricky thing is short of going to the small-claims court you've not got much come-back and even then you'ld need to show balance of probabilities. going to be tricky without a witness....

Bloody nightmare. I sympathise with you, had similar when some scrote drove into my car in hotel carpark, didnt see damage till i got home and had to claim off insurance.

I cant help thinking the plasticky rubbery stuff could be off the ladder foot. probs most likely cause when he was putting ladder back on van. Bloody nightmare. I think you need a camera on your car connected to old PC (memory).

Ive got some G3 / G10 you can borrow, also have my mates polisher here too needs new mop). Might be best to get a quote off dentmaster or similar.

ring dent devils and chip away etc etc and send him the bill.

find yourself a "witness"

Ray

Send the bill to your next door neighbour. He employed the roofer. He invited him to do the job. Let him sort it out.

prove it was the roofer - if you can't then it could have been anyone (ok, very likely the roofer but you can't prove it).

sending the bill to the neighbour is the best way to destroy any good will between the two of you.

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeR
prove it was the roofer - if you can't then it could have been anyone (ok, very likely the roofer but you can't prove it).

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scratch the cr@p out of his van, or use paint stripper don't let anyone see you! thats what i did when someone hit my car with there van door and put a dent and scratch in my door, it was obviously who it was and the guy is a d1ck so he had it comming

Your neighbours roof seems to be a right pain - or was it the other side you had grief with before?

Sounds like you dont have much choice than to get dent master in and hope it wont cost much to fix. Maybe a camera would be a wise investment. I dare bet you have some spare memory capacity on that mahooosive server you bought recently to keep a weeks worth of footage. Coozer has set up a similar camera recently iirc.

Stick an axe through his van roof, see if he can fix that.........

[Edited on 17/7/09 by Regsmonster]

looks like you have to take that on the chin if you have not any witnesses.

can you be 100% sure the damage was not don elsewhere?

any cars in area subjected to random keying?

did the roofers van park in from of your car?

the ingrained rubber could be the ladder feet - the roof above neighrbourrs bay window loooks like its needs finishing so the roofer may be back - may be a goot opportunity to take a peak at th latter feed.

I have to admit I have trouble visuallising how the damge could be done by ladder.

as for sending bill to naighbour? why? unless neighbour did the damage, he has nothing to do with tradesmen causing damage to your property.

it's a pisser for sure, ben there ...