Discovery Insurance – Paying a R500 premium over Outsurance for dreadful service from panel beater (Renew-it Bedfordview)

I had an accident on the 21st of May and unfortunately for me my car was towed to Renew-it Bedfordview and Discovery allowed my car to be sent to such a poor service provider.

From the damage assessment report it was quoted it would take 15 business days to repair and Renew-it Bedfordview also communicated to me that it would take 10-15 business days to repair. I only received my car after it had been in for repairs for 17/18 business days. This affected me in arranging my own transportation as my car-hire had expired long ago as it took 8-13 BUSINESS days after the accident occurred for Discovery to approve the claim and for the repairs to begin– the difference in these business days is what Discovery and Renew-it Bedfordview has told me. That is an entire 25-31 business days to fix my car, for all the *********** people at Discovery and Renew-It Bedfordview there are about 21 business days in a calendar month, so you can now work out how long I was without a car BECAUSE OF YOUR POOR SERVICE due to my car-hire only being 30 calendar days long.

But that isn’t the end of this review, this is just the beginning.

When I first came to collect my car from Renew-It Bedfordview I had arrived at 7:30 in the morning. I inspected my car with Kyra (from Renew-it) only to find at least five easily visible polish defects on my car within five minutes of inspecting it. Kyra told me it would take five minutes to fix the issues… I waited 15 minutes and then Kyra told me they can’t fix it now, they need to keep the car for the day because they need to use the blow mould machine. Kyra offered me a driver to take me to work at about 8am and said I had to wait for their driver who went to Pretoria. I asked Kyra what time the driver would be back, she said it depends on traffic. I looked at the traffic and there was none so I thought the driver would arrive soon. Then at 9am, I had been at Renew-it for 90 minutes, only then did Kyra come and tell me the driver would only be back at 12pm. I then took an Uber to work and arrived very very late… Thank you Kyra. Renew-it Bedfordview then paid me back what the uber had cost. Renew-it could not organise me a lift home though and didn’t offer to pay for my trip home which I wouldn’t have needed if they had just actually quality checked my car. For there to be over five defects on my car, means you never checked the quality. HOW ON EARTH DID YOU NOT SEE GREY POLISH ON A WHITE CAR!

I came back the next day to collect my car only to see that Renew-It had caused new damage to the frame of my driver door window. Renew-it again did not quality check my car, I had to find this damage on my own. Renew-it offered to send a person to my place of work to fix the car there that afternoon and I took possession of my car and their person fixed the damage that Renew-it had caused. When I drove home from work that day I noticed that my car was making a loud consistent noise originating from the frame of the driver door window. I had to return to Renew-it again for a third time to get this fixed.

When I arrived at Renew-it Bedfordview for the third time for them to fix my car we had noticed that a panel that was disassembled to repair the damage that was fixed at my place of work was not correctly assembled back and was causing a noise. One of the repairers at Renew-it said it would take 5 minutes to repair and I would have no further issues. I waited there for 20 minutes for them to fix it. Kyra then returned my car to me promising me that there was no more noise. Literally the second I put my foot on the accelerator there was a noise and you had just told me there was no noise. YOU LITERALLY **** TO MY FACE. I drove to work as you guys had already caused me to be late to work for a third time. I visited Renew-it Bedfordview for a fourth time, returning my car. I told them to keep my car for the day and actually make sure that it works as intended. Only now did Stephanie, the manager get involved! She collected my car and organised for a driver to take me to work. Stephanie called me in the afternoon and said they needed another day to fix the car and that the driver door was not properly aligned and that that was causing the noise. WOW what a surprise! I LITERALLY TOLD DISCOVERY IN MY CLAIM THAT MY DRIVER DOOR COULD NOT OPEN AFTER I HAD THE ACCIDENT! So again no quality check was done to my car to ensure it was properly fixed. You never checked to see that my car door was properly aligned and it was making noise while driving the entire time and you never checked to fix that. Anyway Stephanie in that same call offered a driver to pick me up from home to take me to work the next day. Stephanie called me the next day at 9:30am saying they needed more time to fix my car and I asked about the driver she promised to organise for me and she said she didn’t have a driver available. I needed to get to work, I also have a job Stephanie and Kyra – do you think I have a car to sit at home all day and do nothing. The uber cost me R150 and I have told Stephanie in person and on email that Renew-it needs to re-imburse me that cost. She said she would ask the director and I haven’t heard back from her. You literally caused this expense you need to pay for it! Once Renew-it had fixed my car they drove it to my place of work and I accepted the car back.

Then on the 22nd of July I took my car for its annual service to Suzuki and I asked Suzuki to do a thorough inspection of my car because you just cannot trust the workmanship of Renew-it Bedfordview. Suzuki “Inspected and found rust forming on the front right chassis leg @ area that was repaired” (quoted verbatim from Suzuki). So tell me why is there no rust forming anywhere else on my chassis? Perhaps Renew-it caused damage to the protective coating on the chassis where the rust is now forming because the rust is only forming where they did the repair. So I emailed Stephanie, and I cc’d Kyra and Tricia (who handles complaints from Renew-it Head Office) on the 22nd of July informing them of the rust forming on my car only where they made the repair. Tricia rep**** asking Stephanie and Kyra to investigate and 8 days later on the 30th of July I have not heard back from Stephanie or Kyra regarding when they can fix this issue that Renew-It Bedfordview has possibly caused!

I have since left Discovery Insurance due to such poor customer service and quality of repair and I have gotten much cheaper quotes from Outsurance and Naked who both quoted me R500 per month cheaper quotes at approximately the same excess.

So Discovery tell me: 1. Why are you charging a R500 premium for such dreadful customer service and quality of repair? 2. Why are you sending cars to an organisation that clearly does not perform quality checks on the repairs they make to vehicles never mind causing further damage to the car?