Unprofessional service

I was involved in an accident on Solomon Mahlangu drive in the area of Castlegate shopping center during rush hour traffic between 7h30 and 8 in the morning. Traffic came to a sudden stop, I had to apply sudden brakes to avoid crashing into the next car and the car behind me, a Volkswagen Polo could not break in time and crashed into my rear end.

I could drive the car back to my house which os 5 min away and immediately proceeded to submit a claim with Santam.

The car was assessed and booked for repair at All Star Autobody on 13 March.

Repairs were not yet completed when I went on leave on 5 April and I left the car and collected on 25 April. I paid the excess which Santam also initially told the panelbeater was an amount of R4000 which I paid, just to state a couple of days later that it actually is R5000 and the panelbeater needs to collect it from me. No person from Santam phoned ot apologised for the error and inconvenience except my broker , Me van der Linde.

I drove the car for 2 days when I became aware of a noise of metal grinding on metal on my right rear wheel. I also subsequently sustained a puncture of my right front tyre and took the car to Menlyn Tiger wheel and Tyre for repair on Friday 28 April. The wheel alignment technician immediately asked me whether the car had been in an accident as he could hear something on the back wheel that sounded like “diff damage”. He advised me to immediately take car back to panelbeater which I did on 28 April.

They kept the car for more than a week to “reassess” and telephonically informed me that “something was wrong on the diff” but that they doubted it was due to the accident and they were also not alllowed to do work on that kind of diff. Subsequently no report was showed to me despite numerous requests.

I was left to my own device to book the car with Jaguar and have it assessed as it was now undriveable safely. I had the car assessed on 25/05- Jaguar did a thorough assessment reporting a dented diff and metal shavings in the oil most likely due to rear impact . (See report attached..).

Now it is 3 months since the accident and I can not drive my car.

My car was taken for a full service for 96000 km service at Jaguar Menlyn on 23/02/23 and declared in perfect condition. I experienced absolutely no issues until the accident of 08/03/23.

During the repair process, the panelbeater also replaced the exhaust with a pirate exhaust claiming this was okay as the car was out of manufacturer warranty. The manufacturer warranty expired on 29 April 2023, 4 days after the car was returned to me the first time, so this claim is false. Secondly, I pay insurance so in the event of an accident I can get my car repaired to the state it was prior to the accident, otherwise I would not need to pay an insurance premium and drive the car to a cheap backyard panelbeater and have it repaired cheaply.

The bottomline is that my car was in perfect condition until the accident of 8 March and now undrivable.

The assessment of the car was was faulty in assessing the extent of the damage sustained due to the accident. The panelbeater committed ***** by using pirate parts and not returning my car in a drivable condition.

Up until now Glenwood brokers, specifically Annemien van der Linde and Izak Croukamp have been trying to help, but every day goes by and they and me get no response from Santam. I still have no car, have been paying my Santam premium, also paying my car and never used the rental car facility allowed on my policy.

I am very disappointed in the service from Santam. This claim has been handled very unprofessionally.

Currently other than my broker’s telephonic confirmation of complaint received I have no evidence Santam is even investigating the matter. I have been diligently paying my premium and my car instalments and had no car to drive.

Sent from my iPhone