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I've got a dilemma....
About a month ago I crashed my van called Bumble which I did quite a bit of work on. As can be seen in my blog: http://eru-bumble.blogspot.com T:T:T:
When it was towed away I stripped all the important valuable things off it for fear the garage would steal them or not see their real value. So van is now a basic plumbers van missing stuff like alloys, lowered springs, clear lights, head unit, ect. In fact most things apart from the non removable stuff like the two side windows, sunroof and tints.
The crash was a front end damage:

Chassis looks possibly 'ok' so might be repairable via a new front end - hmmm. Engine seems to be ok i.e. no visible damage, although the radiator has been pushed back to about 1cm in front of it.
Insurance have offered £1500 (think I should dispute this?) for the van and stated I could then pay £150 (+£45 to redeliver) to 'buy it back'. They stated that I could only buy it back if I was going to repair it tho as they had agreements with garages for scrap value.... i'm planing on stating i'm repairing it and then state I 'gave up' I suspect they made this up to get their mitts on a potentially good scrap value money earner.
Now here is what i'm thinking .... I take the insurance money and then buy it back. Then sell engine (about £500-800 for an 1.9 ABL right?) and brake the remaining van for my fellow T4 forum users. I'd love to get it back on the road and totally loath to see my hard work go to waste but i'm thinking the recession might enable me to pickup a new van for about the 1-2k mark.
What would you do folks?
About a month ago I crashed my van called Bumble which I did quite a bit of work on. As can be seen in my blog: http://eru-bumble.blogspot.com T:T:T:
When it was towed away I stripped all the important valuable things off it for fear the garage would steal them or not see their real value. So van is now a basic plumbers van missing stuff like alloys, lowered springs, clear lights, head unit, ect. In fact most things apart from the non removable stuff like the two side windows, sunroof and tints.
The crash was a front end damage:

Chassis looks possibly 'ok' so might be repairable via a new front end - hmmm. Engine seems to be ok i.e. no visible damage, although the radiator has been pushed back to about 1cm in front of it.
Insurance have offered £1500 (think I should dispute this?) for the van and stated I could then pay £150 (+£45 to redeliver) to 'buy it back'. They stated that I could only buy it back if I was going to repair it tho as they had agreements with garages for scrap value.... i'm planing on stating i'm repairing it and then state I 'gave up' I suspect they made this up to get their mitts on a potentially good scrap value money earner.
Now here is what i'm thinking .... I take the insurance money and then buy it back. Then sell engine (about £500-800 for an 1.9 ABL right?) and brake the remaining van for my fellow T4 forum users. I'd love to get it back on the road and totally loath to see my hard work go to waste but i'm thinking the recession might enable me to pickup a new van for about the 1-2k mark.
What would you do folks?