Cost to replace beach roof

[cleve]

Some of you may have read my post about us denting the rear of our beach roof by lowering it onto the bike handlebar. When vw looked at it they pointed out a crease in the roof panel above the sliding door, a mark in the bellows fabric on the opposite side & twisting of the roof. We've always had the bellows bungee on so it seems we may have bought our beach already with damage to the roof!

Anyway, the cost quoted to replace the whole roof is over £5k including fitting!!! I thought it would be closer to 4k, does this quote seem excessive?

 

[gatvol]

I have no specific knowledge of these costs. But this sounds obscene. Did they quote that figure with a nice smile and a cup of coffee!

Unless these sums are irrelevant to you, I would advise you to shop around independents to get a proper understanding of costs. I would go to proper body shops ones that do exotic aluminium bodied cars/ old sports cars. Also vw camper specialists. Might insurance cover it ? How much does this roof cost in Europe ?

£5k is enough to buy a car, not just a roof

You have my sympathy.

 

[Stu]

Give Alex at SMG a call I am sure he would do his very best to ease the pain for you.

 

[johnv]

is that with or without VAT (or is it actually £6k )

 

[Goldie]

Post of mine from 03 Dec 2013 after my new Beach Roof and bellows. Don't ask me about the VAT! It may have been a VW internal warranty cost rather than what you would have to pay as a customer.

If I had to pay for it myself I wouldn't have bothered and just put up with the creases. I must admit I have seen the creases on a number of Calis. They can be difficult to see but may be more common than we think. In my case they were more visible when parked on a slope and you could look directly along the roof line.

http://www.vwcaliforniaclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=3764&start=15#p49456

I collected my Beach last Friday and it has a shiny new roof and bellows - total cost of £3368 if you had to pay for it yourself. Just waiting for the roof blistering issue to appear now

Paul at Citygate Woodburn Green has been excellent and it seems the team there are well versed at replacing roofs.

An added bonus was the 12v socket they put in the dashboard for me. Having the cupholder open all the time for satnav / phone charger etc was a pain.

Andy

 

[smgcowfoldparts]

Give me a call and we can work out a cost for you to see if we can better that quote.

cheers

 

[gatvol]

I'd be amazed if that quote cannot be beaten. In the real world £5,000 is real money.

You can get a massive amount of bodywork done for a sum like that. You could refurbish a barn find classic car with old covered up accident damage, with holes in its pistons, and missing some panels for that sort of money

We are all becoming accustomed to paying ludicrous suns of money for relatively basic car repairs. Don't get sucked in.

 

[Silverboat]

Im getting the crease lines on both sides of my Cali. Been visible for a year now. Mentioned it to the VW man who came to check the roof rust and he said its a known issue and a few people have had roofs replaced free of charge however it seems that now VW are pushing out a statement that it is user error! Something about having the sliding door and mesh open? I know!