Conference terri::cars_uk

	Generally insurance write offs are where the cost of buying
	a replacement car is less than the cost of fixing up the
	damaged car.   Fixing up a previously written off car and
	then having it MOT'd is *not* illegal.  However, passing off
	a previously written off car probably is as the car would
	certainly be worth a lot less.   Conspiracy to defraud?  I
	wouldn't have given him the documents had I had them either,
	on the other hand he might have taken a good body shell plus
	your bits and made a perfectly good car...

	Dave

    
    A neighbour of some friends of my family was always rebuilding cars
    into new or repaired shells. His finished cars looked as good if not
    better than new, but were easily spotted because he ALWAYS painted them
    a greyish blue (not a bad colour, but always the same, regardless of 
    make, model). I guess he'd bought a lot of this colour paint as a job
    lot!
    
    The service record would show the mechanicals were well cared for, but
    I would've told him to clear off (or something like that), if he'd got 
    upset, because I'd thrown the paperwork away...
        
    Mark

    The Auto Trade always has several pages of damaged cars for sale.  
    
    tmp

        I thought the Registation Document contained a section on
        whether the car had ever been written off?
        
        Ian

    The current registration document doesn't say if a car has ever been
    written off.
    
    Personally I would have a word with the local trading standards office.

    
    Well I'm actually driving an insurance write off at the moment, last
    year someone drove into the back of our Peugot 205. The accident was in 
    Munich and to cut a long story short the cost of repair was greater
    then the car was worth. Repair was 4K, car was valued at 1.5K
    (Sterling), its an 86 'C' reg 1.6 GTI. 
    
    The car was driveable (The rear end was smashed in , it required a new
    boot floor pan, new lights, some bashing about and some polyfiller !!)
    The German insurance company paid me 1500 quid, plus 3 Club class
    return flights to Munich and because the car is UK registered they said
    I 'had' to keep the car, they also gave me 20 quid for
    telephone/postage costs and 50 quid for out of pocket expenses such as 
    taxi fares to the insurance office, even though I had driven the
    'wreck' to the office. 
    I got the car repaired by a 'back' street garage for 800 quid and have 
    driven it for a year now and put 12000 miles on it.
    There's no obviuos problems caused due to being written off and if I
    sold it on, I'd only be asking about 500 quid so for that sort of money
    would anyone care about it being repaired ? who knows. Its fairly
    obvious that its been repaired as the paint at the back is much better
    than the front (7 years younger after all)
    
    Garry
    

There's no problem in selling a rebuilt insurance write-off as long 
as you clearly state it as such. A lot of the rebuilders include the 
service records of the pre-written off car as an assurance that the 
original car was well looked after before it got bitter and twisted. 
At auction these cars, if rebuilt properly, fetch surprisingly good 
prices - sometimes only 15% or so under book value. I wonder what 
happens to them then ;-)

If someone came to my door asking for the service records I too would 
tell him to go away and ask him to contact the insurance company. If 
the insurance company said that I should hand them over, fair enough.
Alternatively I would send the docs to the insurance company and not 
get involved.

Reclaiming of these cars has become a thriving business over the past 
few years, so when buying a used car check if it's registered as 
stolen, has outstanding HP and now - has it been written off!!!

- John.

    
    
    	To anyone who's interested,
    
        For about 25 quid you can contact HPI Autodata for relevant info
    about any prospective car purchase ie. has it ever been written off,
    outstanding HP, accidents etc.
    
    			Regards,
    
    
    			Andy.