Extensive hail damage

**Maverick** · 14-04-2010, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by coreying

They're basically saying that they've been forced to do this as up to 60% of the 20,000 written off cars re-registered in 2009 have "posed serious questions about the origin of the parts used to repair them", and that the government believes that the 5700 unrecovered stolen cars from the same year are probably the source of those parts. This makes sense, since a 'repairable write off' is done because these cars are too expensive to repair. So if someone does repair them for re-registering, there has to be something 'interesting' going on!

It's ridiculous when you look at the environmental implications of tossing away cars that are perfectly good but have been written off. Insurance companies write cars off as I mentioned earlier if the return on the sale of the car + the cost of a new car is around the price of the repair. What will occur now is that the cars can't be sold so the insurance companies won't write cars off unless the repair cost is going to exceed the cost of a new car so Nic wouldn't have received a new car (assuming they bring these laws into VIC).

A lot of reputable body shops buy these cars and use second hand parts and parts from wreckers and repair the cars during times they are not busy and there are people that buy them to repair them at home. They're shutting down this market that allows people to get newer cars on the road and recycle vehicles.

The reasons given are bulls**t, newer cars are harder to steal and many parts have identifiers on them. If the government would actually crack down on the scum that steal cars instead if letting them go free along with allowing them to drive off knowing the police can't pursue them we wouldn't have this problem. Once again they're penalising the law abiding public because they can't/won't tackle the real issue.

**Corey_R** · 14-04-2010, 10:18 AM

Yeah - I am too concerned that they appear to be saying that financial write offs will no longer be able to be sold. This seems ridiculous. You'd think that they should still be able to be sold, and therefore used as parts or whatever, and only the ability to re-register them should be banned. Having said that, it also says this. So there seems to be some conflicting information. Like what's the need to be the re-registration if you can't buy them in the first place?

I'd say we'll see some updates to this once the legislation goes through.

**cme2c** · 14-04-2010, 02:00 PM

This concerns me greatly as I have a 29 year old van, that would be really easy to write off. One reasonable size dent would do it, despite heaps being spent on mechanicals. I contacted my insurance company, but they couldn't help me, unless I drove it less than I do. . They gave me the NSW RTA phone number, but it was out of order (not too surprising, really). If the 118TSI or my 206GTi got written off, they could easily be replaced, but not my Bedford. I suspect there are many people here with old and/or rare cars in the same boat.

As I understand it, the ability to re-register writeoffs is what is supposed to be banned, to stop numbers jobs. The way most modern cars are stolen is to get hold of the key, either by carjacking, or break, enter and steal. So if you have a 2 story house, don't leave the keys downstairs when the bedroom is upstairs...

**gareth_oau** · 14-04-2010, 02:04 PM

I think there is a distinct difference between cars written off because they are unroadworthy, eg significant chassis damage, versus cars that are written off by the insurance company because they are uneconomic to repair

**Maverick** · 14-04-2010, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by gareth_oau

I think there is a distinct difference between cars written off because they are unroadworthy, eg significant chassis damage, versus cars that are written off by the insurance company because they are uneconomic to repair

There is but cars that are statutory write offs (terms vary by state) are not able to be registered ever whereas uneconomic writeoffs are able to be registered (just not in NSW after August). Uneconomic writeoffs will include Nics 1 month old Golf with only panel damage and it will end up in the crushers although now they can't sell it they will end up bogging the roof and replacing the panels instead of writing it off.

**echo_base** · 02-05-2010, 01:20 AM

I'm having insurance problems relating to damage to my Tiguan following Perth's recent hail storm. If anyone here thinks they might have some advice to offer, click here for my thread in the Tiguan section and a link to some photos of my car. Thanks for any help!

**nicandlance** · 02-05-2010, 09:05 AM

Just read your thread and looked at the pics. Very similar damage to my Golf except that my car had damage to the roof and bonnet. Just wondering... if the second assessor said the car was a 'goner', why didn't they go with that?
I had two people look at my car - the first one was going to have 'paintless dent removal' guys look at it, the second just said straight out that it was going to heaven....
Did you get damage to the roof and bonnet as well or just the side?

**echo_base** · 02-05-2010, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by nicandlance

Just read your thread and looked at the pics. Very similar damage to my Golf except that my car had damage to the roof and bonnet. Just wondering... if the second assessor said the car was a 'goner', why didn't they go with that?
I had two people look at my car - the first one was going to have 'paintless dent removal' guys look at it, the second just said straight out that it was going to heaven....
Did you get damage to the roof and bonnet as well or just the side?

Thanks for your reply, Nic. My roof and bonnet are being replaced as are the two right hand side doors. The side and tailgate are going to be repaired in place, which I really don't think is acceptable, given the damage done to the car... I'm going to keep fighting this as much as possible.