|
...and I doubt the storage compound would take too kindly to you messing around with your petrol tank either.
|
|
|
To the original question.
YES - you can claim for the fuel back.
I was involved in an accident where my car was written off. I had around £30 worth of fuel in it. Below are my experiences.
As Mark says, the value of the car should be well defined. In my case the value was defined as that without accessories, fuel etc. By accessories, that's anything that is on the car that was not fitted as standard, ie tow hitch. The stereo may be the original one - if so then that is part of the original spec and cannot be classed as an extra.
I then claimed separately via my solicitors for fuel, (they received a copy of my CC statement) and the tow hitch. Unfortunately I had a new clutch fitted 5000 miles before and this made little, if any difference on the value.
On the plus side though, I did manage to get the car back to my home, where it stood until the claim was resolved. As mine was a third party claim, the slavage was mine to keep, and the salvange value was deemed to be £0.00. Hence the vehicle was mine to do what I wanted afterwards, at no cost to me.
I drained the petrol, sold the wheels and winscreen for £80, then the rest of the car went for £45 to someone who wanted the gearbox.
CC
|
|
If it stored at a garage you might find that the fuel has already been recovered.
|
|
It must have evaporated Gov
|
Thanks for all your replies, dont worry i have taken note. I shan't bother, its not worth the risk.
The accident was my fault, so i dont know if i can still claim for it. I have still kept the receipt though.
Next thing is trying to work out what to do with the car. Awaiting for the assessor to let me know what the situation is.
Has anyone done this? Had their car written off as uneconomic to repair, the insurance company paid them a chq for £1,200, then you bought back your car off them for £200-300. Get your car mechanic mate to go down scrap yard and repair the car legally for £500 ish. Then use the rest of the money to pay for the new insurance policy which has doubled.
Possible?
|
|
When someone crashed into me and wrote-off my car, I bought back the salvage for £1000 and sold it to the guy who ran the bodyshop which did the insurance quote for £2000. He claimed he was going to rebuild it himself as a run around but might have sold it on again... Still, it was an extra grand for little effort. :-)
|
Thanks, but how does it work if your car is deemed uneconomical to repair, you get compensated and buy it back. If its been written off arn't the DVLA informed and then the car is illegal? Also how would i go to to get the work inspected to prove its roadworthy, how much does that cost? I can't decide whether to use the insurance money and use my "kitchen savings fund" to upgrade to a £3000 ish car, or go with my original suggestion.
The kitchen can always wait for another year......AGAIN!
|
I think you're asking too many questions too early.
Mark (RLBS), I'm relying on you to correct/add to this as you see fit, but as far as I know....
The insurers if I am right, have a duty to put your car back to the same condition as it was before the accident (assuming you're fully comp and barring any excess you'll have to pay).
If they cannot do that economically then they will have to pay you the market value for the car. Assuming it is not a third party claim, the salvage I believe will become thair property.
At this point, or before you should assertain how much it would cost to bring the car to a roadworthy condition. That is to say not pre accident condition but as safe to use as it always has been. This may involve beating out the old panels etc to to something close to their original shapes rather than fitting new.
Yes a total loss will be recorded, but if the car is an N reg it's resale value in pre accident condition may be say £1200, whereas its safely repaired condition may be around half that - I don't know. You haven't said what type of car it is. In addition anyone looking to give you a trade in quote will most likely have access to HPI records etc to tell them that it has suffered a total loss, even if they cannot tell by looking at the car itself.
So, it all comes down to economics.
I said that you were asking these quetions too early. This is because you need to know for sure:
1)How much you would need to pay for the salvage
2)How much it would cost to get it to roadworthy condition as described above
3)How much it would be worth in roadworthy condition.
Essentially if 3 is greater that 1 2 IN THEORY you're onto a winner. But for 3 you should consider value at auction. It would fetch lower than bottom book. Personally 1 2 shouldn't cost you any more than banger money - you'll then get at least that for it when you pass it on, assuming it has valid MOT etc.
You should also consider its current mechanical condition, did it just scrape through its last MOT by a wing and a prayer, or is it a concourse 1200 mile beauty?
Then you need to ask youself what you want to do for a car.
Do you want to run this into the ground for the next few years? In which case you could be onto a bargain here if the car is otherwise sound apart from soe cheaply fixed accident damage.
Or do you want to change it for a newer car? In which case you may not make much if anything on the cheap repair route. Depending on what the trade may give you for it, you may (or may not) be able to buy the salvage, then sell it onto the trade (local repair shop) for a small profit.
So a simple answer really:)
H
|
One small point...
>Assuming it is not a third party claim, the salvage I believe will become thair property.
That would be the usual approach, but it is not neccessarily so and can be negotiated.
Other than that, a pretty thorough answer I'd say.
Oh, and its not market value that they give you, but don't worry about what its called, just follow Hugo's advice and find out how much.
|
Oh, and its not market value that they give you, but don't worry about what its called, just follow Hugo's advice and find out how much.
>>
see www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=25...8
read
www.theiob.org.uk/digest/v/valuation_of_motor_vehi...l
where it says -
" .... Usually the policy provides for payment of the ' market value' of the vehicle (or words to that effect). How do we establish that? So far as the Bureau is concerned, two points are now clear. First, that market value is not the second-hand value of the car (unless the policyholder was in fact intending to sell it before it was stolen or written off) but what a replacement of similar age, condition and so on would cost. Second, [See: VALUATION OF MOTOR VEHICLES para 2] there are different markets. The appropriate one is not, as insurers often assume, the market for private sale and purchase of vehicles, through newspaper ads and the like, unless there is evidence to suggest that that is the market in which the policyholder intends to buy a replacement. the policyholder gets what it would cost to replace the vehicle through a motor dealer. How do we find out what that would be? All relevant evidence has to be considered, but in particular we have to rely on standard trade guides! .....
"
do a forum search ( use button on the right, not one at the top ! ) for " accident write off value " or similar and you should find many previous threads.
|
>>First, that market value is not the second-hand value of the car
was the point I was trying to make. Nonetheless, what it is called is irrelvant to most. How much it is matters.
|
|
Thank you all for your thorough replies, much appreciated.
|
Just to complete one point ("How does it all work?"), I think there is a vital distinction between an economic write off and a crash write off. The latter would indeed be logged by DVLA, and I don't know by what mechanism, if any, it is possible to get such a car legally back into use.
But an economic write off is just when a garage or anyone else tells you it is not worth fixing, so not worth anything as a running car.
But you, as an enthusiast, or your friend who can fix cars on the cheap, are perfectly entitled to carry out any repairs necessary to achieve a legal, ie MOT worthy, car. Also the spares may have a value, either on the market, to an enthusiast, or simply to you because you want to get another car of the same type.
That, as I understand it, is where the negotiations with the insurance company come in. I know of several instances in the classic world, for example, where the insurance company has "written off" the car, the owner has negotiated a nominal sum for the remains, but these have on further investigation proved a perfectly viable DIY repair. Or have had considerable value as spares.
|
|
I beleive that when a car is declared a write off it ony needs to pass a new MOT to become road legal again.
|
|
Excellent, no problems there then! Still awaiting for news from the assessor would you believe!
|
|
|
