Can anyone give me some advice? On the 10th January my Honda Civic Type-R ('02' 2002) and I had an accident, which I thought was caused by a blow out on my offside front tyre, or some sort of suspension failure. No other person was involved (apart from a barrier). The insurance company said that the damage was uneconomical to repair, but they would value the car at around £7500. However their engineer has stated that my offside rear tyre is illegal and that therefore they will not pay up.
Should I organise for an independant inspection to take place to confirm this fact? If so, who would you recommend I ask to carry out the work?
If the tyre was illegal, can my insurance company refuse to pay out completely?
I have always considered tyres a very important part of my maintenance regime and have never scrimped when replacing them, so it 's ironic that this should happen.
If the tyre was indeed illegal, would I have any legal claim on my garage? Baring in mind that only on the 22nd November 2006, my Main Dealer garage had swapped the tyres around front to back and adjusted the tracking of the car (as I felt it was puling to the right). Surely at that time my tyre would have been illegal and they should have refused to carry out the work or advised me accordingly?
If indeed I have no recourse with the insurers, how do I go about selling a written off car? I have a loan outstanding on the vehicle and I will need to do something to raise cash to pay off the existing loan.
If anyone has any help or advice, please let me know.
Toby Wood.
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I think you'd certainly need the "illegal" tyre examining.
It may have been made illegal during the accident, by skidding and wearing the tread unevenly.
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If you read the small print on the policy,it normally states that it is your responsibility to maintain your car in a legal and roadworthy condition;otherwise your insurance is invalid.
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Sorry to hear the bad news, I have no idea about whether the insurer is allowed to just write off the claim. based on a dodgy tyre, sounds rediculous to me. And I wish you could name the insurer, but I think HJ backroom has a no naming and shaming policy.
Have you been to where the car is being held to inspect the tyre yourself? That's the first thing I'd do. If it is in storage you will have to arrange for it's removal ASAP because if the insurer is wiping their hands of it you will be liable for storage costs, so get it moved quick, (hope you have some private land). Then if you think your tyres are OK or are border-line, arrange your own Independant engineer to inspect the tyres for you.
And keep your receipts for everything because it will all be part of your claim against your insurers. Eventually as a last resort you can ask the insurers Ombusman to look at the case.
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Infact the Insurers Ombudsman
Will have an advice line see here
www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html
0845 080 1800
and if you don't like 0845 numbers you can phone this alternative geographic number
0207 964 1000
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my tyre people write down the mm left when they do anything on the car. Go back to yours and see what they say. This info may help. Then based on the mileage between then and now, you may be able to sort something out.
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But you might consider it prudent to arrange your engineer really quickly to inspect the car insitu in storage, so they cannot claim you swapped the tyres.
First thing to do go and inspect the car yourself.
second arrange an engineer to visit.
third move the car
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It is not unheard of for wheels to be swapped out whilst in a 'secure compond.' I suggest that you check that the tyre /wheel in question looks as though it is original (eg does it still have hub cap?) and whether the wear is consistent with your history. Also the nature of the illegality.
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pmh (was peter)
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Good point, look for scuffing on the other tyres from the skid and see if this is present on the illegal one, and check the tyre make and model, perhaps you remember what tyres you had on your car.
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It is not unheard of for wheels to be swapped out whilst in a 'secure compond.'
A very valid point indeed; I recall that exactly this happened to a colleague of my father some years ago. All four wheels and legal tyres were swapped for highly illegal tyres mounted on older wheels. To compound matters I believe a third party had been injured so the police traffic division in whose area the accident had happened were involved from the outset. I don't know how it worked out in the end.
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"However their engineer has stated that my offside rear tyre is illegal and that therefore they will not pay up."
Surely this is try-on? If the rear tyre had nothing to do with the accident e.g. you weren't braking to avoid something and the burst tyre was legal I can't see how they can avoid this claim. Sounds like one for the insurance ombudsman if you get nowhere.
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"However their engineer has stated that my offside rear tyre is illegal and that therefore they will not pay up." Surely this is try-on? If the rear tyre had nothing to do with the accident e.g. you weren't braking to avoid something and the burst tyre was legal I can't see how they can avoid this claim.
Of course an illgal has tyre could have an impact (scuse the pun) on this accident, Are you sure that it had no effetc on car handling when the other tyre blew? quite possibly did. Of course they can refuse to pay out, they specifically state in your T&Cs about the car being road worthy,
*IF* the tyre was illegal the guy has not a leg to stand on. *IF* the tyre was illegal he is lucky he is not being prosecuted as well.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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years ago a friend had a fairly new MG Metro that had been crashed and then he'd paid for it to be repaired, or the repair was really badly done with the end result that the car was eating front tyres every 2000 or so miles.
being young he didn't replace them every 6 weeks or so that he should have done, then the car was stolen and used in a ramraid. When the insurance co inspected the car and saw the illegal front tyres their valuation of the car went down from about £2k or £3k to £500 as they said it wasn't roadworthy. He'd bought the car with a personal loan and unfortunately was paying off the loan for a couple more years with no car to show for it.
Should there be no other successful resolution to the matter as has been outlined by others then you could sell the salvage in order to reduce your losses. e.g. entering it in a salvage auction.
I hope you can however successfully resolve the issue,
Stu
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It is unlikely that your tyre has been changed whilst it was in a secure recovery compound, as most folk are prudent enough to leave the cars alone until it up for disposal and especially before an assessor has even looked at it following an accident.
Have a look at your service paperwork to see if it states the tread depth when the main dealer had the car in back in November but remember that it is possible the mechanic could have noted the tread depths before the wheels were eventually swapped from back to front.
Other than that have you actually looked at the tyre yourself to see if it is illegal? If it was flat spotted through skidding in the accident then it will only have a flat spot in one place, but if it is just plain worn then the illegal tread depth will be all the way round the circumference of the tyre.
What about the other rear tyre, are they matched pairs? If so then that should be borderline illegal too.
As for whether the insurance can refuse to pay out, I'm not sure but look at the circumstances. You crashed all on your own, your car alledegly has a bald tyre, this could have been a contributory factor. If someone else had run into you then maybe you could argue that the bald tyre made no difference but in these circumstances it may well have played a part and thus the insurance company may be well within their rights not to pay out.
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As I said,read ths SMALL print!!!
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However their engineer has stated that my offside rear tyre is illegal and that therefore they will not pay up.
I think the first thing you need to do is ask your insurance company on what basis they consider your offside rear tyre to be "illegal", i.e. is it tread depth, tyre size, tyre type, load rating, speed rating etc or what.
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L\'escargot.
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Thank you all for your advice. Can anyone recommend a company who carries out tyre inspections for this type of situation ?
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I had an accident, which I thought was caused by a blow out on my offside front tyre, or some sort of suspension failure.
After the accident was the offside front tyre punctured or did it seem that the accient may have been caused by another tyre ?
>>However their engineer has stated that my offside rear tyre is illegal and that therefore they will not pay up. Should I organise for an independant inspection to take place to confirm this fact?
Have a look at it yourself. It shoudl be fairly obvious. If you either think it is not illegal or that it is marginal, then perhaps consider an inspection. Someone like the AA will do or anyone you find in the yellow pages.
If the tyre was illegal, can my insurance company refuse to pay out completely?
Yes, if that tyre was the cause of the accident. They cannot refuse to pay for the damage tot he barrier, but do have the option of recovering that cost from you afterwards.
I have always considered tyres a very important part of my maintenance regime and have never scrimped when replacing them,
>>Baring in mind that only on the 22nd November 2006, my Main Dealer garage had swapped the tyres
No offence, but if they changed them on the 22/11 and the tyre was illegal on 10/1, that's almost 2 months without you checking them. Hardly a measure of importance.
>>Surely at that time my tyre would have been illegal and they should have refused to carry out the work or advised me accordingly?
You'd think, but you should be aware of the state of your tyres also.
I doubt that the wheels/tyres were switched. That's a source of much myth and rumour, and there's always someone who knows of an instance where it happened, but I think I only ever saw one and that wasn't a reputable garage. It is perhaps slightly more common after the vehicle has been inspected, but beforehand I would say largely unheard of.
1) was that tyre the cause of the accident ?
2) If not, what was ?
3) Can you [or an engineer] prove it ?
4) If it was the cause of the accident, was it illegal ?
5) If it was illegal, was it majorily so or marginal ?
If it was the cause of the acccident, then your'e stuffed although you have some sympathy from me. A nasty situation which only the idiots would think could never happen to them. All I can suggest is making a fuss with insurer, maintaining the accident was not related to that tyre, insisting they prove it or produce a report showing that it was the fault of that tyre, insisting that if they cannot do so then they pay up. If all the other tyres were in good condition then that would help.
You'd have to at least show the likelihood that the other tyre was responsible, that your tyres and trhe car were generally in good nick, and that you were going to make a whole bunch of fuss (take them to court) if they don't deal with the accident.
Don't be silly though, if they make a half-way decent offer just take it and think yourself lucky.
Show no weakness, deal with all correspondance promptly and thoroughly, never miss a detail, never miss an opportunity to pull them up on an error however small, and most importantly - NEVER blink first.
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