Coor, a lot to read and catch up on here, looks like I've arrived a bit late to it. Most have covered what I was thinking, but will all the following views.
The problem is that cars are only recorded by HPI as 'written off' if an insurance company informs them that a claim has been settled on a total loss basis.
Question is then who has 'written off' the vehicle. As far as I'm concerned, and potentially legally, if it's not an insurance company then it's not technically written off. In which case Fiat might be on dodgy ground in saying that it has.
This car was sold unrecorded at auction today. It's a '13 plate Polo, likely worth about £10k-£11k in good order, and made about £4.5k. It will likely be repaired and sold on without the new owner being aware of its history. It will show as clean to anyone doing an HPI check.
Do you think this practice is right, fair or reasonable?
Comments please.
(Note: This isn't intended to be a statement about this specific car or auction company. I just picked it at random from the internet to illustrate the kind of thing which goes on in the trade on a regular basis.)
So how do these come about then? As if subject to an insurance claim they're either repaired or written off. Or are there lots of people taking massive losses having insured their newish cars third party only
Thank you John, I have spoken with Fiat asking for more information on the right off as at the moment we've only got proof as a written letter from Fiat head office, which I'm assured is enough proof, however having asked a few more questions today I found out that the car was a category D write off, this was not written off by insurance, which is why it is not coming up on HPI checks.
So who has actually written it off
If its not been subjected to an insurance total loss then why are they using the term 'write off' implying its been a total loss. Who has paid out / suffered the financial fall of this 'write off' if not an insurance company
If its not an insurance company write off I'd also like to know how they have the authority to classify what Catagory write off it is.
So how comes it's not recorded on the log book?
I've seen log books come back that are recorded. . .
Only come up if written off by an insurance company.
Also my understanding is "written off"
Means worth more than value of of the car to fix by the insurance company,
This is wrong, it's if the claim will, or is likly to, cost more than cash settlement. Now this isn't the cost of the vehicle repair again value, the cost of the claim. This is the key.
Example 1, you have a new model out, only been on the market 6 weeks. Lead time on parts is 6 weeks due to parts not being in the country. You've got to then add to the cost of repair, the cost of a courtesy car for 6+ weeks, costs storage of vehicle for this duration also. Although cost in parts and labour to repair vehicle is only 50% of it's value, the cost of storage and courtesy car etc for this time could easily be 70% of the vehicles value.
Example 2, vehicle is covered by an insurance company from new who have a vehicle replacement clause in their policy, normally along the lines of if repair of your vehicle in the first 12 months of first owner ownership exceeds 60% of its new value we'll replace it with a new car. So vehicle is repairable for less than its value, but due to this cover level they offer, it's still written off, dispite possibly being perfectly safe to repair.
I know I am perhaps not being helpful in terms of finding out what happened, but my motto is "find the path of least resistance" and that's what I'd recommend here
Agreed. OP have you contacted your credit card provider? If not then seriously do it now, they'll take a week or so to look into it, but will do most of the leg work for you.
