Insurance Write Off

[Kipps]

Anyone else out there got a Mr2 thats an insurance write off ? Mine is and only cost me £500 (Bargin if you ask me) How do I go about getting it back on the road - I presum DVLA will need to do some kind of safety check ?

Cheers

John

Edit - Spot the damage worthy of writing it off if you can

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Kipps/MR2004.jpg

[Kelvin]

Think it all depends on the class of write off (4 types, A, B, C, D ?) there's various procedures for each I believe.

kelvin

[Kipps]

Its a Cat D Insurance write off ( Uneconomical to reapir )
Cat C or above arn't allowed back on the road what so ever I don't think

[tonigmr2]

Cat C's are, but As and Bs aren't I thought.
T

[Rory]

£500! Sounds like you got a bargain to me! Nice colour too! Where did you find it? Is there a place where you can buy wirtten off cars? You could prob strip it and get atlease £500 just for the engine.

Rory

[Raf]

CAT C right off is one that has heavy structural damage and hence will need lots of jigging to straighten the chassis. once repaired and MOT'd it needs a VOSA check.

CAT D, uneconomical to repair, no vosa check needed.

I think A & B must be for breaking only.

If yours is a CAT D all you have to do is get it through an MOT, insure it and tax it.

spot the damage: from what i can tell your boot lid doesnt line up with more gap on one side than the other- it will need minor jigging to have it right but you could get away with messing about with the hinges to get a better fit! your car does have minor structural damage i would assume if it has been written off but its an easy fix!

[stevecordiner]

£500! Sounds like you got a bargain to me! Nice colour too! Where did you find it? Is there a place where you can buy wirtten off cars?
Rory

Salvage yards.

You pay less for the car because it'll inherrently always be worth less than a non written off car. Its quite funny really because just because a car is HPI clear doesnt mean its not been crashed and repaired, just means its had no insurance claim made on the car.

[Kipps]

It was a friend of mines road car untl someone ran into the back of him so he sold it me knowing I'd just stuffed my 205 1.9 gti round Oulton Park the week earlier so was on the look out for a good track car

[stevenb]

looks a nice buy....and something you can put right over time.
My mk1 was Cat C....could have bought it back but it just was financially economical at the time.

Must be other places other than scrapyards where rights off's can be bought......I think a Google search is on the cards.

[dai21t]

Mine was a write off, cat C I think but before the new checks were brought in. I paid £700 for it about 2.5yrs ago. Spent quite a bit on it since though!

[John]

Category A means car is a total write off, and no part of it may be re-used ever - the entire vehicle and all its components must be destroyed. This is quite rare, usually used for extensive fire or salt-water damage.

Cat B means the vehicle may not be put back on the road, but undamaged components may be reused in other vehicles. This would include extensive chassis damage, for eg.

Cat C means it could be repaired but the insurance co has decided it is not economical to repair, so this is the "economic write off" category.

Cat D means written off for some other reason - eg, parts not available quickly enough and the bill for providing a hire car would be too much, or parts not available at all, or vehicle is too new (if less than, say, 1 year old, many insurance cos. offer a brand new replacement. That's the company policy/offer, not a legal requirement, but the car still goes down as a write off).

Categories C & D may be put back on the road if anyone wants to repair them. Cats A & B obviously not. You must be a licensed vehicle breaker to buy a Cat B car.

My car was in category C - it needed a new drivers side front wing and a new drivers door and a side vent and a small dent filled between the vent and the door, that was the extent of it. But as an old car the cost of doing this to insurance co standards (new parts & bodyshop labour charges) meant it was more then the value of the vehicle. I had a knackered '2 in the garage in the same colour, just about the only good metal bits were the wing and door - so I swapped them myself over a couple of leisurely weeks, and it passed its MOT no problems.

At the time (about 2 years ago), an MOT test was all that was required to have the car legal again. I don't know if this has since changed. There was an option to have an inspector of some sort check it over and add a note to the history that the car has been satisfactorily repaired - this note will show up when someone does an HPI check.