Ah, the Wild West of the automotive world – where a crumpled heap of metal can be miraculously transformed back into something vaguely resembling a car, all for a quick buck. The salvage repair business is booming, but is it safe? Spoiler alert: not.
You’ve probably seen those YouTube videos. Some overly enthusiastic chap with a camera is whining about how he turned a smashed-up jalopy into something vaguely resembling a car. Usually, an older, more grizzled bloke lurks in the background, covered in oil, actually doing the work. And, oh yes, they’re making money—buckets of it. One even bragged about buying his dream house from this racket.
But here’s the thing – it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Take poor Sadie McGrady, for example. She was just six years old when she was killed in a crash, all because the car she was in had been written off once before. It had been patched up, sent back onto the road, and when it mattered, it crumpled like a tin can. A coroner at the inquest was crystal clear: “If it’s beyond economic repair, that should be the end of it.” Sensible, you’d think. But no, here we are, a decade later, and nothing has changed.
Now, the insurance industry has these codes – A, B, S, and N – that supposedly tell us what state these write-offs are in. Category A? Scrap it. Category B? Break it into parts. But for Categories S and N, go ahead and patch them up. No, don’t bother having anyone check the work afterwards. Brilliant. If the car’s a ‘special vehicle’ or owned by an extensive fleet, it doesn’t need a code. How convenient.
There are whispers, too, about how some of these codes are being ‘creatively’ applied. Tim Kelly, who knows about cars, reckons some sellers might be fiddling with the system. Calling a structurally dodgy car a ‘non-structurally damaged’ can bump the price nicely. It’s like marking your homework; only this time, lives are at stake.
Of course, the ABI says that all this is above board – experts assess these wrecks and decide if they can be safely repaired. But here’s the kicker: even if these Frankenstein cars do get fixed, no one’s legally required to inspect them before they’re back on the road. Sure, some firms like Autolign do inspections, but they can only check so many cars – and don’t even get them started on the dodgier categories like B and A because they won’t touch them.
Meanwhile, Copart, one of the big players in this game, is flogging around 250,000 of these write-offs every year. It’s a goldmine! And yes, you can find thousands of these ‘repaired’ beauties on the market right now, just waiting to be driven by some poor, unsuspecting soul.
But here’s the million-dollar question: how well are these cars being repaired? Modern vehicles are complicated beasts, built with materials and techniques that your average backstreet garage still needs to have a hope of understanding and fixing. And yet, many of these patched-up cars are rolling out of workshops run by people who probably learned their trade on a Ford Cortina.
So, before you’re tempted by that ‘bargain’ – ask yourself: Who fixed it? What did they use? And do they have a clue about what they’re doing? Otherwise, your great deal might be a one-way ticket to the nearest A&E.
