Getting info from insurance companies on crash damage

Stky10

I bought my present car privately. I didn't have time to get it checked over at the time by a mechanic, but I did bring a friend of mine along who's fairly into his cars.

Anyway, I've just got it serviced, and the mechanic there reckons its been in a fairly major shunt at sometime in the past. I know from cartell.ie though that it has only ever had two previous owners, and that it has never been written off. At the time I bought it, I asked whether it had been in any accident, and I was told it hadn't.

Since I know that Quinn-Direct was a previous insurer of the car (from the plastic bit on the inside window that holds the tax and insurance discs), can I get information from them as to any claims that were made on repairing the car from crash damage, or is it protected by the data protection act or similar?, and what would be the best way of getting this information from them?.

I'm thinking about this from two aspects, if the car has had major repairs on it, even though it passed its NCT, it might well be less roadworthy than if it had been not crashed, and secondly the value of a car that has been crashed is less than one that has not been crashed, and that the seller may have deliberately misrepresented the goods when advertising it for sale.

Bluehair

Stky10 wrote:

I bought my present car privately.

Unfortunately your problem starts there. There is no consumer protection for you in this case and pursuing something with the seller could prove costly and futile.

Can you elaborate on what the mechanic described as a 'fairly major shunt'? Is there subframe or chassis damage? Is there evidence the car was on a jig? Or is it re-spray evidence on the bumper?

Depending on the extent of the problem i'd contact the seller and see if you can sort this out between the two of you. Bear in mind though that if they simply claim no knowledge of what you're talking about then you're probably out of luck.

pow wow

Quinn Direct won't tell you anything....various privacy issues.

Unless you knew someone there who could take a peek for you....and no I am not advocating that, just saying that's the only way you'd get info from them!

antoinolachtnai

Ask QD to give you a written quote for insurance on it, and see if any issue comes up.

If they refuse to quote, ask them to give a reason (which they must do under the equal opportunities legislation, I think).

If the insurance company knew it had been written off, I would think it would show on the search you did though. Insurance companies have a vested interest in getting written-off cars off the road.

If there is a safety issue that they know about, they may reveal it to you. Safety trumps privacy as a general rule (although this is not legal advice, you should talk to your solicitor if you want that).

None of this is my area, it might be an idea to ask in the motors forum.

Stky10

Bluehair wrote:

Can you elaborate on what the mechanic described as a 'fairly major shunt'? Is there subframe or chassis damage? Is there evidence the car was on a jig? Or is it re-spray evidence on the bumper?

Well I didn't go into huge detail with the mechanic about it, but he reckoned that whatever had happened it, it had ended up on its roof, as there was roof damage.

Bluehair wrote:

Depending on the extent of the problem i'd contact the seller and see if you can sort this out between the two of you. Bear in mind though that if they simply claim no knowledge of what you're talking about then you're probably out of luck.

Yeah I realise, but if had damage to the roof, then you'd imagine that whatever accident it had been in would have involved some form of it rolling. I wouldn't class that as being something you couldn't be aware of. And if an insurance claim had been made (as you would expect in a case like that), and I could get info on it, then from the date of the claim I should be able to tell if the claim was made by the original owner of the car, or the person I bought it off (based on info from cartell.ie I know when the person I bought it off bought it off the original owner).

I'd like to stay away from the seller for the moment until I've more evidence.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Ask QD to give you a written quote for insurance on it, and see if any issue comes up.

If they refuse to quote, ask them to give a reason (which they must do under the equal opportunities legislation, I think).

Well I'm with QD as well, and when I was changing the car from the previous car I had they were reticent about insuring me on it. I presumed it was because it was a BMW and I'd only been driving a Ford Focus before that. And they wouldn't tell me why they were so reticent. Thats why I'm thinking I'd have to play it very smartly to get anything out of them.

ellscurr wrote:

Unless you knew someone there who could take a peek for you....and no I am not advocating that, just saying that's the only way you'd get info from them!

Funnily enough, a recruitment agency rang me last week about a job they have, so they currently have my CV. Not that I'd mention it if it came to an interview.

Bluehair

Stky10 wrote:

Well I didn't go into huge detail with the mechanic about it, but he reckoned that whatever had happened it, it had ended up on its roof, as there was roof damage.

On its' roof! :eek:

That sounds bad and in your shoes i'd be inclined to take this further all right. However going from a suspected 'fairly major shunt' to once being on it's roof is very suspicious. Any evidence of roof damage would be very obvious and difficult to hide.

With all due respect to the original mechanic i'd be inclined to get a second opinion somewhere. Maybe find a reputable crash repair place near you and get them to look the car over and give a professional (written?) assessment of what repairs have been carried out on the car.

Do a bit of sleuthing yourself. Presuming you have the service history i'd also phone each garage in it and confirm when each service was, milage on that date and what work was done. Ask specifically if they ever did any crash repair work on the car.

People usually don't go far for this kind of work so grab the phone book and call any crash-repair places near to the previous owner to see if they did the work. Ask the original servicing garages who they would have recommended to do crash-repair work and phone them too. It might take a couple of hours but you should be able to track down who did the work. (Btw claim to be the original owner on the phone, say you just want to check up on the work carried out cause you're convinced the cars pulling slightly to the left and you think it might be to do with the repairs they did. Wrong place? Say sorry, hang up and call the next on the list. Don't be confrontational all you're looking for at this stage is information).

I think you're wasting your time chasing the insurance info. You've no idea if there was a claim, Quinn Direct may not have been the insurer (that window sticker is circumstantial at best, could have been the previous owner or someone elses spare holder) and no insurer can legally give out that info anyway.

However once you determine the car was in an accident and can specify the nature of the repairs done my next stop would be down to the local Garda station. Getting the law involved could be crazy expensive but it's amazing the effect a call from a decent Garda can do once he's presented with the evidence.

But get the car checked out again before everything else. This could end up being something stupid like the original owner put something heavy on the roof once and the mechanic extrapolated the dent into 'major shunt'.....

Stky10

Cheers Bluehair. There was no service history with the car. The previous owner claimed that it wasn't with the car when he'd bought it. And as he lives about 45 minutes drive from where I live, looking up all the garages in the area would be a bit difficult and time consuming. It would also be a possibility that the car was badly damaged, it was repaired close to wherever the accident was, rather than their home.

You have given me an idea though. If it was in a major accident like I think it was, there should probably be a Garda record of the crash. I have a few friends who have siblings in the Gardai, so I might be able to get one of them to have a look in their computer system for me. One Garda I'm thinking of in particular even went so far as to get in touch with the police in the UK to check out the particulars of a car another friend of mine was looking at in the UK, and found out some interesting details about it.

I really should have thought of that myself... Bah...

Bluehair

Stky10 wrote:

Cheers Bluehair. There was no service history with the car.

Tut tut. It's too late now but for anyone else reading this i hope you got a major discount because of this.

Stky10 wrote:

And as he lives about 45 minutes drive from where I live, looking up all the garages in the area would be a bit difficult and time consuming. It would also be a possibility that the car was badly damaged, it was repaired close to wherever the accident was, rather than their home.

Seriously it's not as much work as you think. Couple of hours at the most. Start with the brand garages and work from there. Did the previous owner even tell you where he had the car serviced?

Stky10 wrote:

You have given me an idea though. If it was in a major accident like I think it was, there should probably be a Garda record of the crash.

Worth checking out but bear in mind you're really looking for indisputable proof about the accident that you can bring to the previous owner. Info protection laws apply here too and "my mates a Garda and told me" may not be the road you want to go down.

Get the car checked properly first is the best advice since it'll determine if the car was repaired at all or this is simply being blown out of all proportion due to a mechanics mistaken opinion. A proper assessment of the car at a crash repair facility wouldn't cost much and they'll quickly be able to tell you what nature of accident (if any) it was involved in.

antoinolachtnai

Yup, I agree that it is important to check the facts here.

Could it have been something else, like people jumping on it, or hitting a low roof and scratching it?

Bluehair

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Could it have been something else, like people jumping on it, or hitting a low roof and scratching it?

I'm leaning that way myself from the description. If a car actually rolled it would end up a lot worse than some 'damage to the roof'... Only a proper independent check can verify though.

thefinalstage

http://www.cartell.ie/

Have a look

Sorry if its advertising but I heard an ad on Newstalk about this site and thought of this thread :P

Bluehair

thelastangryman wrote:

http://www.cartell.ie/

Earlier in the thread he already mentioned he tried cartell. By the way from what i hear it's little better than useless especially compared to the equivalent hpi check in the uk. Hopefully it'll improve but i wouldn't put much stock in it currently.

Stky10

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Could it have been something else, like people jumping on it, or hitting a low roof and scratching it?

Well all things are possible I suppose. The mechanic is a specialist BMW mechanic though, with more than 15 years experience, so I'd tend to give some weight to his opinion. No harm in a second opinion granted, if I've time tomorrow I'll try get someone else to look at it.

@thelastangryman - yeah, I used cartell.ie when I was buying the car, so I know it was never written off, but it could still have been in a bad accident and repaired.

I've also set in train the process to get the Garda accident record checked, but I've no idea when I'll get the results back. Wait and see I suppose.

thefinalstage

Bluehair wrote:

Earlier in the thread he already mentioned he tried cartell. By the way from what i hear it's little better than useless especially compared to the equivalent hpi check in the uk. Hopefully it'll improve but i wouldn't put much stock in it currently.

Sorry I read this thread a few days ago and I forgot what the OP wrote :rolleyes:

Stky10

Just thought I'd give final details about this....

Found out from a Garda going through the incident report system that yes it had been in a crash, a head on collision no less, but the date of the accident was before the previous owner to me had bought the vehicle. As such, I'd have feck all comeback against him. Even if like me he found out that it had been in a crash subsequent to buying it (which is probable as he had the car for less than a year), there is no way I could prove this.

So live and learn, and bring a real car expert to look over a car for you rather than someone with just an interest in them.

I'll decide whether to keep it or trade it in over the next month. Cheers for your help.

oleras

Stky10 wrote:

I'll decide whether to keep it or trade it in over the next month. Cheers for your help.

And when asked............." has it ever been crashed" ? ....... Not while i had it !