Getting Insured Woes...

xirokx · 18 Mar 2009 at 18:07

Hi There,

I have seen a second hand car for my gf, that is owned by my mechanics customer who has given the car to my mechanic to sell but who still has the log book which he is handing over tomorrow.

My mechanic has said he will give the car to my gf to drive around as there maybe some underlining problems with it so she needs to get insured on the car.

When my gf called prospective insurers (einsurers and asda) they said they could not insure her on the vehicle because it did not belong to:-

a spouse, parent, and a few other people none of them including a friend....

So she would have to register the vehicle on her name so she could be insured on it...

Trouble is if she did that and then after a month the car broke down and was not feasible to repair she would have to then pay to scrap it as such, is this true? She was hoping if she handed it back to the mechanic in the event of bad breakdown he can do whatever he wants....

How can she insure herself on this car without registering herself as the keeper?

Please advise

Thanks

mattpc · 18 Mar 2009 at 19:31

You should not be paying out any money to scrap a vehicle. The scrappers pay you to take it away off your drive. Perhaps not as much as they would last summer but you should still be getting money for it rather than paying for it to be taken away.

xirokx · 18 Mar 2009 at 19:34

thanks for that...

How can she insure herself on this car without registering herself as the keeper?

InvaderGIR · 18 Mar 2009 at 19:35

mattpc said:
You should not be paying out any money to scrap a vehicle. The scrappers pay you to take it away off your drive. Perhaps not as much as they would last summer but you should still be getting money for it rather than paying for it to be taken away.

Not true at all.

Cars aren't worth their weight these days, and they are doing you a service by coming and collecting it, so you should expect to pay.

Case in point is -westy- scrapped his 205 a while ago, and he had to pay £15 for the cheapest of the scrappies to collect it, all the others were charging the likes of £20-£25.

djbenjo · 18 Mar 2009 at 19:36

Why can't she declare herself as the registered keeper?

djbenjo · 18 Mar 2009 at 19:37

InvaderGIR said:
Not true at all.

Cars aren't worth their weight these days, and they are doing you a service by coming and collecting it, so you should expect to pay.

Case in point is -westy- scrapped his 205 a while ago, and he had to pay £15 for the cheapest of the scrappies to collect it, all the others were charging the likes of £20-£25.

I scrapped a Mk1 Clio about 3 weeks ago and got £70 quid for it. All the adverts in my local paper ares still saying 'Cash paid for MOT failures/scrap cars'

InvaderGIR · 18 Mar 2009 at 19:42

Guess it depends on who you call, most places would not collect and pay around where he lives, even the 'cash for cars' places.

Rich1988 · 18 Mar 2009 at 21:12

*ignore

ZG002 · 18 Mar 2009 at 21:56

temp insure with some place like dayinsure?

Skalaberg · 18 Mar 2009 at 22:01

djbenjo said:
Why can't she declare herself as the registered keeper?

Because that would be a false declaration/insurance fraud and if she needed to claim render the policy invalid.

russ0r · 18 Mar 2009 at 22:02

Does she already have a policy on another car?
Can she amend her policy so it insures her 3rd party while driving other people's cars with their permission?

djbenjo · 18 Mar 2009 at 22:42

I don't get this? Is she going to be keeping the car in the long run? Is the mechanic going to be selling it on to somebody else?

Lum · 19 Mar 2009 at 01:01

ZG002 said:
temp insure with some place like dayinsure?

This.

dayinsure the car for a month (the maximum they'll do) and then sort out becoming the registered keeper and getting full insurance once the month is up and you're happy to buy the car.

Unless of course the drive other people's cars 3rd party option is available to you, in which case go for that.

Azagoth · 19 Mar 2009 at 05:53

InvaderGIR said:
Not true at all.

Cars aren't worth their weight these days, and they are doing you a service by coming and collecting it, so you should expect to pay.

Remember that Top Gear episode a while back where they had to buy a road legal motor for less than £100 and Jezza broke his thumb driving into that wall at about 50 instead of 30 due to the speedo not working?

Didn't Jezza get that Volvo 760 for just £1 because it would've cost the place he got it from about £100 to scrap it?

Lum · 19 Mar 2009 at 10:03

The price of scrap metal was a lot lower back then, everyone was charging to get the cars

It's not as high as it was 6 months ago, but I don't think it's quite that low yet.

[TW]Fox · 19 Mar 2009 at 10:04

Skalaberg said:
Because that would be a false declaration)

No it wouldn't.

misterPK · 19 Mar 2009 at 10:59

The ammount of money you'll get for a scrap car varies a lot depending on the part of the country you are in, the type of car and its condition, if it needs collecting (and if so how far they have to travel), what they're going to do with your car and how legit the place is.

Some of ads you'll see in the paper will be for just middlemen, who will collect your car on their truck then sell it on somewhere for more money. Naturally anywhere collecting your vehicle will charge for the service, and this amount will be deducted from the value of the car, so you may even have to pay. My main tip to get the most money is to take it to the scrap yard yourself if you can, but of course if you're driving it there it must still be fully road legal, there are no exeptions like there are for an MOT. I've had to deal with at least one case of a car getting picked up by an ANPR camera for no tax on the way to a yard.

There are three usual outcomes when you scrap a car, it will either be sold on whole as salvage (usually just accident damaged newer cars), broken up for parts or just taken for the scrap metal value. It's usually best to ring round a few breakers and metal yards to see who will give you the best price.

All breakers and scrap metal yards are required by law to have a license to allow them to take in scrap cars. They should all be "depolluted" (fuel, oils, waters, shocks and air con drained, airbags set off and tyres removed) however how much of this they actually bother with changes from place to place.

These licensed places are also the only ones that can issue a Certificate of Destruction, the official form that they send to the DVLA to tell them that the car has been proffesionally disposed of. Unless they give you a copy of the certificate on the spot you should insist that the "sale into the motor trade" section is completed on your V5. This then covers you should the car or just its plates end up on the road again somehow.

The "scrapped" tick box on your V5 is only there if you as a private individual feel like dismantling your car yourself, and should not be used when taking it to be scrapped. This is a loophole often used by illegal operators trying to make more money without the right equipment or environmental precautions. Unless the vehicle is going to be sold on as salvage you should be able to get a COD free of charge, even if it takes them a couple of days to post it to you.

Bit of a wall of text there, but I think I've covered everything anyone could ever want to know.

PK!