Inherent devaluation following a non fault collision

Destination · 18 Apr 2018 at 22:47

as per thread title, when a car gets rear ended, and is then fixed, the accident and repair is noted electronically. The car will have lost value even if repaired to a good standard.
Is this sort of loss of value generally claimed?
Anyone done it?
If the other party had admitted responsibility, does one direct claim from the insurer, or start process theough a solicitor?

Minstadave · 18 Apr 2018 at 22:50

Where would it be recorded in a way that a potentially buyer would know?

muon · 18 Apr 2018 at 23:07

If it has been repaired properly, why is there a devaluation?

If it has been written off then you should have been paid the full market price anyway.

jpaul · 18 Apr 2018 at 23:42

Minstadave said:
Where would it be recorded in a way that a potentially buyer would know?

if it was under warranty, would a dealer/manufacturer not have to confirm repair was compliant with anti-corrosion needs ? and could be recorded as such ?
also, if you sell privately and buyer asks has it had any significant repairs you are aware of ? need to be truthful.
... so you have to accept some potential devaluation applied by a purchaser.

muon · 19 Apr 2018 at 01:41

So how much is the devaluation your hypothetical buyer will put on the car?

Lopéz · 19 Apr 2018 at 06:20

muon said:
If it has been repaired properly, why is there a devaluation?

If it has been written off then you should have been paid the full market price anyway.

Even an excellent quality accident repair will devalue a car, and rightly so. It will never be back exactly as it should be, there will always be some kind of discrepancy. It's not uncommon for seemingly excellent repairs to start showing deterioration after a few years.

PMKeates · 19 Apr 2018 at 06:42

What you asking is referred to as ‘diminution’ in the industry. There are no strict rules or standards for it, but it can generally only be successfully claimed on particularly exotic or specialist vehicles.

jpaul · 19 Apr 2018 at 08:03

muon said:
So how much is the devaluation your hypothetical buyer will put on the car?

also - no smoke without fire - imhop many non-fault are not blameless for the injured party (eg. parking where liable to be pranged, insufficient anticipation of other road users) so there are probably other more visible signs why purchaser (and seller would have to too) mark the car down, even if repair was not so evident ? - all part of the market.
... but if you uncovered the repair during negotiation, as opposed to it being volunteered, would proably walk.

dacads · 19 Apr 2018 at 10:40

Minstadave said:
Where would it be recorded in a way that a potentially buyer would know?

Would a car history/hpi check flag it?

Daaaavvveee · 19 Apr 2018 at 10:55

dacads said:
Would a car history/hpi check flag it?

I think that would only happen if it was written off? Cat C/D etc (I think they have new category codes now however)

adolf hamster · 19 Apr 2018 at 11:33

do people really care all that much outside of something major enough to trigger a cat c/d (or whatever the new one now is) flag?

both my cars i know for a fact they've had a hit in the past but i also know they were both repaired properly so why care?

in fact i challenge anyone to look at the pair of them and tell me exactly what happened just by inspecting it.

jpaul · 19 Apr 2018 at 11:51

adolf hamster said:
both my cars i know for a fact they've had a hit in the past but i also know they were both repaired properly so why care?

how did you find out ? and did you modify your offer ?

adolf hamster · 19 Apr 2018 at 12:08

jpaul said:
how did you find out ? and did you modify your offer ?

one i found the repair documentation after purchase- well known local garage that's used by insurance companies for repairs

the other i bought off a family member who i know crashed it, but i also know they had it repaired properly

Scania · 19 Apr 2018 at 13:40

Unless the car was declared a write off then I can’t see how a good quality repair carried out to high standards would devalue a car.

My partner was rear ended in her then 6month old Focus by an HGV, the damage was severe enough for it to need reshelling which was duly done by the Ford dealer she bought the car from.

Fast forward 5 years and 50k miles she traded it in with the same dealer against a Kuga without issue and was given a very fair part ex price and the Focus was sold by the same dealer as an approved used car within two weeks of her trading it in.

It wasn’t a declared write off and other than a broken spring she had no problems with the car after the re-shell - I can only presume it passed the RAC inspection Ford put on their used cars without issue.

Tinders · 19 Apr 2018 at 18:35

I would guess that a fair proportion of ex lease ie company cars will have had some paint, to avoid dehire charges, many companies will tell the employee to get the car sorted at the companies expense, which in my experience means a bonnet and bumper at the very least will be painted. It doesnt really make any difference, and you would be hard pressed to tell unless you really know what you are looking for. Ive not found dealer bodyshops to be any better than independants either, The biggest problem is with people, once they have had a substandard repair, being afraid to reject the works. This leads to bodyshops regularly doing imperfect jobs.

timmeh · 19 Apr 2018 at 19:34

Am I misunderstanding something? Are people saying that they would pay the same for a car that has been crashed and repaired as they would for one which hasn't been crashed?

Does it not flag on the car's title when it's been involved in a crash?

You'd lose a load of money if you had something rare/exotic. This guy got a good diminished value settlement on his Ferrari 612 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFVCG4ab69w

I get that we're probably not talking about something like a 612 here but I would definitely want to avoid a car that's had any sort of substantial repairs regardless of what it was. I certainly wouldn't want to pay the same for a crash repaired one as I would for one which hasn't been repaired no matter how good the repair was.

[TW]Fox · 19 Apr 2018 at 19:38

timmeh said:
Am I misunderstanding something? Are people saying that they would pay the same for a car that has been crashed and repaired as they would for one which hasn't been crashed?

No, but if the repair has been carried out correctly and to a high standard most people would not know.

Does it not flag on the car's title when it's been involved in a crash?

No. Only if it is the subject of an insurance writeoff.

Dis86 · 19 Apr 2018 at 19:45

[TW]Fox said:
No. Only if it is the subject of an insurance writeoff.

Curiously when I sold the 6 series recently one potential buyer knew that it had been involved in a rear end collision before they'd seen the car. I don't know how they found out!
Were able to give me the date, name of the owner and who repaired it.

Diddums · 19 Apr 2018 at 19:50

Lopéz said:
Even an excellent quality accident repair will devalue a car, and rightly so. It will never be back exactly as it should be, there will always be some kind of discrepancy. It's not uncommon for seemingly excellent repairs to start showing deterioration after a few years.

Not only this but in some cases you lose a lot of the car's crumple zones, rendering the car less safe than before.

timmeh · 19 Apr 2018 at 19:52

[TW]Fox said:
No, but if the repair has been carried out correctly and to a high standard most people would not know.
No. Only if it is the subject of an insurance writeoff.

Interesting. I'd have thought everything would have been logged somewhere. I guess it's less of a problem when you've got things like MOTs to make sure they're road-worthy, unlike over here where almost anything can go on the road.