Johannesburg – Buying a second-hand car is a risk, but to buy a car that has been written off is ten times the risk and trouble.
The South African Motor Body Repairers’ Association (SAMBRA) is deeply concerned about less informed people who are buying second-hand cars because they are cheap.
This follows a report by this proud Association of the Retail Motor Industry Organization(RMI) which said, unsuspecting car buyers who have been deceived into buying second-hand cars which are said to look like a great deal on the face, but have serious underlying problems and should never be on the road.
The national director of SAMBRA, Richard Green, has been campaigning hard for the South African Insurance Association (SAIA) to release more information to the market regarding the status of written-off vehicles.
Without a register to refer to, there is no way of stopping these cars from finding themselves back into the system, only to be purchased by a poorly advised consumer.
Last year SAMBRA commissioned a specialist independent assessor to investigate and assess what is really going on in the market and it looks like the problem is even bigger and more serious than initially thought.
Below is a tweet from someone who had her car written off:
The first and the last time I had sex in a car the ignition was on. She kicked the gear stick from Neutral into a gear, my car was written off😠pic.twitter.com/Fk7z7MeBlG
— Vhakoma 🦇 vha Limpopo (@Vhakoma_SA) September 2, 2021
Recently, a Polo Vivo, advertised online and registered as a 2020 model with just over 10 000 km on the clock was bought for a young lady this year. On the face of it the car looked perfect.
The customer was able to finance and insure the car through one of the big reputable banking institutions. But, according to the Assessor, that is where the fairy tale ended.
The car was assessed with the client’s daughter present at her home in Krugersdorp as family members were concerned about certain paint defects.
The car had in fact been owned by a rental company in Durban and had been involved in a serious collision amounting to over 75% of its value in damages in December 2019. It was declared uneconomical to repair by the insurer and written off.
Green said, “We are also concerned that, the dealer when confronted with the report, offered to take the car back to try and resell it so he could reimburse the owner”.
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