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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 26683" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>I drove past the accident site yesterday afternoon. You have to look hard to see it and from what I can see, the scratches in the road are caused by the car being dragged back with a hubcap under one of the wheels. You can also see the <img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/2012/censored2.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":censored2:" title="censored2 :censored2:" data-shortname=":censored2:" /> from the damaged tyres. No glass, no metal. Maybe a damaged bush right on the edge. The car must have lost most of its energy before its headlight hit the tree, because I couldn't see a damaged tree and the headlight is only partly broken.</p><p>There isn't even a dent in the car's body work from hitting the ditch, I can't see how the frame could be twisted on even a lightweight frame, but this model of car apparently was built to last. The suspension - if you hit the kerb too hard you need to get the wheel alignment checked out. I suspect this will be about the same. The wheel alignment when they put on the new tyres will be all the suspension needs.</p><p></p><p>The write-off - what happens here usually, is when the insurance company has to get involved. They will use the car to help defray their costs to other parties. But there was no other party here, the tree that broke the headlight is not complaining. So it is up to the owner to decide, or not to decide, to bother repairing it. And to know whether to bother repairing it - the owner has to know how much, as well as what. If it was a vintage car (at one level, not worth much because it's old) an owner would still want to try to lovingly restore it. Joe's failure to give us that information sounds like he was hoping the car was insured, so he could do a deal with the company. A car like that is usually not insured for much, so Joe would have bought the 'wreck' for the few thousand dollars it was insured for (or maybe in exchange for the towing fee), then made a huge profit off the new parts just installed. Or even fixed the car up (new tyres, new headlight, fasten on a new spoiler) and sold it through the nearby second-hand car yard.</p><p></p><p>We're technically dealing with two companies here - the towing people (they're the ones who charge $100 a day after the first 72 hours; don't know what the initial towing fee is) and the mechanic next door. From what we can work out, if we decided to let Joe fix the car, it moves from the tow yard to Joe's.</p><p>But in reality, Joe and the tow-truck bloke would be working closely together, and probably also working closely with the second-hand car yard nearby.</p><p></p><p>That car yard - when we bought our previous second-hand car, there were things missing that we couldn't argue about because we had no proof. The car had stickers on the window indicating it had been fitted with an alarm system, which I wanted. But although it still had the stickers, when we got the car there was no alarm system. They did tell us this before we collected it but insisted that the alarm had been taken out long ago by a previous owner. It was only ten years later, when husband accidentally kicked on the kill switch that we had never known about and I had to get the car to an auto-electrician to find out why it wouldn't start with a key, that we found out the rest of the story - the electrician was VERY familiar with this story because he worked in the area and problems relating to cannibalised alarm systems were happening all around him. He opened up the steering column and found all the loose wiring just dangling there, the old alarm system had been pulled out very quickly with care for the alarm and not for the car. A good second-hand dealer would have dealt with the wiring problem before selling the car because he would have found it while checking the car over thoroughly.</p><p>And in that intervening ten years, husband & I had often browsed round that dealer's place and NEVER seen a car for sale with an alarm system still fitted. So he wasn't simply moving the alarm system to another car in the yard - the alarms were going somewhere else. The auto-electrician told us that this car yard had a reputation for removing features like this and on-selling them through the various spare parts people in the area (Joe, maybe?)</p><p>We were glad of the kill switch, though. Just wish we'd been told about it in the beginning, but we suspect the car yard simply didn't know. Now that is slack. You buy a second-hand car from a dealer because it's been checked out. Nope, not this bloke. But the kill switch was tiny, only a quarter inch toggle hidden on the floor, all the way forward in the car. I had to lie on the floor to find it and flip it. It shut off the ignition from the battery, only a jump start would get the car going. Not even hot-wiring would work.</p><p></p><p>It's still fairly early in the working day here, too early for me to have heard anything. boyfriend's dad may even drop in to let me know, but probably won't because to visit us is an hour out of their way, and hopefully by then they'll have a car on a tow-truck. I suspect the next trick from these blokes is going to be a hefty initial tow fee that wasn't previously disclosed. I'm about to ring some legal people in the car industry to find out what these blokes can do, and what they can't.</p><p></p><p>Ain't life fun?</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 26683, member: 1991"] I drove past the accident site yesterday afternoon. You have to look hard to see it and from what I can see, the scratches in the road are caused by the car being dragged back with a hubcap under one of the wheels. You can also see the :censored: from the damaged tyres. No glass, no metal. Maybe a damaged bush right on the edge. The car must have lost most of its energy before its headlight hit the tree, because I couldn't see a damaged tree and the headlight is only partly broken. There isn't even a dent in the car's body work from hitting the ditch, I can't see how the frame could be twisted on even a lightweight frame, but this model of car apparently was built to last. The suspension - if you hit the kerb too hard you need to get the wheel alignment checked out. I suspect this will be about the same. The wheel alignment when they put on the new tyres will be all the suspension needs. The write-off - what happens here usually, is when the insurance company has to get involved. They will use the car to help defray their costs to other parties. But there was no other party here, the tree that broke the headlight is not complaining. So it is up to the owner to decide, or not to decide, to bother repairing it. And to know whether to bother repairing it - the owner has to know how much, as well as what. If it was a vintage car (at one level, not worth much because it's old) an owner would still want to try to lovingly restore it. Joe's failure to give us that information sounds like he was hoping the car was insured, so he could do a deal with the company. A car like that is usually not insured for much, so Joe would have bought the 'wreck' for the few thousand dollars it was insured for (or maybe in exchange for the towing fee), then made a huge profit off the new parts just installed. Or even fixed the car up (new tyres, new headlight, fasten on a new spoiler) and sold it through the nearby second-hand car yard. We're technically dealing with two companies here - the towing people (they're the ones who charge $100 a day after the first 72 hours; don't know what the initial towing fee is) and the mechanic next door. From what we can work out, if we decided to let Joe fix the car, it moves from the tow yard to Joe's. But in reality, Joe and the tow-truck bloke would be working closely together, and probably also working closely with the second-hand car yard nearby. That car yard - when we bought our previous second-hand car, there were things missing that we couldn't argue about because we had no proof. The car had stickers on the window indicating it had been fitted with an alarm system, which I wanted. But although it still had the stickers, when we got the car there was no alarm system. They did tell us this before we collected it but insisted that the alarm had been taken out long ago by a previous owner. It was only ten years later, when husband accidentally kicked on the kill switch that we had never known about and I had to get the car to an auto-electrician to find out why it wouldn't start with a key, that we found out the rest of the story - the electrician was VERY familiar with this story because he worked in the area and problems relating to cannibalised alarm systems were happening all around him. He opened up the steering column and found all the loose wiring just dangling there, the old alarm system had been pulled out very quickly with care for the alarm and not for the car. A good second-hand dealer would have dealt with the wiring problem before selling the car because he would have found it while checking the car over thoroughly. And in that intervening ten years, husband & I had often browsed round that dealer's place and NEVER seen a car for sale with an alarm system still fitted. So he wasn't simply moving the alarm system to another car in the yard - the alarms were going somewhere else. The auto-electrician told us that this car yard had a reputation for removing features like this and on-selling them through the various spare parts people in the area (Joe, maybe?) We were glad of the kill switch, though. Just wish we'd been told about it in the beginning, but we suspect the car yard simply didn't know. Now that is slack. You buy a second-hand car from a dealer because it's been checked out. Nope, not this bloke. But the kill switch was tiny, only a quarter inch toggle hidden on the floor, all the way forward in the car. I had to lie on the floor to find it and flip it. It shut off the ignition from the battery, only a jump start would get the car going. Not even hot-wiring would work. It's still fairly early in the working day here, too early for me to have heard anything. boyfriend's dad may even drop in to let me know, but probably won't because to visit us is an hour out of their way, and hopefully by then they'll have a car on a tow-truck. I suspect the next trick from these blokes is going to be a hefty initial tow fee that wasn't previously disclosed. I'm about to ring some legal people in the car industry to find out what these blokes can do, and what they can't. Ain't life fun? Marg [/QUOTE]
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