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BAN ON ‘REPAIRABLE WRITE-OFFS’ TO HIT CAR RE-BIRTHING RACKETS
Thursday, 8 April 2010
The NSW Government will introduce legislation to ban the re-registration of all ‘repairable
written-off’ vehicles to clamp down on car rebirthing, Minister for Transport and Roads
David Campbell announced today.
Mr Campbell said the legislation will mean that write-offs will no longer be able to be sold at
auctions, where the vehicles can then be re-birthed and on-sold to unsuspecting
consumers.
“There is a black market for purchasing written-off vehicles at auctions, then using stolen
parts to rebirth and register the car, to be sold for a tidy profit,” Mr Campbell said.
“This isn’t being done by licensed repairers - in most instances it’s not financially viable for
genuine repairers to repair these cars using legitimate parts.
“In many cases, it’s being done by unscrupulous operators in backyards and workshops
using stolen parts, who then sell the vehicles to unwary motorists.
“Some consumers are being taken for a ride - motorists might be driving around in what’s
effectively a stolen vehicle.
“More importantly, many of these vehicles have had dodgy repairs which can mask major
structural damage. It’s extremely unsafe.
“Car re-birthing is a significant problem which has been known to have links to organised
crime syndicates.
“Today’s announcement will put a massive dent in these illegal operations.
“It’s estimated that as many as six out of ten of the 20,537 repairable written-off vehicles
presented for re-registration in 2009 posed serious questions about the origin of the parts
used to repair them.
“Around 19,000 vehicles were stolen in NSW in the 2008-09 financial year – of these,
around 5,700 have not been recovered.
“Today’s announcement means any car which is written off will not be able to be reregistered
even if it can be repaired.”
Mr Campbell said the NSW Government made the decision to ban repairable write-offs
after a discussion paper was released for consultation in August last year.
“What we found was that consumers – as well as legitimate car dealers and repairers –
wanted better protections in place,” he said.
“NSW is the first state to introduce this ban on repairable write-offs, and we would
encourage other states to follow our lead and implement similar laws.
“There will be very limited exemptions to the new laws – for some vehicles written off
because of hail damage, and for some classic antique cars.
“We will also strengthen written-off vehicle notification requirements – for example, vehicles
currently being sent to a scrap yard for crushing are not required to be registered on the
Written-off Vehicle Register (WOVR) and this presents an additional opportunity for
rebirthing.”
Mr Campbell said the new laws are on top of the RTA’s Vehicle History Check service
launched last year.
“The RTA’s Vehicle History Check service allows potential buyers to check whether a used
car has ever been written-off anywhere in Australia,” he said.
“The service also provides customers with details of a car’s history including the number of
previous owners, when it was first registered in NSW and odometer readings.
“All you need is the car’s registration plate details, vehicle type and the last four digits of the
VIN/chassis number,
“It’s a simple check you can do on the RTA website for under $20.”
The new laws will be implemented following stringent legislative change and will take effect
in August this year.

Today’s announcement means any car which is written off will not be able to be reregistered
even if it can be repaired.

So where will they go? No use to the wreckers, if nobody is repairing anything - and wreckers buy most of their stock at auction. Most likely to the crusher. What a total and utter waste of perfectly servicable parts. But that's society today isn't it? Throw it away so somebody can sell you a new one and if somebody is fixing broken stuff, make it illegal - so you can sell new ones.

I love all the other stuff in that post too - like "in most instances ... In many cases ... some ... motorists might be ... many of ... problem which has been known to have links to ..."
But this takes the cake;

There will be very limited exemptions to the new laws – for some vehicles written off
because of hail damage, and for some classic antique cars.

A hail damaged one is the last one you'd want to repair.

so did i miss something, is this new legislation going to include motor cycles too? If so there's gonna be an awful lot of trackies around cheap as chips and not really anywhere to ride them(Sydney having one track and all).

There may be more trackies, but the demand for serviceable parts is going to be interesting.
I personally think that they should have focused more on the loopholes and giving far more scrutiny to the source of parts than just taking the EASY way out and banning the lot.

The sins of the few as usual

Isn't that the typical story though? some asshole screws up a good thing for the rest of us.

MadKaw wrote:BAN ON ‘REPAIRABLE WRITE-OFFS’ TO HIT CAR RE-BIRTHING RACKETS
.........................“Around 19,000 vehicles were stolen in NSW in the 2008-09 financial year – of these,
“All you need is the car’s registration plate details, vehicle type and the last four digits of the
VIN/chassis number,
“It’s a simple check you can do on the RTA website for under $20.”
The new laws will be implemented following stringent legislative change and will take effect
in August this year.

interesting.... I know of 5 or 6 repairable writeoffs courtesy of the last hail storm we had here in Melb
the previous owners are comfortably driving around in their very dented and previously writtenoff
cars they bought back from the insurance co

wonder if it will come in here

it says they wont be sold at auction, so wouldnt that stop the flow of trackies too?

surely they will sell them as stat write offs, just not able to be re-registered!!

how is an insurance co going to recover part costs of an 100k vehicle with say 30k damage. normally they would recover 30k for the wreck. if they werent allowed to sell it off at auction , that is 100k down the drain. how long are insurance companies going to survive if this happens.. unless premiums go to 20k a year

mike-s wrote:There may be more trackies, but the demand for serviceable parts is going to be interesting.
I personally think that they should have focused more on the loopholes and giving far more scrutiny to the source of parts than just taking the EASY way out and banning the lot.

Fair call Mike, this is not too dissimilar to the bikie legislation in the sense that rather than dealing with the problem well just slap in some new legislation to (hopefully) make the problem go away..

Daisy wrote:

.... What a total and utter waste of perfectly servicable parts. But that's society today isn't it? Throw it away so somebody can sell you a new one and if somebody is fixing broken stuff, make it illegal - so you can sell new ones.

Obviously time will tell, but I wouldn't be surprised if the number of vehicles being written off actually decreases as a result of this legislation .... now don't get me wrong, I think it's shit legislation, but, I suspect what will happen is that the residual value of the wrecks will decrease (greatly reduced demand), meaning insurance companies will be more likely to repair more vehicles (as it becomes more financially viable).

I still disagree in principle with what the gumbyment is proposing, but it might mean cheaper trackies for us ... actually, it'll probably just mean all the wrecks are sold in Qld and Vic where the laws don't apply .... for now.

What a stupid idea for a law.

I agree with what's been said so far.

It'd be a good reason for car and bike insurance premiums and or excesses to go up!

There will be significantly less demand for a huge number of stat writeoff vehicles, so insurance companies will recover much less value from wrecks and will have to recover the profit in premiums and or excess.

Who looses out - 99% of us.

tim wrote:What a stupid idea for a law.

I agree with what's been said so far.

It'd be a good reason for car and bike insurance premiums and or excesses to go up!

There will be significantly less demand for a huge number of stat writeoff vehicles, so insurance companies will recover much less value from wrecks and will have to recover the profit in premiums and or excess.

Who looses out - 99% of us.

We'll just buy them in Vic for 1/10 the price, fix them up and use them ourselves

seiko1 wrote:

tim wrote:What a stupid idea for a law.

I agree with what's been said so far.

It'd be a good reason for car and bike insurance premiums and or excesses to go up!

There will be significantly less demand for a huge number of stat writeoff vehicles, so insurance companies will recover much less value from wrecks and will have to recover the profit in premiums and or excess.

Who looses out - 99% of us.

We'll just buy them in Vic for 1/10 the price, fix them up and use them ourselves

Exactly, however if you register it in VIC why can't the rego be transferred back to NSW? A lot more detail to come out.

The problem was the RTA's own system of checking was at fault. All RWO's under 10 years had to go for a $400 inspection. If there was that much re birthing going on then the system has failed. So rather than fix the system we stop the system and transfer the problem to the public. I am thinking that there maybe a change to our policies in that they will now use second hand parts in lieu of new to bring the repair cost down.

Nick

Knee-jerk reaction imo, poorly thought out as usual. I agree with the comments that the insurance thresholds for write-offs will change so that less are actually written off, surely leading to higher premiums and excesses.

How about more stringent background checks on purchasers? How about a limit of the amount of written off vehicles a person can purchase in a period (eg 1 per year)? I'm sure there are plenty of solutions if they spent more time on the issue.