Curious story here. As some of you might remember, my zed was written off sometime early last year. The insurance company said that it was a "total loss" and paid me out. Fair enough, nothing unusual here. A couple of days ago, I decided, out of boredom to look up my car on VicRoad's rego check website, which, for those who are not in Vic, basically looks up the car's rego, vin and engine numbers, and tells you if the car's been stolen, written off or has finance owing on it. A good basic check when looking to buy a car. I looked up my old rego, and sure enough, my car was there, with a status of not written off. I tried to get more information, but it wouldn't query it, so I instead queried by vin number. My car came up again, with a different rego, again with a status of "not written off". It showed that rego is valid till sometime next year. So I'm wondering, can this service be trusted? And what happened to my car? Did someone buy it at the auctions, fix it and re rego it? And why didn't it get marked as having been "written off"? Cheers. -Kirill
do a REVS check on the site or call them up. it might have be classed as a non viable writeoff or a repearable writeoff. and told you it was a total loss. If the car was classed as a repearable write off they can use it to do a rebirth or just repair it.
When I checked the new details under the new rego, the colour and engine number came up as the same as before, so would this mean rebirth unlikely? -Kirill
It would more likely.... You steal a 300zx. you buy one from the auctions (yours). get the plates off, and the engine put it in the new one. throw the rest away. Then when you go to re register, you says the one from the auction. OR grind the engine number off and knock the number off your old car in. Or they could have ligit fixed it.
Vins are usually stamped into the chassis/frame are they not? I know the early complied ones only had a pop riveted plate, making it rather easy to do a switcharoo, but how stringent are they now in VIC in regards to stamping? My black zed from VIC had a vin plate riveted, to which SA didnt allow, resulting in a physical stamping on the chassis. Unless you're really shifty and get it looking schmik again for others to be none the wiser, cut, weld, filler, stamp. Id think/imagine its been fixed and put back on the road. Rebirthed. Not sure how you'd feel about the situation, but i would feel pretty dirty if the insurance agency said it was a total loss and paid you out. But than auctioned it off, to than have it be fixed and put back into action. ...."aye thats my car!!!" sort of a feeling.
And their car would have to be the same colour as mine then, right? (in the event of rebirth). -Kirill
Ideally yes. But depends on who inspects it, they may just leave the details the same should you say..."oh yeah resprayed it, but its still red underneath." Its only beneficial to buy a vehicle of the same colour for rebirthing. Makes things easier. But its not always detrimental.
Lets just say its done more often then not in the local rally scene. Having compliance plates, vin plates, etc from wrecked (not written off) vehicles, should you damage your primary vehicle to a point its deemed written off... In some cases its simpler to fixed the stuffed chassis/panels (due to weld in cage/chassis mods) and replate it (rebirth) with the good plaes and get it signed off that way. Not that im saying i know people that have done that or are prepared to do it, should something happen....cough cough.
Don't know about Vic but in Qld, I believe the written-off register is optional for vehicles over 10 (I think, could be 12 or 15?) years old.
I am pretty sure that as long as it gets blue slipped it can be reregistered just have to fix up chassis rail or whatever I thought it was legal happened to me shannons wrote my car off, I bought the car back fixed it up power panel etc reregistered it fine
A write off is a write off. The insurance companey deem it uneconomical to repair. So they pay you out and off you go. I believe you often have an option to purchase the wreck back after you have been paid out. However, the write off can be 2 types, Repaireable and Statutary. A repaireable writeoff is just that, repaireable. Yours might have been classified repaireable, sold off at auction, repaired, pitted and away it goes. One of my bikes was done this way. A Stautary writeoff is listed on an Australia wide register and that chassis cannot ever be registered again due to damage deemed to severe for a safe repair. These go straight to the wreckers or the scrappies. Nothiong untoward about seeing your car again if it was a repairerable wreck. L8r E
Nothing wierd going on Kiril. The insurance company may or may not place the car on the register. In this case they havent and someone bought it and repaired it. They prob sold it at auction as a loss.
Yeah I guess it's no biggie. I was just curious to see that someone actually fixed all that damage and re-registered it. :O Probably doesn't drive straight any more..
