write off or not?

therock585

The repairers have quoted £5000 to my insurance. the vehicle is worth £8000 according to what car used car valuations. I take it there is no chance OF THE car being written off or am I wrong.

Quentin

You could be wrong

loveduppaul

I may be wrong but I have heard that if the repair cost is over 50% the value of the car there is a chance they will just write it off.

[Deleted User]

It depends on a lot of factors. They will probably try to screw you with an offer well below the true market value of the car for a start.

If they do decide to write it off you can always ask to have it back. They will deduct the scrap value from what they give you for it, and you will have to argue with them because it will be silly money. Anyway, eventually you should get at least 5k to get the repairs done yourself.

Aretnap

Sometimes it will be written off if the repair estimate is a large percentage of the market value, rather than necessarily more than the market value. Also AutoTrader isn't the final arbiter of a car's value - see here for what is

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

So it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that they'll write it off.