Car not roadworthy, anyone know if this is true?

steven0121

Hi all, I have been told I cannot recover my car as it is unroadworthy as the passenger side front door may not open. Does that make it unroadworthy?

lewishardwick

Yes. If it fails an MOT, it is unroadworthy.

steven0121

Hiya, thanks, the car has never failed an MOT, It was stolen and hit a side wall, it knocked the near side handle off. other than that it is fine. Is that unroadworthy?

steven0121

I am now 80 miles from where my insurance company put it. If it is unroadworthy can I tow it. Thae car is worth £3-4K, I have been offered £300 max to scrap it. It just seems horrible as it was the first car I owned ?

marlot

lewishardwick wrote: »

Yes. If it fails an MOT, it is unroadworthy.

Not neccessarily.

For example, a car will fail the MOT if it has a spacesaver fitted. But is roadworthy.

csgohan4

if your car has a fire your passenger can't get out, what do you think?

System

csgohan4 wrote: »

if your car has a fire your passenger can't get out, what do you think?

I think that if I simply wanted to recover the car I would not take a passenger.

A bit of commonsense needed here.

OnanTheBarbarian

Your insurers want to keep the salvage for themselves so they can sell it on for far more than the £300 salvage value they are offering you. This is why they make it difficult for customers to get their vehicles back and they get shunted around salvage companies and taken to far away places.

If you have no passenger, then I fail to see why it is unroadworthy.

Failing all else, get it recovered if you want it back

Insurers are just utter scumbags.

paddyandstumpy

Onan what are you - an Estate Agent?! Or a Solicitor...

Norman_Castle

steven0121 wrote: »

Thae car is worth £3-4K, I have been offered £300 max to scrap it. It just seems horrible as it was the first car I owned ?

Have you been offered £3-4k minus the scrap value, £300? If you get the car back what do you want to do with it?

It just seems horrible

Try not to cry as it you picture it being fed into a shredder.

teddysmum

The insurance company I dealt with was quite happy to write off my car then let me keep it for 10% of the value offered, but no recovery was needed as it was drivable and not towed away.


It was written off as not being economical to repair, being an older model, but it suits me. The slightly dented and scuffed rear hatch is difficult to open, but it has passed its MOT, since the bump and the door can be replaced and sprayed well within the budget allowed.


If you have time to spare ( car repairs being labour intensive) some write offs are worth buying back. A work colleague bought a friend newish car, which was written off because of cosmetic interior damage. It took him a long time to replace parts, but he ended up with a beautiful car at a fraction of the cost of buying one.