One tenth of UK imports have been written off

According to car history checking service Cartell, one in ten cars imported from the UK in 2015 was previously written off for accident damage. The survey, which covered a six month period in 2015, and which looked at the histories of 29,089 cars as part of an investigation for RTE's Primetime, found that while the overall rate of write-offs was 10.4 per cent, the numbers became significantly worse once you started factoring tax and age into the equation.

Cartell told The Irish Times that "In the case of untaxed imports, vehicles which have been registered in Ireland in 2015 but not yet taxed, that percentage shot up to 12.6 per cent. In the case of taxed, private imports the percentage was 10.4 per cent written-off in the UK.

The age of the car also has a significant impact on the numbers. Cartell found that in the case of an imported six to seven-year-old vehicle 18.2 per cent had been written-off in the UK. That percentage increased to 20.8 per cent for a seven to eight-year-old vehicle and 21.2 per cent for an eight to nine-year-old vehicle. In fact a consumer stands more than a one-in-five chance of importing a written-off seven to 12-year-old vehicle.

Interestingly, the rate does drop off again as the age increases. At 13 years plus, the rate of write-offs reduces to 11.2 per cent.

There is an even scarier figure in the results. Write-offs are organised into categories, where category C and D are damaged cars, which an insurer has decided will cost more to repair than the vehicle is worth. Enterprising buyers can snap them up cheap and have them repaired, and as long as everyone buying the car knows that this is the case, then there’s little issue with it, assuming a good standard of repair.

Category B is a much more serious issue though – a Category B write-off can not legally be put back on the road, and so severe has the damage to it been that only a specific number of its parts can ever be re-used again. Frighteningly, Cartell found that in the six month period, 26 Category B cars were imported and 16 of those have subsequently been taxed for use, suggesting that they are being driven on the road right now.

Category A vehicles are worse again – so badly damaged that not even their parts can be legally re-used, but according to Cartell, no Category A vehicle was imported in that period.