Much the same problem in Australia, cars are written off for no apparent reason with very minor damage. I know of at least one car owner who strongly argued with his insurance co after his car was written off (front bumper only damaged) and they changed their mind and fixed it but it wasn't an easy fight.
Great informative vid. I had my A6 written off 2 years agai for the smallest of impacts and was a cat S because it creased the iner structur of the rear wing which was easily knocked out in 2 minutesw. They said it woud cost £5500 to fix, but then paid me out £8000 🤷🏻♂. I bought it back, had a garage do a really good fix for £1,200 and still driving her today Insurance is a joke. Taking out insurance is much teh same as visiting the casino, its playing the odds and a total gamble.
I agree my daughter had a accident on black ice in her 72 plate hyundai i20n both plastic front and rear bupmers were damaged the coolant radiator, because it was still under warranty it needed hyundai new parts only. We sent pictures to fix motors who were the company we had to use and that was the end of the car written off no visual assesment was made las tI saw of it was on the back of a co part wagon heading to liverpool. this car 16393 miles on the clock. crazy
Completely agree with you,it's crazy,when I was a body shop manager we would always work with the assessors to repair the cars ,things have changed so much,that's why insurance is so expensive,great content.
You can use a normal A1 bumper for the S1, just have to cut a piece off the back of them that holds the fog lights for a standard A1 and then fit the S1 grilles fix a few for mates this way and save a lot of money
Insurance companies are all about making money and not having cars repaired which is a shame, or should we say a scam. Just to justify to up the prices for the insurance my guess. Glad your showing them that the decisions they make are certainly NOT the right ones. Some damages are repairable and some not, or take more time and effort and money to fix, that's why they just write them off. Keep fixing them Dean your doing a great job and exposing the insurance companies that this is not the right way to go....
With all due respect, without a laser measurer / reference jig , there's no way to know the impact on front end frame rails. They're designed to deform under ANY impact. They don't really differentiate between high and low energy impacts. If the wheel was touched, some amount of energy was sent to shock mounts, subframe and the chassis. Many of the metals are designed to be strong in the direction of stress under normal forces and directions, but weak when the stress is on an abnormal vector. It isn't just about crumple zones and alignment either, the integrity of structural components can be compromised even if they measure straight. I had a car repaired once after a bump. The insurer returned the car. Everything appeared fine, repair looked amazing. I had the chassis laser measured and the drive line was deviated from center by 2mm. You wouldn't know by sight. Over time, the forces being skewed by that 2mm offset will wear out bushes, stress rails, and generally make the car a lemon. I sent the measurements to the insurer and they immediately wrote the car off. You may be right that the Cat S classification is inappropriate, but there's no way to know without being scientific about it. "Looks alright" isn't alright. Given how complex modern materials are in cars versus in the 80s or 90s ... some of these "seems alright to me" repairs might as well be a cut-and-shut.
With damge like that to the S1, I think it's pretty obvious to say there's no real alignment issues by sight observation. If the car had further history or signs of aftermarket parts then you could refer to the jig but why would you in this case lol? And his getting a jig, I believe for the GTR and future projects.
@@IGRAFF09 I mean, the thinking in your reply is exactly my point. "pretty obvious" isn't pretty obvious at all. This kind of thinking is problematic. Might have been enough to observe "alrightness" back in the day, but composite, bonding and interfacing of materials has changed.
@aidencoder My guy, the S1 dose not need to put on jig lol. It's 'obviously' has not had a bad accident. I'm sorry, but it is extremely obvious. I understand what you are saying, but you are speaking from a bad experience, so you question it. Even with a damaged front bumper that S1 is lining up and you can tell very easily by the way it sits with the headlights at the bottom and how it meets the with bonnet (closed) Therefore nothing more than just replacement parts. It's pretty simple to be fair. GTI, on the other hand.....well...pretty obvious isn't it, ay? Haha
@@IGRAFF09 I get where you're coming from, but it is a machine and engineering methods need to be applied. If you don't measure, you don't know. Full stop. It doesn't matter how right something appears, or how minor the damage seems. Alignment may well be fine, but how about the components that took an irregular incidence of energy? That damper in the suspension might look straight but the piston inside could be misaligned. That wing might look right, but what about the micro fractures in the seam sealer that now allow water ingress? They're complex products. That's my point. By sight isn't enough, no matter how loud you say it. They're not designed to be economical to repair, they're designed to operate under circumstances that don't involve crash physics. Do or don't measure it, but let's not pretend these repairs are anything but cosmetic... Sorry, to a standard that "looks right". You couldn't pay me to drive the Cayman around, and the GTR is a hell scape. All credit to the bravery, cost and effort of repairing them, I'm not that handy, but they'll only ever be *slaps bonnet* good as new *wink* *wink* They'll always be crashed cars, and never be right without appropriately measuring.
@aidencoder Okay, dude. Next time, I'm parked, and someone hits my car with their door in a lovely Tesco carpark. I will messure it against spec. As to your logic, that kind of energy output is enough to cause my door to never line up ture again. Thanks for this great insight. 👍
Hi Dean, loving the content! On this subject, I recently bought a cat N car from Copart, which once delivered took me all of 5 mins to see it should be a cat S. Inner wing, chassis leg and rear quarter. Is there anything you can do when an insurance assessor has clearly lost his glasses? Happy its down as a cat N, but I paid cat N money for a cat S damage wise.....
I think they should bring in a new cat so that if parts are on back order and light damage should be listed then not show on history report. When i worked for a car hire company they underwrite the insurance them self's so a lot would be repaired or re-shelled.As the vehicles are less than 6 month's old and the repair was not more than 90% of vehicle value at cost to us. I can understand that the total cost can exceed car value,courtesy car,storage and recovery and additional damage to what was hit, Part's and paint. Some people don't see the bigger picture but agree that the system needs updating.
Surely if the A1 was written off due to parts availability they would have categorised it as a Cat N - it would have been worth more for the insurance company at auction too.
My focus was written off cat S for suspension damage. There was no chassis damage. It was written off again for cat S as the wing was damaged which bent the bracket for the support member. Cost me £20 from ford for a new piece along with 10 spot welds... New wing, new bracket, been using the car since
The bumper is repairable also the wing can b repaired I've got a body shop in Bradford called peshawer moters with 40years experianse and du a lot of damage cars
Not only classifications, but between different insurers there is a difference, my neighbour reversed into my car, slight damage caused to the front bumper and crack along the front grille, their insurance company wanted to wrote the car off without assessing, went through my insurance company, and the offered to repair the car without any issues.. how can there be a difference between insurers, system is broken
The S1 is special, the VAG 2.0 TSI + AWD in its smallest formfactor :) The S1 is easiely roadworthy, the Polo GTI is not so lucky... I understand that Certified Insurance repairs cost alot more: Its easy to put a new bumper on the S1 but the insurance also has to factor in a replacement rental car and the many electronic goblins a modern car has. But I think " bolt- ons" should cost less to repair than a car that needs full inner- panel or subframe replacements. Maybe listings should include how high the damage is from the report without the additional costs insurances have to deal with...
I reckon when a cat s classification is assigned, they should put a number to tell how damaged it is. Like Cat S4 for really bad and Cat S1 for mild damage. And the same for Cat N.
Yes it’s ridiculous. They did the same with my car and took a repair shop 5 hours to pull the back panel out and you can’t even see where the 2 tiny dints was. Insurance scams.
Be careful on what you wish for. Here in the Netherlands crash damaged vehicles are regulated and as a consequence only certified companies are able to get their hands on them. The result is that there is no copart or other option to get your hands on one, let alone be it at a reasonable price. I envy the UK for having copart and no regulations...
I dont know who on earth does the maths when deciding if to write these vehicles off that's madness and I see it all the time nowadays hardly anything is getting repaired
Your right it’s unbelievable how they just can’t be bothered too repair these cars anymore it’s just easier I guess for them less paperwork and I see you keeped the green beast and they took the money. Gutted I would have taken it lol still defo good vid makes me want too get a crashed car a repair it myself 👍
No the truth is that Insurers make huge money out of selling the damaged cars, so it's in their interests for you to take a low offer and it be written off
You're correct that it's ok to fix a damaged car but the problem is, most of them are bodged back together by the sort of people who frequent Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds!
Lot of cars lately are being sold by insurance X marker as Categorised U. Possibly due to parts shortage ect but car damage is so minor it doesn't need a N or S against it.
My friend is a service manger for an Audi dealer in Kent. He just had an 2022 Audi A6 (I think!) written off. It had hit a pigeon and broke the headlight and minor damage to the wing. Audi could not give a delivery date of less than 2 years (!) for the light. The insurance company won’t use secondhand or pattern parts and refused to pay for a hire car for two years so it was written off. This is a farce and the reason why our insurance renewals are so high. What is going on with Audi?
This is why insurance premiums are going up and up! To pay for random write-offs because insurance companies find it cheaper (due to high rental/courtesy car prices) to do rather than wait for parts! It's mental...
Bumped our A3. Went through insurance as it was non fault, but took it to a local bodyshop for a price out if curiosity. Local guy said they would plastic weld the bumper crack and repair the bonnet, quoted 950. Went through the insurance for 3600😲. Total madness. Nothing repaired, everything replace with new parts. Only thing wrong with bonnet was a dent above the headlight
Seen a car other day at work same owner from new. It had its front window smashed and then front end parts stolen. Headlights, bonnet and front bumper. Insurance write off cat N… if with that anyone will automatically think oh its been crashed etc etc. definitely agree a couple more cat markers wouldn’t hurt the industry
That's an s if the inner wing/flitch panel or strut tower has damage, if its for parts then it's not an S and should be reclassified but won't be. No insurer wants to put a category on a vehicle for structural damage if its not as the salvage price goes down say from 22% for an N to 16% for an S.
Totally agree with you, dean, but I'm afraid like everything else that's wrong in this country, nothing will change for the better. As usual dean, keep up the good work 👍
It's not so much thinking about how cars are classified - it's what the insurance 'industry' add to the cost of a repair. Thinks like collection and storage 'costs' and rental, on top of the parts and labour to repair. It's become a massive money making scam for all those involved and prices our insurance a vast amount more than it needs to.
Couldn't agree more with your sentiments regards write offs. Your assessment seems most sound, that Audi seemingly could have been easily repaired by the insurer without the need for a write off. It definitely seems like an increasing trend for stuff being written off for less and less. Feels very much like there is no appetite for repairing these days. The whole thing needs end-to-end overhaul as, even if you do manage to get a repair agreed, the whole process is a licence to print money which we are ultimately paying for.
Hi Dean I agree with you 100% we need a system where by you could take a repaired car to be inspected similar to what you can do now with condition inspected but where you could have the categorisation of a vehicle changed by showing the damage found what was done to repair the damage and the finished article they have a system in the us where they can get the vehicle inspected and if it passes their standards for repair quality it is given a different title (v5) categorisation thus increasing the potential value of the vehicle closer to as if it had not been written off .
My Mrs 17 plate Peugeot got recent written off ( category n ) because a parcel delivery van smashed in the back door . I bought it back off the insurance company and I got a door in colour . Totally wrong mate .
So this really baffles me. Well done for doing a video on this as I can understand why the Polo is a Cat S as it has structural damage hence the S. But why on earth is the S1 a Cat S also 🤔. It should be a Car N which as we know is non structural but like you said it shouldn't even have a title. Well done though buddy.
My grandads Polo was written off as category S and it literally only needed a new front bumper the bumper was destroyed tbf but🤷🏽♂️. It was a high spec low mileage car and it was worth 3 grand the bumper even brand new was 200 quid no idea why they wrote it off
No wonder our insurance policies are increasing year on year.. In the past it’s not been the parts that made it become a write off it’s been the cost of labour to fix it.. With all the noise around carbon footprints, why don’t as you say use good secondhand panels etc Maybe insurance companies should introduce a two tear system, insure your vehicle firstly with brand new parts should it be in an accident or a lower policy price for using good secondhand parts.. I know I would jump at the chance as I’ve been in this situation when someone decided to rear end me.. The insurance company wanted to write it off as it was over 5 years old & I bought it back off them but it didn’t need a new panel as I had it pulled out.. Absolutely ridiculous
I know a guy that bought a 3 year old Rolls Royce for £40 grand like the Audi it only needed a bumper and a wing. Because they couldn’t get the parts for 6 weeks the insurance wrote the car off because like for like hire car prices for an alternative Rolls was going to cost a fortune.
Writing a car off because of parts availability is a disgrace. The insurance industry needs a kick in the arse. Writing these cars off for virtually nothing makes everyone’s insurance premiums higher.
So what increase in insurance does cat S make ? If a standard genuine car cost me £300 to insure for example.... What would the same model but cat s cost ?! Roughly ... Guessing... As an idea
Got a 2018 e class Had light front end damage Do the cheaper diagnostic tools re set mercedes? Got problem after changing headlight no indicators and fault with used headlight not fully working
I repaired a 2018 Gle and the headlights have to be coded by Merc, well it did back in 2019 when I did the car. Also the modules are sided so can’t swap them over. Hopefully that’s of some help
madness what people put through insurance. in the old days the owners would have just pulled that dent out a bit and put some filler on the bumper, but in the old days people used to fix their own cars. not like now..
in Denmark we don't have any class, we have a % limit on how much a car can be made for compared to how much the car can sell for, no matter how old the car is, I mean 45% and the price must be made with new parts
It’s down to cost, is fixing it more than the cost of the car. There’s a golf GTE on motor for 7.750. Cat S but they can prove it should of been a cat N
last week one of the biggest Finnish insurance company told that it won't insure Audi etron gt etron gt rs or Porsche Taycans anymore. Becouse the battery is so expencive to replace.
I don't & can't do what you do mate, but damn I like following along with your adventures in buying broken cars, can't believe that the owner of the Audi let the insurance company write it off with so little damage, Rj in Oz
Crazy they wrote off the s1, my megane was hit needes a new bumper and both head lights cost £4800 it thought it was a write off but they fixed it strange part is the hire car cost 15,600 😳 for a month could of brough another rs for that
Our car was written off just for a dent in driver’s door and scratches on rear door. Car was worth £10k. Hire car was £350 per day. Cost me £300 to get 2 doors in colour and swap over. Also bodyshops working with insurance companies like to exaggerate their costs. Whole insurance industry needs a revamp.
You or the new buyer can take it to a DVLA inspection place (AUTOLIGN) and as long as it passes the test ( a very invasive inspection) they will inform HPI and the status will be cleared so will no longer show as a CAT S on any check someone does, regarding the damage to the S1 it may have already been an cat s in the past and it stays with the car cos they didn't have the inspection done better check the date to see when it was marked as a cat s
You can, but it will always flag as a V car, which means you still know it’s been written off in the past. It won’t affect the value positively over being cat s. Also the S1 wasn’t written off before. First time in Nov 23 (just before I bought it)
These car still looks okay. In South Africa code 2 is any used car. So the insurance companies keep the heavy damaged cars code 2 so that they get more for their wrecks on auction. This opens the door for crime cause the foreigners buy these cars at ridiculous prices on auction and then hijack people for their cars .they then swop the vin numbers and papers and the wreck they bought they cut up and sell the spares. The other problem is for the people that repair salvage cars properly ,the dealers and people that buy the cars trace the previous owners and if they pickup a insurance name as owner they assume the car was very badly damaged . I have fought a losing battle for a few years now
Had near enough the same issue, bought a corsa and a fiesta from copart, corsa deemed cat s and had less damage than the fiesta which was cat n!🙄 Audi looks to be a good buy, terrible decision to cat s the thing!
Our Government needs to start cracking down on Insurance Companies and tell them they have to start using used parts first to repair cars before having to resort to using new dealer parts, because the Government keeps banging on about we have to start recycling to save our environment but letting Insurance Companies waste by only buying brand new and if brand new isn't available because of back order then just writing cars off for the sake of it, then insurance companies are losing money from what they have paid out on a claim to what they got back for it at auction so everyone's premiums go up to cover their losses.
Recently had a baby looking for an S1 for my wife 5 door. She has a 2014 TDI quattro TT and we have a 2011 Audi A1 1.4 S line we will swop for that if interested?
Crazy to write the Audi off, we can see now why insurance policies are through the roof.
Because they can. Because the regulators are there to make the companies more money not protect the consumer.
Much the same problem in Australia, cars are written off for no apparent reason with very minor damage. I know of at least one car owner who strongly argued with his insurance co after his car was written off (front bumper only damaged) and they changed their mind and fixed it but it wasn't an easy fight.
Great informative vid. I had my A6 written off 2 years agai for the smallest of impacts and was a cat S because it creased the iner structur of the rear wing which was easily knocked out in 2 minutesw. They said it woud cost £5500 to fix, but then paid me out £8000 🤷🏻♂. I bought it back, had a garage do a really good fix for £1,200 and still driving her today Insurance is a joke. Taking out insurance is much teh same as visiting the casino, its playing the odds and a total gamble.
I agree my daughter had a accident on black ice in her 72 plate hyundai i20n both plastic front and rear bupmers were damaged the coolant radiator, because it was still under warranty it needed hyundai new parts only. We sent pictures to fix motors who were the company we had to use and that was the end of the car written off no visual assesment was made las tI saw of it was on the back of a co part wagon heading to liverpool. this car 16393 miles on the clock. crazy
Thanks
Completely agree with you,it's crazy,when I was a body shop manager we would always work with the assessors to repair the cars ,things have changed so much,that's why insurance is so expensive,great content.
You can use a normal A1 bumper for the S1, just have to cut a piece off the back of them that holds the fog lights for a standard A1 and then fit the S1 grilles fix a few for mates this way and save a lot of money
Insurance companies are all about making money and not having cars repaired which is a shame, or should we say a scam. Just to justify to up the prices for the insurance my guess. Glad your showing them that the decisions they make are certainly NOT the right ones. Some damages are repairable and some not, or take more time and effort and money to fix, that's why they just write them off. Keep fixing them Dean your doing a great job and exposing the insurance companies that this is not the right way to go....
If I was cynical, I’d say category S is slapped on perfectly repairable cars precisely to discourage the repair.
Dunno I work in the trade and my own car had a repair done at 90% of the cars value
With all due respect, without a laser measurer / reference jig , there's no way to know the impact on front end frame rails. They're designed to deform under ANY impact. They don't really differentiate between high and low energy impacts. If the wheel was touched, some amount of energy was sent to shock mounts, subframe and the chassis. Many of the metals are designed to be strong in the direction of stress under normal forces and directions, but weak when the stress is on an abnormal vector. It isn't just about crumple zones and alignment either, the integrity of structural components can be compromised even if they measure straight.
I had a car repaired once after a bump. The insurer returned the car. Everything appeared fine, repair looked amazing. I had the chassis laser measured and the drive line was deviated from center by 2mm. You wouldn't know by sight. Over time, the forces being skewed by that 2mm offset will wear out bushes, stress rails, and generally make the car a lemon. I sent the measurements to the insurer and they immediately wrote the car off.
You may be right that the Cat S classification is inappropriate, but there's no way to know without being scientific about it. "Looks alright" isn't alright. Given how complex modern materials are in cars versus in the 80s or 90s ... some of these "seems alright to me" repairs might as well be a cut-and-shut.
With damge like that to the S1, I think it's pretty obvious to say there's no real alignment issues by sight observation. If the car had further history or signs of aftermarket parts then you could refer to the jig but why would you in this case lol?
And his getting a jig, I believe for the GTR and future projects.
@@IGRAFF09 I mean, the thinking in your reply is exactly my point. "pretty obvious" isn't pretty obvious at all. This kind of thinking is problematic. Might have been enough to observe "alrightness" back in the day, but composite, bonding and interfacing of materials has changed.
@aidencoder My guy, the S1 dose not need to put on jig lol. It's 'obviously' has not had a bad accident. I'm sorry, but it is extremely obvious. I understand what you are saying, but you are speaking from a bad experience, so you question it.
Even with a damaged front bumper that S1 is lining up and you can tell very easily by the way it sits with the headlights at the bottom and how it meets the with bonnet (closed) Therefore nothing more than just replacement parts. It's pretty simple to be fair. GTI, on the other hand.....well...pretty obvious isn't it, ay? Haha
@@IGRAFF09 I get where you're coming from, but it is a machine and engineering methods need to be applied. If you don't measure, you don't know. Full stop. It doesn't matter how right something appears, or how minor the damage seems. Alignment may well be fine, but how about the components that took an irregular incidence of energy? That damper in the suspension might look straight but the piston inside could be misaligned. That wing might look right, but what about the micro fractures in the seam sealer that now allow water ingress? They're complex products. That's my point. By sight isn't enough, no matter how loud you say it. They're not designed to be economical to repair, they're designed to operate under circumstances that don't involve crash physics.
Do or don't measure it, but let's not pretend these repairs are anything but cosmetic... Sorry, to a standard that "looks right". You couldn't pay me to drive the Cayman around, and the GTR is a hell scape. All credit to the bravery, cost and effort of repairing them, I'm not that handy, but they'll only ever be *slaps bonnet* good as new *wink* *wink*
They'll always be crashed cars, and never be right without appropriately measuring.
@aidencoder Okay, dude. Next time, I'm parked, and someone hits my car with their door in a lovely Tesco carpark. I will messure it against spec. As to your logic, that kind of energy output is enough to cause my door to never line up ture again.
Thanks for this great insight. 👍
Hi Dean, loving the content! On this subject, I recently bought a cat N car from Copart, which once delivered took me all of 5 mins to see it should be a cat S. Inner wing, chassis leg and rear quarter. Is there anything you can do when an insurance assessor has clearly lost his glasses? Happy its down as a cat N, but I paid cat N money for a cat S damage wise.....
I think they should bring in a new cat so that if parts are on back order and light damage should be listed then not show on history report. When i worked for a car hire company they underwrite the insurance them self's so a lot would be repaired or re-shelled.As the vehicles are less than 6 month's old and the repair was not more than 90% of vehicle value at cost to us. I can understand that the total cost can exceed car value,courtesy car,storage and recovery and additional damage to what was hit, Part's and paint. Some people don't see the bigger picture but agree that the system needs updating.
Surely if the A1 was written off due to parts availability they would have categorised it as a Cat N - it would have been worth more for the insurance company at auction too.
You couldn’t say that auto trader trick if carvertical was the sponsor😂
😬😂
My focus was written off cat S for suspension damage. There was no chassis damage. It was written off again for cat S as the wing was damaged which bent the bracket for the support member. Cost me £20 from ford for a new piece along with 10 spot welds... New wing, new bracket, been using the car since
I bought a open bottle of screenwash for 2 pound to put in my green mondeo and i cant wait to drive it in the morning especially if its snowing
The bumper is repairable also the wing can b repaired I've got a body shop in Bradford called peshawer moters with 40years experianse and du a lot of damage cars
Absolutely ridiculous mate just for a bumper and wing. Keep it up
Not only classifications, but between different insurers there is a difference, my neighbour reversed into my car, slight damage caused to the front bumper and crack along the front grille, their insurance company wanted to wrote the car off without assessing, went through my insurance company, and the offered to repair the car without any issues.. how can there be a difference between insurers, system is broken
The S1 is special, the VAG 2.0 TSI + AWD in its smallest formfactor :) The S1 is easiely roadworthy, the Polo GTI is not so lucky...
I understand that Certified Insurance repairs cost alot more: Its easy to put a new bumper on the S1 but the insurance also has to factor in a replacement rental car and the many electronic goblins a modern car has. But I think " bolt- ons" should cost less to repair than a car that needs full inner- panel or subframe replacements. Maybe listings should include how high the damage is from the report without the additional costs insurances have to deal with...
I reckon when a cat s classification is assigned, they should put a number to tell how damaged it is. Like Cat S4 for really bad and Cat S1 for mild damage. And the same for Cat N.
Yes it’s ridiculous. They did the same with my car and took a repair shop 5 hours to pull the back panel out and you can’t even see where the 2 tiny dints was. Insurance scams.
Very good vid and point well made
What do you think cat s does to a cars value, Percentage wise?
Be careful on what you wish for. Here in the Netherlands crash damaged vehicles are regulated and as a consequence only certified companies are able to get their hands on them. The result is that there is no copart or other option to get your hands on one, let alone be it at a reasonable price.
I envy the UK for having copart and no regulations...
I dont know who on earth does the maths when deciding if to write these vehicles off that's madness and I see it all the time nowadays hardly anything is getting repaired
Dean just repair that bumper and arch liner, it’ll save a lot of money time and hassle.
Brilliant video once again mate !
Cheers Dean-S1=raffle it 👍👍👍
Your right it’s unbelievable how they just can’t be bothered too repair these cars anymore it’s just easier I guess for them less paperwork and I see you keeped the green beast and they took the money. Gutted I would have taken it lol still defo good vid makes me want too get a crashed car a repair it myself 👍
No the truth is that Insurers make huge money out of selling the damaged cars, so it's in their interests for you to take a low offer and it be written off
Everything has been going crazy since COVID times, I really don't understand how parts are out of stock and they don't have a date for re-stocking.
Unbelievable that those two cars have the same classification,
You are right to move polo on asap but repair the S1 and stick it in the raffle
You're correct that it's ok to fix a damaged car but the problem is, most of them are bodged back together by the sort of people who frequent Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds!
And the whole of uk u mean
Great video, and agree, why cat S. repair and then sell it. 👍👍👍👍👍
That is a great point. A bit like the MOT also having some rules that make no sense
Lot of cars lately are being sold by insurance X marker as Categorised U. Possibly due to parts shortage ect but car damage is so minor it doesn't need a N or S against it.
Fix the S1, fingers crossed you'll make a few quid to go towards the poss loss on the GTI, plus more funds for the Skoda project👍
You can get a autolign check on it and it will remove the cat s marker and change it to Condition Inspected.
My friend is a service manger for an Audi dealer in Kent. He just had an 2022 Audi A6 (I think!) written off. It had hit a pigeon and broke the headlight and minor damage to the wing. Audi could not give a delivery date of less than 2 years (!) for the light. The insurance company won’t use secondhand or pattern parts and refused to pay for a hire car for two years so it was written off. This is a farce and the reason why our insurance renewals are so high. What is going on with Audi?
Audi S1 should be a Competeforcars!! 👍
This is why insurance premiums are going up and up! To pay for random write-offs because insurance companies find it cheaper (due to high rental/courtesy car prices) to do rather than wait for parts! It's mental...
Dean you're absolutely right... Also, as you may noticed the Polo has RTMG sunstrip so maybe it has stage 3 turbo and tune from them?
Yep, looks like the power exceeded the drivers talent
Bumped our A3. Went through insurance as it was non fault, but took it to a local bodyshop for a price out if curiosity.
Local guy said they would plastic weld the bumper crack and repair the bonnet, quoted 950. Went through the insurance for 3600😲. Total madness. Nothing repaired, everything replace with new parts. Only thing wrong with bonnet was a dent above the headlight
You should put the dsg box out the polo into the s1
Seen a car other day at work same owner from new. It had its front window smashed and then front end parts stolen. Headlights, bonnet and front bumper. Insurance write off cat N… if with that anyone will automatically think oh its been crashed etc etc. definitely agree a couple more cat markers wouldn’t hurt the industry
Also you can pay to have a cat s marker removed off the hpi
Well done for highlighting this ! It is a real travesty.
That's an s if the inner wing/flitch panel or strut tower has damage, if its for parts then it's not an S and should be reclassified but won't be. No insurer wants to put a category on a vehicle for structural damage if its not as the salvage price goes down say from 22% for an N to 16% for an S.
Totally agree with you, dean, but I'm afraid like everything else that's wrong in this country, nothing will change for the better. As usual dean, keep up the good work 👍
Hi mate what happened to the white Porsche and the two R8s. Thnx great content keep it up
It's not so much thinking about how cars are classified - it's what the insurance 'industry' add to the cost of a repair. Thinks like collection and storage 'costs' and rental, on top of the parts and labour to repair. It's become a massive money making scam for all those involved and prices our insurance a vast amount more than it needs to.
Couldn't agree more with your sentiments regards write offs. Your assessment seems most sound, that Audi seemingly could have been easily repaired by the insurer without the need for a write off.
It definitely seems like an increasing trend for stuff being written off for less and less. Feels very much like there is no appetite for repairing these days.
The whole thing needs end-to-end overhaul as, even if you do manage to get a repair agreed, the whole process is a licence to print money which we are ultimately paying for.
Hi Dean I agree with you 100% we need a system where by you could take a repaired car to be inspected similar to what you can do now with condition inspected but where you could have the categorisation of a vehicle changed by showing the damage found what was done to repair the damage and the finished article they have a system in the us where they can get the vehicle inspected and if it passes their standards for repair quality it is given a different title (v5) categorisation thus increasing the potential value of the vehicle closer to as if it had not been written off .
I think the OSF wing and the bonnet on the S1 is a different colour to the rest of the car.......??
Dean i aggree its getting stupid insurance accessors dont drive brought into work by mum and dad at 8am , but CO PART love it .
No doubt a big reason why insurance premiums are sky rocketing! 😡
Salvage rebuilds had their m4 removed from the register once it was repaired correctly, you can do the same?
My Mrs 17 plate Peugeot got recent written off ( category n ) because a parcel delivery van smashed in the back door . I bought it back off the insurance company and I got a door in colour . Totally wrong mate .
So this really baffles me. Well done for doing a video on this as I can understand why the Polo is a Cat S as it has structural damage hence the S. But why on earth is the S1 a Cat S also 🤔. It should be a Car N which as we know is non structural but like you said it shouldn't even have a title. Well done though buddy.
Are that broken wheel you still have I would be interested it get it from you i can make clock from it or a table
Get the s1 repaired and put it on compete for cars 😁
I’m currently rebuilding a black VW Up! GTI 2022
Totally agree with you, I’ve had a few that have been categorised as cat s and there’s been no damage past the bumper!
My grandads Polo was written off as category S and it literally only needed a new front bumper the bumper was destroyed tbf but🤷🏽♂️. It was a high spec low mileage car and it was worth 3 grand the bumper even brand new was 200 quid no idea why they wrote it off
No wonder our insurance policies are increasing year on year..
In the past it’s not been the parts that made it become a write off it’s been the cost of labour to fix it..
With all the noise around carbon footprints, why don’t as you say use good secondhand panels etc
Maybe insurance companies should introduce a two tear system, insure your vehicle firstly with brand new parts should it be in an accident or a lower policy price for using good secondhand parts..
I know I would jump at the chance as I’ve been in this situation when someone decided to rear end me..
The insurance company wanted to write it off as it was over 5 years old & I bought it back off them but it didn’t need a new panel as I had it pulled out..
Absolutely ridiculous
Enjoyed the vid, agree with you, vehicle catagorization of vehicles these days is ridiculous at times, Good job Dean, well done.
I know a guy that bought a 3 year old Rolls Royce for £40 grand like the Audi it only needed a bumper and a wing.
Because they couldn’t get the parts for 6 weeks the insurance wrote the car off because like for like hire car prices for an alternative Rolls was going to cost a fortune.
Anyone looking for insurance dont use the adrian flux 😂
Writing a car off because of parts availability is a disgrace. The insurance industry needs a kick in the arse. Writing these cars off for virtually nothing makes everyone’s insurance premiums higher.
So what increase in insurance does cat S make ?
If a standard genuine car cost me £300 to insure for example.... What would the same model but cat s cost ?! Roughly ... Guessing... As an idea
Dean the information for the Audi on here says or £8000 cash alternative but the site says £6500 🤔
ha ha dean glad to get that rant out of your system and of course you are right, now waiting for the next vrs videos...
Got a 2018 e class
Had light front end damage
Do the cheaper diagnostic tools re set mercedes? Got problem after changing headlight no indicators and fault with used headlight not fully working
I repaired a 2018 Gle and the headlights have to be coded by Merc, well it did back in 2019 when I did the car. Also the modules are sided so can’t swap them over. Hopefully that’s of some help
perfect content you have to fix it and raffle it off keep up the good work!!!
madness what people put through insurance. in the old days the owners would have just pulled that dent out a bit and put some filler on the bumper, but in the old days people used to fix their own cars. not like now..
in Denmark we don't have any class, we have a % limit on how much a car can be made for compared to how much the car can sell for, no matter how old the car is, I mean 45% and the price must be made with new parts
It’s down to cost, is fixing it more than the cost of the car. There’s a golf GTE on motor for 7.750. Cat S but they can prove it should of been a cat N
When you getting back on the TVR???
last week one of the biggest Finnish insurance company told that it won't insure Audi etron gt etron gt rs or Porsche Taycans anymore. Becouse the battery is so expencive to replace.
Impressive purchase nice work 🥳
Like the Autotrader tip.
I like this video format.
100% agree with you Dean.
You are right .... why was that written off...
I don't & can't do what you do mate, but damn I like following along with your adventures in buying broken cars, can't believe that the owner of the Audi let the insurance company write it off with so little damage, Rj in Oz
Crazy they wrote off the s1, my megane was hit needes a new bumper and both head lights cost £4800 it thought it was a write off but they fixed it strange part is the hire car cost 15,600 😳 for a month could of brough another rs for that
Whats with the cheesey music Dean 🤣🤣🤣Great video though and agree totally with your comments.
Our car was written off just for a dent in driver’s door and scratches on rear door. Car was worth £10k. Hire car was £350 per day. Cost me £300 to get 2 doors in colour and swap over. Also bodyshops working with insurance companies like to exaggerate their costs. Whole insurance industry needs a revamp.
Yeah also hire at 350 a day 😮
Salvage Rebuilds got a Cat S reclassified/reinspected
It was a company called AUTOLign
Excellent vid
Totally agree with you!
You or the new buyer can take it to a DVLA inspection place (AUTOLIGN) and as long as it passes the test ( a very invasive inspection) they will inform HPI and the status will be cleared so will no longer show as a CAT S on any check someone does, regarding the damage to the S1 it may have already been an cat s in the past and it stays with the car cos they didn't have the inspection done better check the date to see when it was marked as a cat s
You can, but it will always flag as a V car, which means you still know it’s been written off in the past. It won’t affect the value positively over being cat s. Also the S1 wasn’t written off before. First time in Nov 23 (just before I bought it)
These car still looks okay. In South Africa code 2 is any used car. So the insurance companies keep the heavy damaged cars code 2 so that they get more for their wrecks on auction. This opens the door for crime cause the foreigners buy these cars at ridiculous prices on auction and then hijack people for their cars .they then swop the vin numbers and papers and the wreck they bought they cut up and sell the spares. The other problem is for the people that repair salvage cars properly ,the dealers and people that buy the cars trace the previous owners and if they pickup a insurance name as owner they assume the car was very badly damaged . I have fought a losing battle for a few years now
Had near enough the same issue, bought a corsa and a fiesta from copart, corsa deemed cat s and had less damage than the fiesta which was cat n!🙄 Audi looks to be a good buy, terrible decision to cat s the thing!
I recently bought a CAT N seat leon cupra that got wrote off because the steering rack was on back order with seat main dealer 😂
Pyro fuse on the GTI will stop it from turning over
Could it be possible it was damaged before and repaired?
Our Government needs to start cracking down on Insurance Companies and tell them they have to start using used parts first to repair cars before having to resort to using new dealer parts, because the Government keeps banging on about we have to start recycling to save our environment but letting Insurance Companies waste by only buying brand new and if brand new isn't available because of back order then just writing cars off for the sake of it, then insurance companies are losing money from what they have paid out on a claim to what they got back for it at auction so everyone's premiums go up to cover their losses.
And yet my 2013 fiesta got rear ended doing the boot, boot floor, bumper, crash bar and both inner and outer skins and it was sent to Ford for repair.
Will the S1 be on compete for cars??
Don't you have to have your foot on the brake to start an Auto in the UK?
I was thinking the same...🤔😳🇬🇧
Recently had a baby looking for an S1 for my wife 5 door. She has a 2014 TDI quattro TT and we have a 2011 Audi A1 1.4 S line we will swop for that if interested?
Bang on!!
It’s no wonder that insurance quotes are up by 60%! 🤯 I heard that one of the reasons was the cost to repair electric cars; just a smokescreen?
Is my understanding of Category S wrong? Why would parts availability of a wing, light and bumber result in an S categorisation?