Avoid buying flood damaged vehicles, car insurance company warns

Tue, 07 Aug 2007

Vehicles damaged in the flooding this summer may enter the second-hand car market and prove useless to buyers, a car insurance company has warned.

Such vehicles are likely to be car insurance write-offs and could have problems with them that are expensive to fix and potential dangerous, Ian Clark of AA Vehicle Inspections states.

Head of AA Car Insurance Janet Pell cautions that some car owners may sell on damaged vehicles without making a car insurance claim and buyers may find they have a long-term problem with the vehicle.

"Many vehicles will have been seriously damaged by immersion in flood water and insurers go to stringent efforts to ensure that they are properly disposed of and don’t reach the open market," she remarks.

The AA is advising customers to check for a smell of damp or steamed up windows and if there is a whitish deposit in the underneath the oil cap, water may have got into the engine.

Car insurance companies are gearing up to pay out victims of the flooding, with recent reports putting the total cost of insurance claims from the freak weather at £2.5 billion.

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