The South African Motor Body Repairers’ Association (SAMBRA) has called upon the South African Insurance Association (SAIA) to publicise Code 2 vehicle salvage data on the VIN-Lookup website to protect consumers from buying deathtraps on wheels.
Earlier this month, SAIA declared that following “extensive internal engagements by the relevant SAIA Committee structures” it would no longer provide this information to the public as this would “compromise [dealers] who buy these vehicles and safely undertake repairs to the manufacturer’s specifications.”
This contradicts earlier statements by the association in which it said that Code 2 data would become available to consumers before the end of 2023.
To be specific, in a press statement on 1 September 2023, SAIA said: “The second phase of VIN-Lookup will consider inclusion of Used (Written-off Code 2) vehicles and is scheduled to be available by the end of 2023 at best.”
According to SAMBRA, a Code 2 designation is given to a financed vehicle that was in an accident so serious that the insurer deemed it uneconomical to repair and wrote it off.
“Motor corporations were asking for transparency of the insurers’ database, and I don’t understand why they’re not allowing it because it was fought for, they said it would be made available, and now they’ve decided they’re not going to [reveal Code 2 data],” said SAMBRA’s Michelle Prinsloo.
“This means the insurance industry is complicit in allowing salvage vehicles to be bought, fixed up, land up on showroom floors, and financed at inflated prices… and then you wonder why we have so many deaths on our roads.”
The VIN-Lookup website was launched on 1 September 2023 and allows potential buyers of pre-owned vehicles to check whether the particular car they are interested in was written off previously.
At present, however, the website only covers vehicles that have been classified as Code 3 (rebuilt), 3A (spare parts only), and 4 (permanently demolished) by one of the SAIA members – which includes the majority, but not all, of South Africa’s top insurers.
Another victim that could have been saved
SAMBRA’s Prinsloo highlighted yet another recent incident in which public Code 2 data could have saved a single mother from making a terrible purchase of a used vehicle.
The individual in question bought a pre-owned car from a dealer in Krugersdorp, Gauteng, which on the surface looked fine and came with a roadworthy inspection certificate, but soon after she took it home it started exhibiting major issues.
Within the first year of ownership, the car’s engine blew twice and had to be almost completely rebuilt both times.
The first time this happened, Prinsloo urged the single parent to take the car to a forensic specialist to get it inspected for structural issues as a roadworthy certificate does not go as in-depth.
Not keen on spending even more money on the car, she refused and trusted her insurer to take care of the issue. The insurer sent the vehicle to an approved workshop which performed the necessary repairs to get the car back on the road, and this was paid for by the dealership as the owner was still within the six-month warranty.
Not even three months later, the car’s engine blew again and other quality issues also reared their ugly heads, and this time the owner had to flip the bill herself as the dealer warranty had expired.
She finally agreed to get the vehicle inspected by a trained professional, who discovered that it was, in fact, involved in a serious accident where its airbags were deployed, and subsequently sold to a salvage yard from where it was bought by an unscrupulous dealer and shoddily repaired to sell to unsuspecting consumers.
Unfortunately, the six-month window provided by the Consumer Protection Act in which the owner is allowed to return the car to the dealer already expired at this point, and she is now locked into a finance contract for several more years with no other choice but to keep the dangerous vehicle or sell it and shoulder a massive financial loss.
“The idea of going to a salvage yard is that whatever parts are usable can be sold off the vehicle, but it should never be that they can sell the vehicle for a rebuild because that’s where the problem comes in,” said Prinsloo.
“The insurance industry is complicit, and we need to understand why are they [withholding Code 2 data].”
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