SA Motor Body Repairers’ Association (Sambra) national director Jacques Viljoen said Saia did not meet its original target of launching the VSD by the end of the first quarter of this year and gave Sambra a new undertaking it would launch it by the end of June this year.

Viljoen said that also did not happen and Saia subsequently gave Sambra the assurance the database was being finalised and a new undertaking that the first phase should be available by the end of August.

Transparency

Sambra has been putting pressure on Saia for a significant period of time to force it to give consumers access to information on the VSD.

Viljoen stressed there is no transparency on what happens to vehicles involved in serious accidents and consumers should be able to access such information to make an informed purchase decision.

Sambra has formed a working group with various other stakeholders to focus on this problem – its aim is to speed up the establishment of a database.

Saia said the VIN-Lookup will be a free public-facing platform, adding that it places great importance on the ability of the public to access this data free of charge as one of the tools to assist them in making their used vehicle buying decisions.

But Saia stressed the VIN-Lookup system should not be seen as a ‘silver bullet’ capable of solving all vehicle salvage and roadworthiness-related problems.

“The status returned in the VIN-Lookup could be useful and important to the interested public, but it is not the be-all and end-all.

“This single portal is not the only tool the public must use to make their buying decisions. It is only a small contribution to try to help solve the problem of unsafe repaired cars bought from salvage houses.

“Over and above this portal, the consumer must refer purchases of used vehicles or damaged vehicles to experienced and trusted expert service providers, such as roadworthy test facilities, which will assist them during their buying journey,” it said.

Saia said the launch would be done in phases, with the first phase containing the salvage records of:

  • Re-built (Code 3) vehicles;
  • Spare Parts only (Code 3A) and
  • Scrap Permanently Demolished (Code 4).

Vehicles designated as “Code 3A Spare Parts Only” are reported to the Insurance Crime Bureau.

“These are code 1, 2 and 3 motor vehicles involved in an accident and subsequently declared unfit for use as a motor vehicle.

“Such motor vehicles cannot achieve roadworthy status due to impaired structural integrity but can be stripped for spares only,” it said.

Saia said the second phase will contain Used (Written-off Code 2) vehicles, which will most likely be available in December 2023.

Saia said Used (Written-Off) Code 2 vehicles have one or more of the following characteristics:

  • Are uneconomical to repair. For example, where damage exceeds a certain percentage of the value of the motor vehicle. This could differ from insurer to insurer in accordance with their internal procedures and the insurance company decides not to repair the motor vehicle;
  • Structural damage that can be repaired according to the manufacturer’s specification; and/or
  • Can be repaired to a safe and roadworthy state and can be declared a Code 2 again.

Viljoen said these vehicles “really talk to the heart of the problem” and are vehicles that have been in serious accidents and deemed uneconomical to repair by an insurer.

“If this information is available to the consumer, it will inform any future or prospective buyers about the damaged or salvaged vehicle that will require extensive expenses to restore.

“Typically, insurers dispose of these vehicles at auctions where they are then bought and repaired, often to sub-standard specification, by unscrupulous repairers and subsequently sold onto unsuspecting consumers,” he said.

“Consumers buy these vehicles that have actually been involved in serious accidents and deemed uneconomical to repair by the insurer, and [they] only discover [this] when they attempt to sell the vehicle or if the vehicle subsequently breaks down and is taken to a repairer who discovers that, for instance, the vehicle suffered severe structural damage or doesn’t have airbags and similar [issues],” he said.

Hands tied

Viljoen said the consumer department of the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) receives many complaints about Code 2 vehicles, but “there’s absolutely nothing we can do” other than refer them to the Motor Industry Ombudsman of South Africa.

He said they received a consumer complaint last week about a vehicle that was written off twice.

“The consumer did not know and has taken a R100 000 knock on the price he paid for it,” he said.

Viljoen said the time period consumers have in terms of the Consumer Protection Act to return the vehicle to the dealer has normally lapsed by the time they find out about all the faults with the vehicle.

“It’s a massive problem,” he said.

Pivotal ruling

In a landmark regional court judgment in February, the court ruled that in aid of the preservation of the consumer’s right to be informed of the true condition of the vehicle, the dealer in that instance should refund the consumer the full outstanding financed value of the vehicle plus interest despite the selling dealer being unaware that the vehicle it had sold was previously “written-off”.

Viljoen said Sambra’s argument is that if the consumer is in the position to verify the accident history of the vehicle, it will suffocate the demand for these vehicles to re-enter the market place.

“These vehicles normally come with a clean bill of health from a testing station.

“It’s not necessarily that these vehicles are unrepairable or wouldn’t be in a position to be put back on the road in a roadworthy state, but the people buying these vehicles at auction yards do it generally to fix them as cheaply as they can to make a buck,” he said.

Saia said the delay in the deployment of the new VIN-Lookup platform is a result of the necessary critical consultations that needed to take place with relevant stakeholders.

This included consultations with the Department of Transport – which is the custodian of the National Road Traffic Act and provides guidelines to determine the life cycle status of a motor vehicle as implemented on the NaTIS (National Traffic Information System) – and the South African Police Service (SAPS).

It said these consultations took longer than estimated.

Saia added that since this is a new public-facing portal, some of the key issues that had to be considered and adhered to included:

  • Ensuring the stability of the platform and database;
  • Auditing and verifying the accuracy of the information that will be provided and defining how it will be uploaded going forward;
  • Securing an agreement among Saia member companies in respect of how much historical data can be carried;
  • Developing a process for identifying possible errors and omissions, and revising the database accordingly; and
  • Clarifying the legal status of information to be provided and the “own risk” disclaimer.

Source: MoneyWeb