Having A Bad Day? (boats swept away on the Lot in France)

[WherryNice]

When it comes to cars I wouldn't touch a write off or damaged repairable(they dont all go through the insurance) unless I knew exactly what had been damaged and how it was repaired. Bolt on and superficial panel work is no problem but anything structural is a no from me.

I have seen some absolute horrors, often purchased from the auctions, come through our workshop.

A recent one was an '18 plate Golf that had had a frontal crash and been 'repaired' and bought to us for alignment and radar calibration.

I took one look, saw the absolute shambles(not the actual word I used)of a repair and refused to work on it.(it was still bent!) My boss agreed and that was that.

Sadly someone has probably bought it, thinking they have a bargain but in reality it's a pile of junk.

Of course not all write offs end up like that but it pays to be very wary and you need to know what you are looking at.

I'd feel the same way about a boat, I wouldn't want to buy one of those seen in the videos without knowing what had actually happened to it.

[grendel]

if there is structural damage it should be categorised as such, and then the repair should have to be taken to a dvla centre and inspected to make sure the work leaves the car safe to use, I have had one car where minor damage was wrongly categorised as structural and had to experience this process,I have also purchased cars written off under a lessor category, and the reason can be a simple as a small dent in a non replaceable panel (such as an integral rear wing on an estate car) where the repair would entail re- skinning a complete side of he car.

[rightsaidfred]

12 minutes ago, WherryNice said:

When it comes to cars I wouldn't touch a write off or damaged repairable(they dont all go through the insurance) unless I knew exactly what had been damaged and how it was repaired. Bolt on and superficial panel work is no problem but anything structural is a no from me.

I have seen some absolute horrors, often purchased from the auctions, come through our workshop.

A recent one was an '18 plate Golf that had had a frontal crash and been 'repaired' and bought to us for alignment and radar calibration.

I took one look, saw the absolute shambles(not the actual word I used)of a repair and refused to work on it.(it was still bent!) My boss agreed and that was that.

Sadly someone has probably bought it, thinking they have a bargain but in reality it's a pile of junk.

Of course not all write offs end up like that but it pays to be very wary and you need to know what you are looking at.

I'd feel the same way about a boat, I wouldn't want to buy one of those seen in the videos without knowing what had actually happened to it.

Very  true but its a far bigger industry than many realise and like so much these days exist because of the naive and gullible public looking for a bargain.

Fred 

[Happy]

17 minutes ago, grendel said:

if there is structural damage it should be categorised as such, and then the repair should have to be taken to a dvla centre and inspected to make sure the work leaves the car safe to use, I have had one car where minor damage was wrongly categorised as structural and had to experience this process,I have also purchased cars written off under a lessor category, and the reason can be a simple as a small dent in a non replaceable panel (such as an integral rear wing on an estate car) where the repair would entail re- skinning a complete side of he car.

The requirement of taking these cars to a DVLA centre has now stopped!

[WherryNice]

1 hour ago, grendel said:

if there is structural damage it should be categorised as such, and then the repair should have to be taken to a dvla centre and inspected to make sure the work leaves the car safe to use, I have had one car where minor damage was wrongly categorised as structural and had to experience this process,I have also purchased cars written off under a lessor category, and the reason can be a simple as a small dent in a non replaceable panel (such as an integral rear wing on an estate car) where the repair would entail re- skinning a complete side of he car.

 

54 minutes ago, Happy said:

The requirement of taking these cars to a DVLA centre has now stopped!

Was it a VIC(Vehicle Identity Check)that you took your car in for Grendel? If so they should only have been checking it's identity and that it wasn't a stolen car being placed onto the write off's ID. 

Like Happy says that scheme doesn't operate anymore, I think because they didnt find many ringers.

[Oddfellow]

The strength in GRP comes from it s thickness, but with that comes weight. 

To create solid, rigid structures designed not to deflect in either direction, we laminate with various light-weight core materials (such as foam or balsa) to create strength without weight.  Various calculations can be made to determine the flexibility (in deflection in either direction) of a sheet of fibreglass depending on the thickness of the outer layer, the core and the inner layer.

Roof-structure, decks and wells are typically created with core materials. Hulls of Broads-type  cruisers do not usually contain cores, their rigidity is derived from longitudinal stringers and bulkheads, the later being merely glassed in with perhaps 2 inches of GRP around the perimeter (and less at the top to maximise head height without causing an unsightly finish. There are other methods, of course. but speed of build is often important. 

When a ply bulkhead is "secured" in place with a wafer of GRP, it's easily knocked out with the force of impact and, whilst it may continue to provide some rigidity, a lot is lost. 

The point being that these vessels have probably sustained far more impacts than they could reasonably withstand. Water damage would be high, of course and, as Vaughan says, quality repairs rely on being able to get to both the inside and outside of a impact. This is incredibly hard on many cruisers and is often why you see more vents in a boat than looks necessary. 

It's also true that GRP ages disgracefully and the older it gets, the harder it is to get a good bond of new resin against old. 

I would wager that these vessels are in a bad way and, whilst probably all repairable, probably not worth it in monetary terms. In terms of safe disposal, that's a different matter altogether.  

[floydraser]

There are a lot of classic cars out there on the road which have been restored by unqualified amateurs so if you see one, run!

Enthusiasts know what they are looking for though, and as a result, most classic cars are now better built than when they left the factory, especially if they're British Leyland. You may be glad to know that my old TR7 into which I put a V8 engine hasn't been taxed since 2014 (shame) but the Formula 27 "kit car" I built from a set of plans could still be out there. 

Isn't is a similar situation with boats? I would have thought restoring one is chucking money into that big hole in the water and you would be hard pressed to make a profit? And if you did sell it on, the buyer would be likely to want a survey which should show up all the secrets. Then there are those who just don't care what the end result looks like as long as it floats, but they are easily seen and avoided.

Houses are a bigger risk IMO. It seems that there must be a lot of properties out there which have been through the hands of someone out to make a profit. Cheap wiring and bodged repairs are easier to hide in a house, and a good way to make money. And of course, plenty of TV programs encouraging you to do it!

[rightsaidfred]

43 minutes ago, WherryNice said:

 

Was it a VIC(Vehicle Identity Check)that you took your car in for Grendel? If so they should only have been checking it's identity and that it wasn't a stolen car being placed onto the write off's ID. 

Like Happy says that scheme doesn't operate anymore, I think because they didnt find many ringers.

In most cases unless the vehicle is total wreck you have the option to buy the car back for a nominal fee if you dont  want to take this up you are required to notify the DVLA as if you sold it to a dealer, insurance companys sell many of these cars through auctions as salvage.

Fred

[annv]

I had a customer back in the 90's that had her car a little Datson 35,000 miles eleven years old that was writon off three times, the front grill would get pushed in and just crease the bonnet edge each time i bent bonnet edge back up and obtained a grill from breakers she loved that car  no way was it dangerous, but when the cost of a grill and bonnet  was more than the car was worth if it was three years old they would have repaired it.then there is the cut and shunt where two different cars are welded together there use to be a local workshop that did this all the time they had jigs etc to Aline the parts up, and if you didn't know you couldn't tell,  then they started to stamp the log book to this effect and it largely stopped. Not sure you could do this with G R P boats, steel ones are done all the time, and if boat was just capsized with no structural damage and you dont rewire it (i understand if insurance is involved with sunken boats this is what tips a repair into a write of) and with DIY skills a bargain could be had. John

[floydraser]

But then it didn't take much to write off a little Datsun, slamming the door would do it. 

[Turnoar]

23 minutes ago, floydraser said:

But then it didn't take much to write off a little Datsun, slamming the door would do it. 

The tin worm would probably have eaten the door before you got the chance to put your hand there. Mate of mine had a bluebird coupe with frameless doors. Not very weather tight but as the sills and underside rotted the car sagged an inch or so in the middle and the door bottoms caught when you pulled them to; trick was to try and lift and close. A mechanically and electrically perfect mot scrapper in the end.

[oldgregg]

Does anyone have any more information on which boats were recovered, or any photos of them?

[Mouldy]

2 hours ago, Turnoar said:

The tin worm would probably have eaten the door before you got the chance to put your hand there. Mate of mine had a bluebird coupe with frameless doors. Not very weather tight but as the sills and underside rotted the car sagged an inch or so in the middle and the door bottoms caught when you pulled them to; trick was to try and lift and close. A mechanically and electrically perfect mot scrapper in the end.

Not sure that’s all true.  From the late 70s a lot of Japanese cars were galvanised.  I’d say the worst cars I saw for rust from around that era were Vauxhall’s and British Leyland.  When I first moved to Milton Keynes in 1977, I worked in Crowley and passed the Pressed Steel Fisher body plant on my way home.  A lot of body shells were already rusting before the cars were actually built.

Little wonder that the British motor industry disappeared.

[addicted]

During the mid 80's I was talking to a fireman and he told me that he had to cut more people out of a Datsun than any other vehicle as they had a far greater propensity to fold up on impact such was the low quality of the steel used to build them.

 

Carole

[oldgregg]

This is the scary one I think, and why I've never been tempted to buy a vintage camper...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edufilter=NULL&v=Ukq-UUQAcZs

It's actually at 70mph and has a significant load in the back. But the lack of crumple zone is evident.

[Turnoar]

That makes a Citroen 2cv look relatively safe but I guess many forward control type vehicles represent the risk of the VW T Type with no crumple zone in front e.g. the Commers,,, Austin J-Class, Ford Thames equivalents back in the 60s and early 70s which would probably have suffered a similar fate. Mind you achieving 70mph for the test would have been a struggle too I expect!

Getting back on topic I guess the Leboat write offs are only good for diy fix up, as a static houseboat perhaps, scavenge of mechanicals and then chopping up and recycling albeit that  seems to be a very limited marketplace, end of life disposal costs can be significant as per end of life wind turbine blades, see in America they just store them after cutting up and rearranging to take up less space.

[oldgregg]

Sometimes, wind turbine blades are just collected up and buried in the ground somewhere!

Yes I think there may be some salvage value, but probably not an enormous amount. The engines would be okay after a good clean out, but electrics etc are probably toast so it may not be that economical to repair.

[Woodie]

Things haven’t changed with Datsun!

Has been Europe wide chassis issues with the Navara-poor quality steel and inadequate protection. But in fairness Nissan offered a goodwill campaign of buyback, repair or treatment.

Thread drift again......

[Cal]

8 hours ago, Woodie said:

Things haven’t changed with Datsun!

Has been Europe wide chassis issues with the Navara-poor quality steel and inadequate protection. But in fairness Nissan offered a goodwill campaign of buyback, repair or treatment.

Thread drift again......

The garage when my other half works did quite well out of this. They had one of these as a works vehicle but it was done up quite nicely and looked really well. It went for an MOT and the tester called them into have a look at it. It had a very badly cracked chassis.

 

Nissan sent an engineer to have a look and agreed to buy it back. They paid about £5k more than the garage had bought it for in the first instance!

 

They have a Land Rover 90 now instead.

 

My 2005 Nissan Almera is still plodding on. Flew straight through it's MOT last month. We have had it for 16 years now and done £152k miles in it and it has never been any trouble. Had to have a clutch and a timing chain at £130k miles but couldn't really complain at that. It will be a shame to see that car go later this year when we get the motorhome. It's almost become a family member

[unclemike]

10 hours ago, Woodie said:

Things haven’t changed with Datsun!

Has been Europe wide chassis issues with the Navara-poor quality steel and inadequate protection. But in fairness Nissan offered a goodwill campaign of buyback, repair or treatment.

Thread drift again......

navara's from 2005-- 2012 had this chassis problem, one of my customers(copart vehicle salvage york) had approx 2000  which nissan had bought back, was a sea of navara on their 50 acre site, alll depots now run navaras as yard cars

[oldgregg]

2 hours ago, Cal said:

My 2005 Nissan Almera is still plodding on. 

And that sums it up, sadly.... The old models developed before the Renault marriage are pretty good.

But then along came the Renault-Nissan alliance and the accountants set to work on cost-cutting to reduce the losses Nissan were making. Unfortunately, cost cutting only ever means a reduction in quality as cost accountants look at what they can immediately make cheaper rather than how to do what they're doing better in order to drive sales.

It's the same thing that happened at Mercedes in the late 90's and at VW in the mid-noughties. Neither of those groups have really got their reputation for quality and reliability back either.

Nowadays Nissan are (mostly) little more than a brand name, predominantly selling re-skinned Renault models such as the Clio-based Juke and Micra. The latter barely looks any different from a Clio. Same goes for Dacia, and sadly Mitsubishi have recently joined the fold.

[Cal]

19 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

And that sums it up, sadly.... The old models developed before the Renault marriage are pretty good.

But then along came the Renault-Nissan alliance and the accountants set to work on cost-cutting to reduce the losses Nissan were making. Unfortunately, cost cutting only ever means a reduction in quality as cost accountants look at what they can immediately make cheaper rather than how to do what they're doing better in order to drive sales.

It's the same thing that happened at Mercedes in the late 90's and at VW in the mid-noughties. Neither of those groups have really got their reputation for quality and reliability back either.

Nowadays Nissan are (mostly) little more than a brand name, predominantly selling re-skinned Renault models such as the Clio-based Juke and Micra. The latter barely looks any different from a Clio. Same goes for Dacia, and sadly Mitsubishi have recently joined the fold.

I've no need to worry about that now. I will be driving a Fiat Ducato for the foreseeable 

[floydraser]

2 hours ago, oldgregg said:

It's the same thing that happened at Mercedes in the late 90's and at VW in the mid-noughties. Neither of those groups have really got their reputation for quality and reliability back either.

Skoda did well out of that though...

[addicted]

Back in the late 80's - early 90's we had a Mercedes estate which remains to this day my favourite car of all the very many I've had over the years and from regularly changing my car every 2 years or so I went to not wanting to part with  it. I doubt  I would ever have  been persuaded to let it go if some fool in a  BMW hadn't lost control of his car by totally incompetent driving in icy conditions and ploughed into my Mercedes writing it off! No one was injured although the BMW practically disintegrated  with bits and pieces of it strewn over about a 2oo yards stretch of country lane.  My insurance broker arranged for me to have a hired new Mercedes estate while all was being sorted out. Which was very fortunate indeed because on the back of my fondness of my car I may very well have bought another to replace it.  If I hadn't had the new one on hire I would never have known what a heap of junk the new ones were! Nothing like the quality my old one had.

Carole

 

 

[Mouldy]

4 hours ago, oldgregg said:

And that sums it up, sadly.... The old models developed before the Renault marriage are pretty good.

But then along came the Renault-Nissan alliance and the accountants set to work on cost-cutting to reduce the losses Nissan were making. Unfortunately, cost cutting only ever means a reduction in quality as cost accountants look at what they can immediately make cheaper rather than how to do what they're doing better in order to drive sales.

I’ve had several Nissans since the late eighties, a Silvia Turbo, two Bluebirds and three Primeras plus the other half had a Sunny and an Almera Tino.  They were all good cars, well finished and reliable, but I have to agree that of late and since becoming allied to Renault, their reliability has suffered.  I currently have a Skoda, something that I swore that I would never own back in 1979, when a garage gave me one to use as a ‘courtesy car.’  It’s a good motor, well finished and equipped - what a friend of mine who is a big fan of German vehicles describes as ‘a thinking man’s Volkswagen’, but I think our next car may be a Kia.  The wife has had one for 6 years and it’s been reliable and servicing has been quite reasonable.  The only issue we’ve had was with the front led daylight running lights, which went dim, but they were replaced under warranty when the car was five years old without a quibble.  That seven year warranty is well worth having.