Stolen & Recovered (always recorded?)

[EMETIB]

Some thieving **** broke into my house and stole my car last week. With the help of Cobra tracker, the police managed to recover it within an hour. However, the thieves have cut up the carpets and the boot lining while trying to find the tracker (which I always assumed was in the engine bay). They also managed to scuff all four alloys and make a big scratch above the wheel arch. I took it for a repairs estimate and it has returned back at just under £5k.

I'm now at a dilema. I've been thinking about selling it for the past few months so this incident has ruined my chances of a good price. So I'm not sure whether I should swallow the repairs myself or make a claim.

I still haven't informed my insurance company (Admiral), but am thinking whether my car will be logged as stolen & recovered regardless of making a claim. Will the car flag up as stolen & recovered with HPI checks? I did try to ask the guy at the car pound when I collected my car, but he said the system doesn't say anything about the theft. but I'm not sure whether it's because their systems don't get updated immediately coz he didn't sound too assertive. How long should it take if it is to be recorded?

If I do make a claim, since it wasn't in a crash, do I only pay the fire/theft excess or will the compulsory and voluntary excess also be charged? What will happen to my protected no claims discount?

Cheers guys!!!

[Aviz]

EMETIB said:

Some thieving **** broke into my house and stole my car last week. With the help of Cobra tracker, the police managed to recover it within an hour. However, the thieves have cut up the carpets and the boot lining while trying to find the tracker (which I always assumed was in the engine bay). They also managed to scuff all four alloys and make a big scratch above the wheel arch. I took it for a repairs estimate and it has returned back at just under £5k.

I'm now at a dilema. I've been thinking about selling it for the past few months so this incident has ruined my chances of a good price. So I'm not sure whether I should swallow the repairs myself or make a claim.

I still haven't informed my insurance company (Admiral), but am thinking whether my car will be logged as stolen & recovered regardless of making a claim. Will the car flag up as stolen & recovered with HPI checks? I did try to ask the guy at the car pound when I collected my car, but he said the system doesn't say anything about the theft. but I'm not sure whether it's because their systems don't get updated immediately coz he didn't sound too assertive. How long should it take if it is to be recorded?

If I do make a claim, since it wasn't in a crash, do I only pay the fire/theft excess or will the compulsory and voluntary excess also be charged? What will happen to my protected no claims discount?

Cheers guys!!!

It will only be recorded Stolen and recovered if they pay you out in full for the car, and write it off. If they just do some repairs then it won't .

If your NCB is protected, and you haven't got a previous claim, then it will remain intact.

I'm not sure about the excesses. I only ever had a compulsory excess, which i had to pay.

How much is it worth? I managed to get mine written off as i didn't want it back.

Edited by Aviz on Monday 1st August 07:45

[Robbo101]

^^^^ this. Sadly the OP doesnt list his car BUT Ive dealt with a number of claims where the Insured desperately wanted to retain the vehicle & not have it written off because the damage was allegedly cosmetic. Then 50 miles later when the repairs have been undertaken, the engine grenades because the thieving scumbags who originally stole the vehicle clearly revved it to hell & back.

If you can get it written off, I would definately recommend this. You just cant be sure exactly what damage the car might have sustained to the engine, gearbox, suspension & the like.

[EMETIB]

Aviz said:

It will only be recorded Stolen and recovered if they pay you out in full for the car, and write it off. If they just do some repairs then it won't .

If your NCB is protected, and you haven't got a previous claim, then it will remain intact.

I'm not sure about the excesses. I only ever had a compulsory excess, which i had to pay.

How much is it worth? I managed to get mine written off as i didn't want it back.

Edited by Aviz on Monday 1st August 07:45

I was actually hoping they couldn't find it or would find it in a wreck coz I have gap insurance.

The compulsory excess is £350, but I set my voluntary excess to £1000 to keep the premium down. But from the wording on the policy, it seems that for fire/theft, only £200 is required, but I can't be sure.

So am I better off making a claim for the repairs regardless then since it won't be logged as stolen and recovered? I've read that it will be recorded as such regardless of whether repairs were made or not. Bit confusing now.

Robbo101 said:

^^^^ this. Sadly the OP doesnt list his car BUT Ive dealt with a number of claims where the Insured desperately wanted to retain the vehicle & not have it written off because the damage was allegedly cosmetic. Then 50 miles later when the repairs have been undertaken, the engine grenades because the thieving scumbags who originally stole the vehicle clearly revved it to hell & back.

If you can get it written off, I would definately recommend this. You just cant be sure exactly what damage the car might have sustained to the engine, gearbox, suspension & the like.

It's a Nissan GTR Black Edition. Value roughly £45-48k now I think. I don't think the damage is worthy of them writing the car off. I have no idea what they've done to the engine though since I'm too sick to drive the thing. I keep having this nagging feeling that it's been raped!! If the car is repaired cosmetically, but later down, it turns out that engine damage or suspension damage was caused, how will I prove it was done by the theft?

Thanks for the replies guys. Keep them coming please.

Edited by EMETIB on Monday 1st August 13:20

Edited by EMETIB on Monday 1st August 13:22

[LukeSi]

I'm going to guess that the engine is utterly shagged if they were joy riders. They wouldn't have cared at all about the engine so would probably just be ragging it.

[trickywoo]

LukeSi said:

I'm going to guess that the engine is utterly shagged if they were joy riders. They wouldn't have cared at all about the engine so would probably just be ragging it.

Assuming its a modern fuel injected engine it'll have a rev limiter and thus within reason any abuse dished out is unlikely to have done major damage. Overheating would be my only concern.

[Mr Whippy]

It's an automated manual though, so not much chance of them revving it over safe levels... it'll have just been driven very hard... but I thought they could cope with that. A few laps at the Ring doesn't make them blow up does it? On UK roads there are few places you can drive it hard like you could at a circuit, and not have crashed off the road.

The worry would be them ragging it from cold, but again I guess it's a fairly solid car/engine combo so I don't think that would be a big issue.


I'd certainly have Nissan check it over top to bottom, alignment check, yadda yadda, before accepting it back from the insurers which I think you should go through...


Just make sure you are covered in any event.


Dave

[LukeSi]

trickywoo said:

Assuming its a modern fuel injected engine it'll have a rev limiter and thus within reason any abuse dished out is unlikely to have done major damage. Overheating would be my only concern.

I'd be guessing though that the GTR engine works within pretty tight tolerances. Who knows what being ragged from cold might have done to it. I imagine it wouldn't show up now but in a few years or higher miles it will go wrong big style.

To the OP you would probably be better trying to get insurance to pay out then you can get a new one.

[EMETIB]

I too am worried that the engine might have been ragged from cold, but is there anything I can say to make insurance company look into it? I would suspect they won't have any interest in that since the damage is only cosmetic. Currently, the estimate for repairs from an independent garage is just under £5k. So it would be a considerable amount of hidden damage to make it beyond economical repair to deem a write-off.

LukeSi said:

I'd be guessing though that the GTR engine works within pretty tight tolerances. Who knows what being ragged from cold might have done to it. I imagine it wouldn't show up now but in a few years or higher miles it will go wrong big style.

To the OP you would probably be better trying to get insurance to pay out then you can get a new one.

What points can I use to ask them to pay out through write off? I have gap insurance, so this would be ideal!!!

[StottyZr]

Just out of interest have the police any ideas who did it? Any evidence found in the car?

Its more than likely that the fkkers who did this are now planning there next theft. If they aren't caught, a lot more people will be in the same situation as you are.

[was8v]

LukeSi said:

Who knows what being ragged from cold might have done to it. I imagine it wouldn't show up now but in a few years or higher miles it will go wrong big style.

Does the GTR not limit revs until it has got to temperature? I know some recent high performance cars do. Also surely it won't be over revved with that gearbox.

I wouldn't worry too much. Get the insurance to fix it and enjoy it. If you are iffy then sell it on once fixed.

Doubt they would write it off for a £5k repair unless its going to take months to fix and they rent you a replacement.

[EMETIB]

StottyZr said:

Just out of interest have the police any ideas who did it? Any evidence found in the car?

Its more than likely that the fkkers who did this are now planning there next theft. If they aren't caught, a lot more people will be in the same situation as you are.

Still haven't heard anything from Police side. They did say that because they were wearing gloves (couldn't get any finger prints), it would be very difficult to catch them. They did find some blood on the door handle and boot latch, but confused as to why the wore gloves, but still managed to leave blood there!!?!? The scary thing is that they came in the house while we were all sleeping and the cheeky gits turned on all the lights downstairs!!!! Slightly embarrassing explaining that to the police!

I've been looking all over Google now and get different results regarding the stolen and recovered log. I'm pretty sure now that if I "don't" make a claim at all for the repairs, the HPI will be clear, but if I do make a claim, will insurance company log it as stolen & recovered if they just do repairs and not pay out for Cat D?

[EMETIB]

was8v said:

Does the GTR not limit revs until it has got to temperature? I know some recent high performance cars do. Also surely it won't be over revved with that gearbox.

I wouldn't worry too much. Get the insurance to fix it and enjoy it. If you are iffy then sell it on once fixed.

Doubt they would write it off for a £5k repair unless its going to take months to fix and they rent you a replacement.

Nah, the GTR doesn't have the rev limit from cold. Or at least I don't think it has.

I'm thinking about going for a claim too but wanna know whether it will be recorded as stolen and recovered and make it difficult to sell on.

[stuart-b]

Why don't you make yourself feel better by taking the car to a proper performance house and having them check the oil, run compression tests and do a general complete look-over. I'm sure that car can easily take the abuse of 1 hour of driving. It won't be any different to a track day, and I doubt they would have ragged it away, because it would be too obvious and draw attention. Plus it's an auto, not a manual, and if it was treated that badly, wouldn't it go into limp mode?

If they are stolen to order, why would they rag it anyway? They have probably stolen other GT-R's and fast cars in the past, I'm sure this is just their equivalent of a 9-5. They probably damaged it by accident, or panicked and tried to find the tracker.

Is there anyway for Nissan to check the ECU for cold redlines, uses of launch control and other bits? Might be worth checking it out.

Hope it works out.

[EMETIB]

stuart-b said:

Why don't you make yourself feel better by taking the car to a proper performance house and having them check the oil, run compression tests and do a general complete look-over. I'm sure that car can easily take the abuse of 1 hour of driving. It won't be any different to a track day, and I doubt they would have ragged it away, because it would be too obvious and draw attention. Plus it's an auto, not a manual, and if it was treated that badly, wouldn't it go into limp mode?

If they are stolen to order, why would they rag it anyway? They have probably stolen other GT-R's and fast cars in the past, I'm sure this is just their equivalent of a 9-5. They probably damaged it by accident, or panicked and tried to find the tracker.

Is there anyway for Nissan to check the ECU for cold redlines, uses of launch control and other bits? Might be worth checking it out.

Hope it works out.

Yeh, ideally I wanna take it back to Nissan HPC to get it all checked out, but they're the ones I wanna sell the car back to. So don't want them to know that it's stolen and recovered. Naughty I know, but it was only taken for an hour.

[stuart-b]

EMETIB said:

Yeh, ideally I wanna take it back to Nissan HPC to get it all checked out, but they're the ones I wanna sell the car back to. So don't want them to know that it's stolen and recovered. Naughty I know, but it was only taken for an hour.

I think there are Indies that probably know more than Nissan HPC... I expect Nissan is full of "plug and play, computer says no" monkeys.
I might be wrong of course.

Why don't you look up an Indie, and take it there initially?

[16v stretch]

If you can pay to repair privately then do that, if the insurers repair it, it won't be listed as written off, and if they did it would be cat d, and sold to salvage as stolen recovered.

Just ring your insurance and query them, best solution.

[EMETIB]

16v stretch said:

If you can pay to repair privately then do that, if the insurers repair it, it won't be listed as written off, and if they did it would be cat d, and sold to salvage as stolen recovered.

Just ring your insurance and query them, best solution.

I'm thinking that they would log it into the system as stolen and recovered as soon as I query them though, even if I don't get them to pay for the repairs. It's definitely repairable and so highly unlikely to be written off. Is stolen and recovered only applicable to vehicles which are beyond economical repair?