New figures from My Car Check show that Billingshurst in West Sussex is the worst place in the UK to buy a used car in terms of write-off risk, with 42.48% of checks conducted there returning a write-off warning, compared to just 5.07% in Farnborough, Hampshire, only 30 miles up the road.
Head of My Car Check, Roger Powell, said: “We have only recently started analysing our data by location and were surprised to discover a substantial variance in the write-off risk across large UK cities. Around 1 in 4 cars checked in London and Birmingham over the last year were found to have been written-off, compared to only 1 in 7 in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol. When you delve into the data for smaller towns the disparity is even more pronounced. Used buyers in Billingshurst face an alarmingly high 2 in 5 risk, whereas for buyers in nearby Farnborough the risk is only 1 in 20.
“Buying a car is a big deal and establishing whether it has ever been written-off is vital. Even leaving the safety aspect aside, a write-off will usually be worth considerably less than a similar non-accident damaged model. Many people don’t realise it is legal for certain write-offs to return to the road. In fact, it is not unusual for a car to have been involved in several accidents. In this day and age, vehicles can be repaired to a high standard, but a My Car Check customer survey a couple of years ago found that 79% wouldn’t buy a write-off.”
With information from the police, DVLA, insurers and finance houses, My Car Check holds comprehensive data on every vehicle on UK roads – things that buyers should be aware of before making an offer.
CDL Vehicle Information Services, which owns My Car Check, performs over a million look-ups a day for companies including AutoExpress, CompareTheMarket, Go-Compare, Moneysupermarket, Swiftcover, Tesco and WhatCar?.
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