Many Holiday-damaged Cars Written Off

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 10

Many Holiday-damaged Cars Written Off

More cars had been written off this year than ever before because of damage over the Christmas and New Year holidays, said managers of major Christchurch breakdown services and panelbeating firms yesterday. But for the writing off of so many vehicles, they said, there would have been a record number of repair jobs. The greatly increased writing off of vehicles in Christchurch was attributed by the managers to the depreciation in value of older motorvehicles over the last 18 months.

Cars that would bring from £4OO to £5OO 18 months ago would hardly fetch £2OO today,” said the manager of one breakdown service. "You don’t need much of a smash to do £lOO worth of damage to a car, which would more or less write off many old cars today.” Hie added that his company was busier than usual for this tune of the year. The most common damage this year was to the fronts of cars, mainly to grilles, mudguards and lights. Much of the damage was probably attributable to wet roads over the holiday period. About 20 vehicles handled by bis company had had their fronts knocked in.

The manager of the repairs department of another breakdown service said that bis company had brought in 10 to 15 vehicles with grilles or headlamps smashed. About six vehicles brought in had been hit from the rear Not many of the vehicles brought in this year bad rolled over. Suburban and smaller city panel-beaters said that only vebicta that could be driven bad been brought to them for repair. “The big breakdown service companies keep the more seriously damaged vehicles till the insurance companies get a quote on them, said one. “Then they give the badly-damaged vehicles out,’ 1 Some suburban panelbeaters said they had had medium-sized can for repair that had been strained and by towing caravans. Either the caravans bad been t°° ° r tbe speed bad oeen too fast.