For years, the South African Motor Body Repairers’ Association (SAMBRA) has been lobbying for an open and transparent Vehicle Salvage Database (VSD) to be made available to not only the public, but to all stakeholders, including dealers, banks and insurers.

“We are concerned that efforts to resolve the problem are only focusing on one element of the value chain. Efforts should be focused closer to the source so informed decisions can be made and a full life history of a vehicle can be checked.

“Adding legislation to define and legislate the Code status of vehicles, which can then be uploaded and housed on the existing electronic national traffic information system (eNaTIS), is potentially the only way to manage the historical record of a vehicle and open up this information to the entire car parc and not just the 30% insured segment of the vehicle population,” says Dev Moodley Chairman of SAMBRA.

Chris Prinsloo, an independent specialist, says as soon as a vehicle comes off the assembly line and is wholesaled to a dealer, a record needs to be kept. And that spans across the retail chain so that further down the line, any new purchaser or financier or insurer will have access to the information, including the accident history, to accurately value the vehicle and prevent previously written off, and potentially unsafe, vehicles finding their way back onto the market.

The current Vin Look-up Tool, created by the South African Insurance Association (SAIA), is a good start but without all vehicle data, is as effective as it could otherwise be, nor are the eNaTIS records complete.

Dev points out that the critical problem facing South African consumers and motor body repairers (MBRs) is that cars that are still classified as Used (Code 2) on the eNaTIS documentation can certainly have been severely accident damaged or declared uneconomical to repair, or “written-off” as they are commonly referred to. “We can see that there is a common thread occurring. Most of these vehicles end up on online sales portals and are sold to unsuspecting consumers,” he says.

Brandon Cohen, national chairperson of the National Automobile Dealers’ Association (NADA), agrees saying industry, in its welcome to the new Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, flighted the idea of legislating the Codes and believes this is the most effective avenue to encourage real progress in this critical area of consumer safety.

From an implementation perspective, one could even look at following the UK model where the vehicle codes are legislated (from new to used, to insurance write-offs to irreparable vehicles). Write-off categories are also legislated for vehicles, for example:

• A code A cannot be repaired, and the entire vehicle needs to be crushed.

• A code B cannot be repaired. The body shell has to be crushed but you can salvage other parts.

• A code N where the vehicle can be repaired following non-structural damage so you can use the vehicle again provided it is repaired to a roadworthy condition.

Not only is this approach transparent but it will ensure information is available at the at the correct time to the relevant body in the value chain - whether that be a bank, insurer, motor body repairer, dealer and/or end customer. “It will prevent the current scenario where, written off cars that have been poorly repaired, are being refinanced and re-insured in many cases, and consumers are ultimately being sold these vehicles without the correct information,” says Dev.

(Photo: Unsplash)