Hi, Does anyone know of other people that have been in my currant situation? I wrote my car off on the way to work one morning, slid my rear wheel drive MG TF round an island and backed into a lampost.
Brief details:
My insurance is fully comp,
i bought the car 9 months earlier with MOT certs etc,
2000 reg (W)it had done 40k when purchased have only done 5k miles since.
The insurers wont pay up they said the independant assessors report states the back tyres have zero tread and caused the accident.
My argument is when i bought the car the front tyres were brand new and the back tyres read 5mm tread, now they are saying the front read 7mm the back zero?????? Does this sound right?
Can they refuse to pay up? Under the clause that it is my responsability to ensure the car is roadworthy and i was in breech of this? Does an MOT not mean your car is roadworthy?
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MOT is no guarantee of roadworthiness, even immediately after completion of the test let alone 9 months earlier.
Depending on how you drive, I guess it is possible to wear out 7mm of tread on 5k miles. (If you "slid it round an island", and that's your usual method of cornering then it seems entirely possible).
Unfortunately it's your responsibility to regularly ensure the safety and roadworthiness of your car, not somone else's.
I don't know about the insurance situation but someone will be along soon who does. (If they are refusing to pay up I guess you could ask for a refund of premiums at least - doubt you;d get it though?)
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You were driving a mid engined, rear wheel drive car with completely bald rear tyres? If this is true, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. It was an accident waiting to happen in the wet.
If its not true and the insurance company is pulling a fast one, try inspecting the car yourself?
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i drive very carefully, infact my driving has been described as "granny" driving not "girl racer" i was obviously not aware of the condition of my tyres and realise now that it's something your meant to check, doing less than 10k per annum i always believed that having an MOT every 12 months was sufficient to pick up on anything that needed attention. My concearn was that the tyres could have been changed to these bald ones as a scam by the insurance???
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Don't you get the car serviced every six months? If the last service was very recent then you may be able to transfer some of the blame onto the garage for letting you get back a car with nearly bald tyres. If you don't get the car serviced then you're risking having defective brakes and gawd knows what else if the only regular check your car has is an MOT.
Tyres should be checked regularly regardless of annual mileage. If you only check them at the mot does that mean you never check the pressure or whether there are nails sticking in them?
I think you've learnt a very expensive lesson. What if your bald tyres had lead you to hit someone? You could be looking at much worse than a financial loss. Bald tyres also incur penalty points and up to £1000 per tyre fine. If you get away with just the insurance company not paying out then you're lucky. Have they said whether they are covering the third party damage ie the lamppost? You might find the local council will pursue you for the cost of that if the insurance company refuse to pay out for anything.
teabelly
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My concearn was that the tyres could have been changed to these bald ones as a scam by the insurance???
Perhaps someone could have swopped them over in the yard where the car is stored? Although if they only started off with 5mm, and you did 5000 miles, in a rear wheel drive 'sports' car, then there wouldn't have been too much left them on them under any circumstances, especially if they happen to be softer tread compound tyres.
Do you happen to know what make and model of tyre they are?
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i dont know the make or anything about the tyres because stupidly i never looked at them therefore i they could well have been bald, a lesson learned i guess, i would get the guys at work to check my oil or water etc i just didn't know that tyres would last 12 months even though i do not so many miles per year. I will know for the future!!!
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'Does an MOT not mean your car is roadworthy?'
In a word-no.You might have an argument if the MOT was recent,but you cannot expect an inspection to be valid for a year.It is best to check tyres for wear and damage when you put air in.Yes they can refuse to pay if what they say is correct.You could have an independant inspection,but you might be wasting your money.
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I'd always ensure the best tyres are on the rear of a rear-wheel drive car. If the police were involved, you could be looking at something like 3 points per defective tyre together with a fine for your (alledged) unroadworthy car. Unfortunately most people only learn from experience (somes bad experiences). Hope you're ok, but this proves how essential regular basic car checks are - i.e. tyres, oil, other fluids etc. etc. and not solely rely on the mot or service. Glad I wasn't next to you on the roundabout however!
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This could have been worse coming to think of it - I presume this was a relatively low speed incident. The tyres could have gone bang, or easily aquaplaned/skidded on the motorway at 70MPH with disasterous results.
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The MOT is only a verification that your car is (was) roadworthy at the time of the test. It isn't a warranty for the next 12 months! I think you'll just have to put this down to experience and maybe just think yourself lucky you walked away from it!
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Its not unknown for people to wear brand new tyres down to illegal limits in as little as 8000 miles. Tyres need ot be checked weekly.
Its so unlikely that the insuarnce company is indulging in a scam as to be laughable. You need to see the car to verify the state of the tyres.
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The MOT is only a verification that your car is (was) roadworthy at the time of the test.
Again, this isn't quite the full truth.
The MOT certificate indicates that only those aspects inspected were adequate at the time of the test. It is quite possible for a car which has a very dangerous fault to pass an MOT if the fault is in some part which is not, or cannot be inspected in the manner dictated by VOSA.
An obvious example - no covers may be removed by the tester during the MOT. Anything behind any type of cover may be in *any* condition, and the MOT will **not** detect it.
Philosophically, I would argue that servicing and routine maintenance are where *all* your vehicle's faults should be picked up and rectified, and MOT failures should be the exception, rather than the rule. i.e., an MOT would be used as a check of the efficacy of your servicing regime, rather than as a means to determine any necessary work.
Indeed, in the case of HGV and PSV MOT testing which is all done by VOSA, if your company builds up a record of MOT failures, VOSA will be round to audit your mainenance regime and inspect every vehicle you control, with the possible sanction of removing your operators licence if you are not up to scratch!
In this particular case, a weekly tyre check, of pressures, tread depth and condition would have picked up the problem in a much less expensive and troublesome manner.
Number_Cruncher
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they are saying the front read 7mm the back zero?????? Does this sound right?
The car should still be available for you to check the tyres yourself. After all, you still own it. You don't need specialist equipment or skill to estimate the tyre tread depth. A quick glance should suffice ~ 7 mm (1/4") should be obvious, as should zero. I doubt whether your insurer would resort to shenanigans and change the tyres as you suggest in a later post.
However, I assume that the car was (and still is) in a garage compound at the time of the inspection, so ask the garage whether there has been any monkey business.
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L\'escargot.
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Your only route out of this would be an independent inspection - the RAC and AA offer such a service but its not cheap.
You are perfectly within your rights to see the vehicle - go and have a look at the back tyres. If there is more than 1.6mm tread present I'd get an inspection done. You can buy tread depth measurers from any decent car accessories shop.
The responsibility for the roadworthiness of a vehicle lies with the driver and one annual check on tyres is nowhere near enough. Tyres are critical and should be checked weekly - for both tread depth and pressure. There is far too much ignorance from motorists about basic checks and I think its great that they are now taught as part of the driving test.
I had a scare when I first started driving - I slid through a red light into the middle of a busy junction leading to a motorway in the wet. Fortunately I managed to get out of the way before the other traffic moved off. The front tyres were legal but only had about 2mm left on them and I'd had the MOT done about a week previously. I always change my tyres when there is about 3mm left now - its just not worth the risk of an accident on worn tyres.
How many accidents each year are caused by unroadworthy vehciles?
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I'd say we've well covered the responsibility bit now. Can anyone help on the insurance situation? Are they entitled to refuse to pay up?
smokie, BR Moderator
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Yes they can refuse to pay up. There is also the possible problem of who is paying for the lamp post. A bill could be winging its way from the local council.
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You all know that under the RTA 88 (S143) users of motor vehicles on a road have to be insured against third part risks i.e. to cover the other people that may be involved but not that vehicle. Generally covered however under an agreement with the Insurance Co one can upgrade to Fully Comp. There is no legal requirement for this upgrade.
Now under S 148 RTA 88 an Insurance company having delivered a cert/policy to a driver then cannot escape its requirement to pay on third party risks blaming the condition of the vehicle.
So had another vehicle been involved then damage to that vehicle would have been covered. In this case it does not apply as no other vehicle is involved so no payout. It would however seem damage to lampost would be covered.
But it will all depend what comes in the small print with the Comprehensive package. A requirement that the vehicle is maintained in roadworthy condition which bald tyres will negate.
As the Ins Co are not paying out then the vehicle remains the propery of the Reg Keeper so should be available for inspection.
As stated above seems most senisble to have an independent examination made by a tyre expert. His findings made give grounds to contest the decision of the Insurance Company, if necessary by civil action.
dvd
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Since the outcome of your insurance claim is uncertain, you may wish to consider whether you can limit any possible future costs which might arise from the accident. One thing which comes to mind is the storage cost of the car pending the final solution, if the car it is not currently on your premises. Even if your insurers accept your claim, if they offer you a cash sum they might leave you to dispose of the car ~ assuming that you are correct that it is a ?write-off? and is thus not repairable. I speak from personal experience on this matter, admittedly insured with the infamous and now defunct Fire Auto and Marine! (Unless subsequent law/insurance changes makes this scenario impossible.)
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L\'escargot.
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Excellent point Les..
If Ins Co not paying out guess where the storage costs are going to lie.......
dvd
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And the recovery cost from accident site to yard
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Well, all the goodies have had their crow, but there is one point.
"My argument is when i bought the car the front tyres were brand new and the back tyres read 5mm tread, now they are saying the front read 7mm the back zero?????? Does this sound right?"
From many more years of tyre wearing experience than a lot here have even been alive I can say that such an extreme differential in wear back to front seems unlikely; front to back is possible if a knock has deranged the steering. If this really occurred there must have been something badly adrift at the back, probably since the car was sold (sufficiently vigorous driving to produce this effect would have produced more wear at the front too). Unfortunately if the thing were inspected and the seller claimed he would say it was OK before the accident.
I'm sorry, this is just another instance of the effect of the confusing mass of tiny print, which could be boiled down to "in the event of a claim being made, this policy becomes invalid".
We had this when a chimney came down in the worst gale of last century - they said that it could not have been properly maintained, or it would not have fallen.
Insurance is a racket.
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"My argument is when i bought the car the front tyres were brand new and the back tyres read 5mm tread, now they are saying the front read 7mm the back zero?????? Does this sound right?"
It does seem unlikely(ish) - however bear in mind that this is a rear wheel drive sports (I know some people will snigger at that) car. Also, tyres wear slightly faster as they wear out - so the fronts being new, would wear at a slower rate than the rears even if everything else was equal (which, of course, it isn't). It's also entirely possible that the car doesn't have the same make/model of tyre F & R. There's a huge diference in the wear rates of, say treadwear 180 tyres and treadwear 400. My car came with treadwear 140 tyres and I can almost watch them wearing out.
And, of course, all this assumes the tread-depth was accurately measured in the first place, which I would say is unlikely - it's usually done by sight (unless you're watching).
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I sympathise with you here. I once had a Toyota MR2 whose rear tyres went from 6mm of tread to illegal within about 3000 miles. I only noticed by coincidence as checking the tread depth on these sorts of cars is next to impossible without crawling underneath (which is what I did to remove some debris). I had all 4 tyres replaced even though the front ones showed no signs of wear and was told by the tyre dealership that 3000 miles life time from the rear tyres of a mid engined car was not unusual, though there was no mention of this in the owner's manual. Two weeks later I spun the car on a wet road (on the new tyres!). The experience left me wondering how suitable mid engined cars actually are for every day use, especially bearing in mind the hazards of every day motoring, wet leaves, diesel patches, etc.
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i have to say , i was going to upgrade to the Toyota MR 2, but this has really put me off, i don't think mid engined cars are for me this whole experiance has made me want something more practical!!
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i don't think mid engined cars are for me this whole experiance has made me want something more practical!!
Regardless of the car, it still needs basic checks to be carried out periodically. It's not only the mid engined ones that wear tyres out. Without hopefully sounding too patronising, I would see if your local college does a course on basic car maintenance that covers things like fluid level checking, tyre pressures, and the like.
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Your tyres were bald, they are deemed to have caused or contributed to the accident.
Two hopes;
Hope 1;You go to court and prove the assessor wrong - either the tyres weren't bald or they didn't cause the accident.
The other one is Bob, and he's dead.
Sadly you're in the real world. You're stuffed. The insurer will refuse to pay out anything which represent a loss of damage to you - the car, contents, etc. They have the option of pursuing you for all their other losses - administration, car storage, other party damage etc. etc. They'll probably stick you with the easy and trivial stuff. They probably won't come after you for the rest, unless you have a hissy fit in which case they'll probably think about nailing you to a wall.
And there is not a thing you can do.
And as for not realising that you should check your tyres from time to time, that would be laughable even coming from me. And aside from checking them or not, how did you even manage to walk past them without noticing ?
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There is also one other possibility that everybody seems to have ignored, a light fingered recovery employee has changed the tyres and wheels! I suggest that before employing an expensive trained vehicle inspector do a cursory inspection yourself, armed with digital camera and possibly a friend as a witness.
How secure is the compound that the vehicle is stored in?
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pmh (was peter)
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Bearing in mind you've admitted not checking the tread depth often enough so you might not know this. Every car I've ever seen as new had matching make and type (not aways size, but yours should be) of tyres front and rear. Did they match when you bought it - and do they now?
One should always match front and rear, but it is surprising how many folk don't, even when there is no problem on availability. So if you had no documention on this or had not checked, a mismatch now is nothing more than an a "oh".
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I think the point has been made. Poor coyote. We all make stupid, even irresponsible mistakes sometimes (yes, even ones that result in tragic consequences, never mind "just" damage to street furniture). Part of being human. It really doesn't help her to be told over and over how much more she's going to have to pay for - we don't know that yet, it's all speculation.
Coyote, it's probably unlikely you're still reading this thread - if you are, accept the financial consequences, learn from your mistake, be grateful in a tiny way that by posting you may have made someone else (like me) do an extra tyre check, and move on with your life.
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There is also one other possibility that everybody seems to have ignored, a light fingered recovery employee has changed the tyres and wheels! I suggest that before employing an expensive trained vehicle inspector do a cursory inspection yourself, armed with digital camera and possibly a friend as a witness. How secure is the compound that the vehicle is stored in?
Not sure I understand this. Are you suggesting the light fingered recovery employee will have re-fitted the original tyres and wheels?
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Sorry to hear about your accident. Can answer this question though.
"My argument is when i bought the car the front tyres
were brand new and the back tyres read 5mm tread, now
they are saying the front read 7mm the back zero?????? Does this sound right?"
I have a MGTF 135, with 16" wheels fited. My rear tyres are GOODYEAR EAGLE F1-D2 205/55 R16, this is the ONLY tyre MG recommends to fit on the rear on a TF with 16" wheels. Within 13 months and 13.5K miles the tyres went from new to illegal. When I was at the garage getting them changed (MG dealership) the mechanic did say that I had done well getting such good even wear out of them as he had recently changed some on another TF that had only got 8K out of the same tyres!. So yes, it is entirely possible to loose 1mm of tread in every month of driving on a rear wheel drive car.
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I was thinking about this and the accident i had last week. Luckiliy i check my tyres ever wek and had about 2 months ago swapped the fronts 4 the rears. When my wife scrapped the near side down the concrete post in the multi storey the first thing the damage assessors checked was tyre depth even thou' it was an "at fault" accident.
As for my recent accident the tyres were checked, the depth is well within limits.Car is being repaired and i have at this time a Toyota Yaris.
As for MGTF'S lots of reports on this site and plenty of good reasons not to buy one. 8k out of a set of rear tyres is absolutely hideous, can get hjust less out of my CBR1000F if i ride it like a pansy.
Owners responsibility to ensure that the vehicle is road worty, you wouldn't drive it if the brakes are failing would you?
Why should the insurers pay to repair your car, IMHO, they should not. Consider your self lucky if the accident had killed/ seriously injured a pedestrian the Police would be showing great interest in this case.
Tough luck learn the lesson.
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Luckiliy i check my tyres ever wek and had about 2 months ago swapped the fronts 4 the rears.
Deviating slightly from the topic, I stopped swapping tyres front to rear after I found that it can be dangerous. If there is a significant difference in camber angle front to rear swapping the tyres results in a reduced contact width and/or pattern with the road until the tyres have worn sufficiently again for there to be normal width/pattern contact again. In 1966 I swapped the tyres on my Singer Chamois and shortly afterwards had a similar off-road excursion to coyote, except that fortunately I missed the lamp-post and got away with nothing more serious than a temporarily raised pulse rate. As soon as I got back home I put the tyres back to their original positions and breathed a sigh of relief.
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L\'escargot.
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I can confirm NedQuarks comments. 2 years ago when the Eagle F1 GSD 2 was being phased out, we fitted a pair of the new F1 GSD3`s to an MGF.We were unaware, as Goodyear had not told us of the MGF specific requirements, that this was incorrect. The car in question had a minor shunt, losing the back end. When we were made aware of the problem via the MG website we of course rectified the problem ( and got Goodyear to reimburse us). Now unless our customers insist on an alternative fitment (to which they must sign a disclaimer ) we will only fit the GSD2 version. It should also be noted that the earlier versions on 15" rims (205/50vr15 rears) that the reccomendation used to be Goodyear NCT3 6 rib (not 4 rib) pattern. Now this has been discontinued the specific fitment should be the Conti Premium Contact..
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When an assesor checks a car in a compound the very first thing he does is check the tyre depths,and of course anyone working in a recovery compound will take tyres/wheels/or anything else from a car,that is a perk of the job,but they dont want to cause waves and will wait untill the vehicle has been cleared by the ins co.
When will people wake up and take some responsibility for their actions?tyres wear out,oil burns off,coolant can leak,if you dont check it,you will pay.
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When an assesor checks a car in a compound the very first thing he does is check the tyre depths,and of course anyone working in a recovery compound will take tyres/wheels/or anything else from a car,that is a perk of the job,but they dont want to cause waves and will wait untill the vehicle has been cleared by the ins co. When will people wake up and take some responsibility for their actions?tyres wear out,oil burns off,coolant can leak,if you dont check it,you will pay.
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Quite often though, the recovery agents will store the vehicle for a few days until either delivering it to or having it collected by the insurance company and transferred to their own storage facility and it is not until the vehicle arrives there that it will be seen by an assessor, so it is quite possible that the original recovery agent or one of his employees helps themself to the tyres.
Unfortunately this is not (in my experience in the motor trade) a rare occurence, however proving this would be a totally different kettle of fish.
My advice would be to approach a solicitor, with a view to them establishing exactly who collected your car and how secure the arrangements for handling and storing your vehicle were??
Good luck.
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Are you sure the GS-D2 variant of Eagle F1 has been discontinued 2 years ago?
I was under the impression that D3 supplemented the range and didn't directly replace D2. Now, you have D3 for the larger sizes and D2 for the smaller sizes. This is certainly how the Goodyear website explains things, and a friend recently fitted F1's to his Fiesta and got D2's, whereas the ones fitted to my Mondeo are D3's.
They do wear fast, though - I'm ready for two new front ones soon and they've only got 7k or so on them and I hardly drive in a furious fashion. It's a small price to pay for the absolutely astounding performance in both wet and dry through.
So many people underestimate the importance of fitting a quality tyre, even when you don't drive in a sporting fashion. It makes me shudder when I see all sorts of cars, even reasonably potent ones, running around on whatever bargain junk the local tyre emporium needs to shift that week becuase 'they only do a few miles a year'.
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The F1 gsd2 is now really only supplied to the low volume sizes.where it was not worth Goodyear making the mould changes. the only sizes listed by Goodyear are as follows. 185/55v15 185/60v14 195/45w16 195/55v15 205/45w16 215/40w16 215/45y17 225/60w15 and 265/40z17. of these only sizes 1 2 4 8 & 9 are uniquely gsd2. technically goodyear do not list the MGF fitment but it is still available to order. How long this will remain Goodyear will not yet confirm.
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Rear drive sports cars aside, how many miles should one expect to get out of a set of tyres (as fitted by manufacturer) on a standard car?
I guess that I used to get about 15,000 from the front set on my passat, and a few thousand more from the rear, but as tyres were included in a maintenance package I don't have the receipts to verify how frequently I had them changed.
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As I recall, l'escargot, early Hillman Imps (and Singer Chamois variants) had very pronounced negative camber angles at the front (ie, the wheels sloped sharply inwards from top to bottom). Like many other owners I used to drive around with a breeze block in the front boot to try and keep mine sticking to the road. Thankfully, modern cars rarely suffer from such absurdities so tyre contact patches must be pretty similar front and rear. I don't think it can be such a problem these days to swap tyres front to back or vice versa. Of course, others may know better...
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As I recall, l'escargot, early Hillman Imps (and Singer Chamois variants) had very pronounced negative camber angles at the front (ie, the wheels sloped sharply inwards from top to bottom).
Your memory serves you well, mike. Fortunately, for those of us blessed with a job in the Rootes development department there was a "fix" available to us. It involved getting the upper spring support cut horizontally into two pieces and an extension tube being welded in between the two parts. This resulted in the front of the car being lowered an inch or two (can't remember the exact dimension) and the front wheel camber being reduced to virtually zero. Once the modification became popular there was virtually a continous recycling of the spring supports ~ those that came off one car were modified ready for the next person! I think it made the headlights lower than the legal minimum but I don't remember anyone being taken to task over it.
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L\'escargot.
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Mmmm, tyres with 5mm on the back of a rear wheel drive car.
9 months and 5,000 miles later they're illegal and dangerous. And we're so suprised that the only conclusion is that someone nicked them.
I'd guess that either the tooth fairy or father christmas half-inched them.
God forbid that either the 5mmm was not accurate, that the tyres have worn down in that time, or that it was negligent not to check them.
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