2016 Vauxhall Insignia SRi Nav CDTi ecoFLEX - collected in Otterburn
A seller near Otterburn had spent around £1,600 putting a new timing belt, water pump and thermostat through his 2016 Insignia, after the dealer who sold it never produced any proof the belt had been done. Then our check showed the car had been recorded as a write-off and sold on to an auction company. Neither of us saw that one coming.
- A 2016 Vauxhall Insignia SRi Nav, the 2.0 CDTi diesel, sold to an owner near Otterburn by a dealer a long way down the country
- He was told it had a full service history, but proof that the timing belt had been done never arrived
- Around £1,600 later on a new timing belt, water pump and thermostat, he had lost confidence in the car
- Our check showed it had been recorded as a write-off on mechanical damage and sold on to an auction company
- The seller had no idea, and neither did we until the check came back
- We still made him an offer, adjusted for what the check turned up, and the car drove very well
A car bought from down the country
This Insignia came to us from a seller near Otterburn, right at the top of the patch we cover. He had not bought it locally. It came from a dealer a long way down the country, and the registration tells its own story: HY16 plates were issued in Portsmouth, so the car had already travelled the length of England before it ever reached Northumberland.
He was told it had a full service history. What he was not given, when the car was delivered, was any proof that the timing belt had been done. He asked for it. It never arrived.
£1,600 on a belt, a pump and a thermostat
On this engine, that matters more than most. The 2.0 CDTi in this car is the B20DTH, and it runs a timing belt rather than a chain. It is also an interference engine, which is the important part: if the belt lets go, the pistons and the valves meet, and you are into a repair bill that usually costs more than the car is worth. The published interval is 100,000 miles or six years, and plenty of people in the trade would tell you not to leave it anywhere near that long. The water pump is driven off the same belt, so it goes in at the same time or you end up paying for the same labour twice.
With no proof and no way of knowing, he did the sensible thing and had the lot done: timing belt, water pump and thermostat. That came to somewhere around £1,600.
That was the point where the sums stopped adding up for him. He had spent that on a car he had only just bought, on top of what he paid for it in the first place, and he could not shake the feeling that something else was coming. It is a very common place for an owner to end up, and it is usually the moment they pick up the phone to us. If you are in the same position, this is exactly the kind of car we look at on our cambelt and timing belt page.
What the check turned up
Every car we buy gets checked properly before we commit to a figure. This one came back with something neither of us expected. The Insignia had been recorded as a write-off, and sold on to an auction company.
It was not a crash. The record described the damage as mechanical, along with minor dents and scratches, and it logged the mileage at 89,627 at the time. Our check provider sent the auction photographs through with it, and they left no room for doubt: the same white Insignia, the same registration, sat on a wet yard against a blue container, along with a close-up of the VIN plate that matched the car standing in front of us.
The seller was genuinely shocked. He had bought it as a straightforward used car with a service history behind it, and nobody had mentioned any of this to him.
Why it changed the offer without killing the deal
A recorded write-off follows a car for the rest of its life, and it affects what anybody in the trade can pay for it. So yes, the offer had to be adjusted once we knew. There is no way round that, and we would far rather tell a seller exactly why a figure has moved than quietly drop it and say nothing.
But it did not stop us buying the car. It drove very well, it looked tidy enough, and a write-off recorded on mechanical damage is a very different thing from a car that has been folded up and straightened out. Whatever had gone wrong with it, somebody had put it right well enough that it was back on the road and driving properly.
The past is often chequered
We will be honest with you: we do not know the full story of this car, and neither does the man who sold it to us. When a car is written off on mechanical grounds and then turns up back on the road, the likeliest explanation is a second-hand engine, or a major repair done cheaply enough to make the sums work for whoever bought it out of the auction. It might have been done properly. It might not have been.
That is the gamble on a car like this one, and it is our gamble to take rather than the seller's. We price it accordingly, we tell the seller exactly what we found, and we take it on with our eyes open.
Will you still buy a car that has been written off?
Yes. Recorded write-offs, mechanical or otherwise, are cars we buy regularly, and we would far rather have that conversation up front than have it surface halfway through. The record will change what we are able to pay, but it very rarely stops the deal altogether. If you have found something on a check that has knocked your confidence in your car, we will look at it on what it actually is.
Do you buy cars around Otterburn?
We do. Otterburn is a fair run north of Hexham, but we collect up that way regularly and there is no charge for it. If you are selling a Vauxhall, have a look at what we look for on a Vauxhall, or get a firm offer here or call 01434 400 444.
