One possibility that every prospective buyer should consider is whether the vehicle you’re thinking of buying was ever damaged badly enough to be declared a ‘Total Loss’ by an insurance company (commonly known as a ‘Write-off‘) or worse again – ‘Scrapped’.

Many thousands of cars are written off by insurance companies every year in Ireland. However a large percentage of these vehicles are repaired and returned to the road. In the UK a vehicle which has been badly damaged must pass a VIC test before being allowed back on the road. Unfortunately there is no such test in Ireland, and many write-offs from both the UK and Ireland are put back on Irish roads without any official inspection after repair.”

Is my car a write-off?

Motorcheck searches for any record of the vehicle being previously written off in Ireland or the UK, and reports this to you as part of our “full check” or “history check” reports (ie: Category A & B for Ireland and Category A, B, C, D, S, N & F for UK).

You can quickly identify whether a vehicle has been officially declared as a write-off and Motorcheck’s notification can save you from buying a motor vehicle which could be potentially dangerous due to repair after a write-off.

Motorcheck Condition Alerts

Whilst insurance companies in Ireland are not obliged to officially disclose their data on category C & D write offs we are hopeful that the law will soon be amended to rectify this. In the interim Motorcheck is actively engaged in researching this data privately and today our database holds in excess of 100,000 condition alerts that are relevant to this category.

To be 100% certain that your next car was not involved in an accident or the victim of any previous body damage we would strongly recommend an engineer inspection.

Another reason why Motorcheck is Ireland’s most comprehensive car history database, so Don’t Regret It, Motorcheck It!

Start now with a Free Vehicle Identity Check.

Find Out

  • Was it Scrapped or Written Off as Category A or B in Ireland?
  • Was it Written Off as Category A, B, C or D in the UK?
  • Are there any Condition Alerts against the car?
  • Is the Logbook Genuine?

Please be aware of the limitations:

Whilst Motorcheck provides the most comprehensive report on previous write-offs we are constrained by the data that is made available and you should be aware that in Ireland many insurers do not make data on Category C and D write-offs available to any third parties.  In addition to this some vehicles may never become part of an insurance database if involved in a serious accident EG: vehicles that are self insured by corporates, vehicles which are uninsured or vehicles where the owner does not make an insurance claim.  However, even with these limitations checking a vehicles history is a must for any car buyer.

Don't Regret It, MotorCheck It! - more reasons to use MotorCheck

Our affordable and easy-to-use reports save Irish car buyers thousands of euro every week.

Check for Outstanding Finance

Check for evidence of Clocking

Check for previous Write-off history

Check for use as a Taxi or Hackney

Check the full history from the UK & Northern Ireland