Westmeath motorists driving €8m worth of written off ‘zombie’ cars

Eight million euros worth of written off 'zombie' cars are being driven by Westmeath motorists, according to new analysis.

The study by car history check company MotorCheck.ie has revealed that almost 40,000 'zombie' cars – those brought back to life but not correctly identified as insurance write offs or ex-salvage – have been imported into the Republic of Ireland from the UK.

At today’s values, the estimated market value of those vehicles is €318m across the country, with €7,978,538 worth of affected cars in Westmeath alone.

The research conducted by MotorCheck, as seen on last night’s RTÉ Primetime, is the first major cross border analysis of salvaged and written off vehicles imported into the Republic of Ireland from the UK. Examples of zombie cars were found currently for sale privately and on dealers’ forecourts with ‘All Clear’ histories.

Despite the introduction of new Brexit linked import charges, the number of vehicles imported from the UK to the Republic of Ireland remains high. In 2021 over 83,000 vehicles were imported with a total of 457,000 coming across the water over the past 4 years.

In an effort to understand the prevalence of zombie vehicles amongst those being imported, MotorCheck embarked on the largest single cross border analysis of vehicles ever carried out between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

In so doing, the company cross referenced the VIN numbers for 1.9 million Irish vehicles with its UK Salvage database.

Shane Teskey, co-founder of MotorCheck said:

“As of today, we know that almost 40,000 zombie cars have been imported into the Republic of Ireland – those brought back to life but not necessarily identified as insurance write offs or ex-salvage. This equates to €318M leaving traders or their owners to foot the bill when the car’s true history is discovered. With used car prices rising in Ireland as much as 50%, it’s more important than ever that car dealers and private buyers are made aware of a vehicles hidden history before they pay well over the fair market value for a potentially dangerous ex-write off,” he said.

From today and for a limited time, Irish motorists can check for free if their car is one of the identified vehicles by visiting www.motorcheck.ie and clicking the red banner at the top  of the site to check any registration.