When it comes time to scrap your car, you may have seen that most scrap vehicle collection services require your vehicle to be "accessible for collection". What does that actually mean, though? And what are the risks to you if your vehicle doesn't meet those standards?

What does accessible actually mean?

When it comes to making sure a vehicle is properly accessible for collection, what that means is it must be a reasonable prospect for the recovery vehicle to quickly access your car. That means your vehicle should be on solid, level ground wherever possible. If your vehicle is down an incline, such as down the end of a steep drive, for example, it may make it much more difficult for it to be collected.

Your vehicle's tyres must all be inflated, and it must be capable of rolling. This is because generally the recovery vehicle will line up as best as possible with your vehicle before the driver winches to it and uses that to guide your vehicle onto the back of the wagon.

This isn't so much of an issue if your car is in suitable condition to be driven - as long as the car can be driven onto the back of the recovery vehicle, it doesn't matter so much where it is. It's only really necessary to make it "accessible" if the vehicle will need to be winched.

What happens if it's not accessible?

If your vehicle is not accessible, there are several things that can happen. If your vehicle can be reasonably easily moved to a more approachable location, your car disposal service may help you move it there. This means the only real cost is going to be a little more time and effort.

However, they may want to reschedule the collection, in order to give you some time to get the vehicle into a more suitable location before they can try again. If the vehicle can't be moved easily, they may simply refuse to take it full stop - which means you won't be paid what you were quoted.

On top of that, you run the risk of incurring an extra fee - often called a "wasted journey" fee. It costs time, money, and resources to get the recovery vehicle to you - you may be expected to reimburse those costs if you did not declare ahead of time that your vehicle wasn't easily accessible.

If, however, your vehicle can be collected easily, get your scrap quote from Motorwise today.