I have a 2013 Hyundai i40, registered in NSW, and just discovered that while the RMS has it as that year’s build, the NSW SIRA (State Insurance Regulatory Authority) has it as a 2012 model.
Hyundai confirmed the 2013 year build.
SIRA advised me they can’t change the record since they get it from the RMS. Puzzling to say the least, since the RMS has it correct.
The problem is that my insurer, unbeknown to me, had insured it as a 2012, because insurers use SIRA, not RMS records. So if you give an insurer the rego, rather than the build date, they will check SIRA.
Hyundai confirmed the build date, but you can use also a VIN decoder. In a Hyundai the tenth character is the code for the build year.
SIRA advises me that they can’t change the record because they take it from RMS, who happens to have it right. So I asked the RMS to sort it out with SIRA.
My insurer had to request permission from their underwriter, to insure it as a 2013, which was granted. But it may be different should I change insurers.
I suggest anyone owning a 2013 “VF2” i40 Hyundai check with their insurer, specially if they gave them the rego instead of the build date.
The insurance industry will use the model year to determine costs of repair as a 2012 model of any make can run over a number of years. I am not aware of a manufacturer which changes its models each and every year. Sometimes there might be very slight cosmetic changes (colour, seat fabrics, alloy wheel design etc), which won’t affect repair costs.
If car is written off, the valuation/market value should be based on the year of manufacture. Every insurance certificate I have seen provides the built year as that for agreed valuem
Chuckles, there is always an exception; this might be an anomaly in values, not an exception.
My car is technically a 2019MY17. A rego return calls it a 2019 as the manufacturer registered it, and the compliance date. Without going into the why’s of that, that get convoluted, the agreed value range for the exact same vehicle being ‘described’ (for lack of a better term) as any of a 2017, 2018, or 2019 model is similar as are Redbook values, and the range of premiums between it being 2017, 2018, or 2019 is usually about $3 difference.
At the end of the day if all the agreed value ranges are based on the MY, and they are all the same, it does cause some wonder. I rang the insurer to talk about it and (oversimplifying the discussion) they concluded ‘go with Vicroads’ since it is all the same anyway.
Our old Honda Jazz by it’s manufacture detail was built in 2004 but was compliance plated as 2005. In all our registration and insurance dealings it was treated as a 2005 model, parts wise it was 2004. Not that that made much difference as that same model stretched from around 2002 to 2013. However the link pins were different between the 2 years as were the lights which moved from incandescent to LED for stop/parking and indicators.
The VIN number became important to ensure that the difference in those parts was accounted for.
Yes I understand models have cycles. For instance the my Hyundai i40 VF2’s cycle started in June 2012, and ended in 2015. The problem is that my insurer was covering it as a 2012 built, which in case of a write off there would have been at least $1500 less payout. That’s because I gave it the rego, and they got the rest of the info from NSW SIRA, who has it as a 2012. I am pursuing this with SIRA.
Yes I understand your case. But my car was built, “compliance plated”, registered, and sold in 2013. Hyundai confirmed the 2013 build date to day and month level. The only “2012” about it, is that the series started that year and finished in 2015. The problem in my case, is that the insurer actually believed it was a 2012, because NSW SIRA said so.
