People of Chennai have almost put the chilling memory of the floods behind them but rehabilitation is still an ongoing process in most areas. Those few ill fated days wrecked havoc on epic proportions and apart form citizens, their automobiles too fell victim to the calamity.
Thousands of flood affected automobiles which are either written off by insurance companies or their owners themselves are being auctioned in Chennai. Copart.in, a subsidiary of US-based online auctioneer has hundreds of flood-hit automobiles on auction at its Sriperambudur yard. The company is receiving requests from insurance companies, dealers, private buyers who are looking to sell their cars on as-is-when-is basis.
Rajeev Kapoor, MD, Copart, stated that the cars on auction are as new as from 2015. The auctioneer will merely sell the cars and their documents and will hold no responsibility on the condition of the vehicles.
Yesterday (Jan 6), Copart.in had a BMW 3 Series on auction for a base price of INR 6 lakhs. A 2015 Audi A4 started at INR 3.4 lakhs while a 2012 Porsche Cayenne had a base price of merely INR 5 lakhs! Conditions or the extent of the repair required for these vehicles are unclear but the base auction prices in most cases are less than 10% of their on-road costs.
The online auction portal has been receiving damaged cars at a rate of 10 per day over the last week and is expecting a steady inflow for another three months. A good chunk of buyers register for the auction not to fix the cars and drive them but to salvage expensive and hard-to-acquire spare parts from the vehicles.
It appears that there is a dire need for a huge and efficient scrap yard to dispose off the automotive wastes that were generated due to the Chennai floods.
