Theft of spare wheel

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
I will be checking with the insurance company tomorrow but wondered if any of you good people have experienced this.

OH took the car to the garage today for a service and when he went to collect it he was told that the spare wheel has been stolen. At least they assumed it had been stolen as the fixings had been broken and the wheel was missing and he thought we would have noticed if it had fallen off while driving along.

We have no idea when it happened. The car is garaged at home and OH's company car park is very secure so we can only assume that it happened while we were out and about somewhere, maybe while on holiday in France.

The mechanic had never seen anything like it before and suggested that we claim it on the insurance.

So do any of you know if the theft of a spare wheel is covered by the car insurance? We have full casco. I have had a quick read of our policy but can't find the spare wheel mentioned specifically but maybe it's covered under something more general.

Also should we report the theft to the police?

Does anyone have any ideas.

2
Problem is you have no idea when the loss occurred . Any claim will potentially put up your premiums & you probably have an excess.......

3
what car? I know of some preventative solutions....

4
The amazing thing is how come it took a mechanic to notice it was missing?

Where should it be and how come you never observed it missing yourself?

5
some are cable-mounted under the rear of the vehicle

cut the cable, you have a wheel

full-sized alloy, I guess?

6
Figured that after posting, for me there is no such problem car doesnt have a spare full stop. If I want one its an optional extra

7
ours is like that, I think. I hope I never need it as I have no idea how to get to it. I think we have a special wrench or similar and it will drop down...once you remove the center console or something like that!

8
Just a guess but you might want to see if you have "parking" insurance. It normally covers the car if someone hits you in the parking lot and does not leave a note (you know as people start the big turn leaving the parking spot and scrap the whole side of the car). They might be able to pass this via the parking insurance.

This type of issue (since it is theft) will probably be more of something your home/apt. insurance will cover for items in (on?) the car that are stolen. You should check your personal policy as well.

Good luck in any event.

9
Claim your car was stolen. You know the one left in its place isn't yours, as yours had five wheels and this only has four

10
Kia sorrento, one year old.

And yes the wheel is mounted underneath at the back and since we're not in the habit of crawling under the car we didn't notice it was missing.

And yes it's full sized alloy so pretty pricey to replace hence the insurance question. As the car is fitted with a spare then we're legally obliged to have one so just not replacing it is not an option. My car doesn't have one so I'm not likely to have this problem.

We do have the parking insurance so maybe that would be worth a try.

11
I have just been looking for 5 wheels and 5 winter tyres, for a new Skoda Fabia. http://www.reifendirekt.ch/index.html

For size 195/55 R15 85H, Continental TS830, the cheapest price, new steel wheel +tyre + fitting and balanced, is CHF 188 plus Fr 20 delivery, each.

I am sure you will lose more than this if you make an insurance claim.

12
There'll be the cost of replacing/repairing the fixings too. I imagine that won't be a bargain in Switzerland.

13
Yep. Hence the insurance question.

14
Visit a neighbouring country to source the replacement and repair the fittings. I would expect insurance however will cover this sort of thing it is a theft of part of your car.

The challenge is however how much you may be considered to have contributed and the self contribution amount could easy be more than purchasing a replacement froma neighbouring country

15
Sorry to take you slightly off-topic, but how are insurers with repairing in another country, if, for example, they decided they'll only pay 50% due to contribuary negligence and you don't want to pay Swiss charges?

Common sense would say they'd be happy to save the cash, but I suspect common sense doesn't always win out.

16
100% of a French bill probably less than 50% of a Swiss one, of course a used one on Ricardo will be 60-100 chf.

17
or you cut the cale from outside....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LAND-ROVER...item1e7e21fe9a is the sold of thing you need to protect you from such thefts

18
indeed I'd expect the cale to be 250+

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_tr...at=0&_from=R40 is always worth a look, irony is that my car is more likely to be a victim and the search results show that (Discovery).

I know a lot about it but have not been a victim AFAIK.....let me check!!

19
Yup we think a trip to Pontarlier might be in order. I will see what the insurance says when I call them tomorrow first.

I'm not sure how we can be considered to have contributed to the theft. The car is kept in our locked garage so it must have happened when we were out somewhere and the only way to have avoided it would be to have never taken the car out of the garage which kind of defeats the object of having it.

I thought it was probably a long shot that somebody on here had experience of this. The mechanic said it was the first time he'd seen it.

20
Why would someone steal a spare wheel?

Value is close to nothing.