Buying a Salvage Car

Hintza

Last three cars I have bought have all been CAT D write offs. I tend t steer clear of CAT C mainly because it should have suffered significantly more damage (there are times I wonder why a car is C and not D so don't totally discount them).

All my cars were bought at auction sight unseen wich obviously has its downsides.

Of the three cars the first was a Panda for my daughter which was fine and simple repair.

The second another Panda ended up neeing a replacement gear box and damage was slightly greater than I anticipated so probably wasn't a great deal. Having said that the boss has been driving it for three year now and loves it.

The third is my current Cherokee which was a good deal but again it required a front wishbone and a rear half shaft which were unexpected.

I intend to keep our Panda and the Cherokee until they die so resale is not an issue.

I have a friend who runs a bodyshop so I get a good deal on doing it up. But he fits them in between jobs so I never have them very fast. If you are paying commercialrates it mght not be viable.

I buy most of the parts second hand on EBay and online salvage yards. Do not buy new parts (unless you really have to) they are horrifically expensive.

When I buy I ask my man for an indication of how much he thinks it will cost to repair (always tricky from a photo) but I have found he is normally too optimistic so I add another 50% onto his quote.

To decide how much I can afford to pay I check Glass' Guide knock 30% off, deduct the cost of repair and that gives me a guide.

I have decide that I will not buy cars where the airbags have gone off mainly because they are a pain and expensive to replace and is a guide to the type and impact of an accident (not very scientific but it does me).

Edit:- Try and buy as young as you can to avoid potential poorly maintained cars ie under 4 years old.

Places to buy:-

Various salvage yards online

EBay

But the biggest is CoPart (you will not get any indication of past sales prices unless you watch some auctions). You will have a lot of competition from Eastern Europe who buy these in bulk.

Hammyman

rainbow12 wrote: »

Thanks Hammy.
Do you know any reputable places that sell salvage cars?

There is no difference between a reputable and non-reputable place. The reputable ones will not tell you what needs repairing or give you an engineers report and you will have no come backs if it ends up needing an entire front end rebuild for something that just looked like it needed a replacement wing.

You will be buying based on what your own technical competence tells you needs doing on it which is why it is really only something that should be done by people who actually know what they're looking at.

forgotmyname

Cars are always a risk, Quite possible the original owner damaged it and claimed off the insurance
as the bills for repair exceeded the cars value/insurance excess/increase.

So even after fixing the visible damage you wont know how mechanically fit the car was beforehand.

Too many people posting on forums with electrical issues that cannot be traced or cars going into limp
home mode at random times. You wont know about that until its too late.