Buy a Cat D car - any advice

Hintza

If you want a Cat D (and we have 3 in the family) then go direct and pick one with minimal damage and if you are lucky you might find one not on the register (WILL COST MORE)

http://www.copart.co.uk/c2/homeSearch.html?_eventId=getLot&execution=e3s2&lotId=23959933&returnPage=SEARCH_RESULTS

OddballJamie

SLITHER99 wrote: »

I can only agree with all of this. To add to that, look at the black trimming on the doors. Neither side lines up with the rest of the car.

Look at the engine bay photo. Now, call me paranoid, but some of the black plastics look newer than some of the others i.e. compare the rocker cover with the fuse box cover and even the air filter housing cover. I'm no crash repair expert, but I've owned a few cars and from what I remember, black plastics usually age in a similar way.

Looking at the nearside shot, I'd bet a dollar that the bumper, front wing and door are from three different vehicles. None of them seem to either line up or appear the right shade.

I'd pass on this one, mate. At any price! I'd further the theory that this was at one point light panel damage and Cat. D recorded. Then the owner had another smack, didn't go via insurance and now someone's fixed it up and put it back on the road. Totally speculation, but I agree. I cannot see how this made it to Cat. D.

I think you misunderstand what Cat D and C actually mean.
It happens when a car is damaged/stolen and the insurance choose not to repair as is it uneconomical or unfeasible in a given time.
If the insurance decided to repair it then it wouldn't have been registered as a Cat C or D. This worth a read - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_check#MIAFTR_Data

The likelihood is that it had a smash, the insurance paid the owner out and then the insurance sold the car on to a salvage place who repaired it on the cheap.

SLITHER99 wrote: »

FWIW, I had a bump in a 3 year old Fiesta many moons ago. It was a front wing and my insurance called it a Cat. C! I did leave it go (shouldn't have done), but if my car was a Cat. C, with how much has been swapped out on this car, I am suspicious all over the shop!

Cat C is worse than a Cat D technically, your 3 year old Fiesta must've suffered further damage behind the wing to make it uneconomical to repair.

SLITHER99 wrote: »

Actually sure fire way... phone them up and ask them how many keys it comes with. I'd bet another dollar he says only one key!

No point, it already states Cat D in the advert, the sellers not hiding it.

spacey2012

It is in an insurance companies best interest to get the assessor to write down the vehicle as low as possible.
With no definite guide of what is B C D grades if they write off, selecting a D grade means they get more back in salvage than a cat C.
Most people would however draw the conclusion that as declaring a cat D, this is taking the Michael a bit.
Put it this way, I would not like to have to bring it to an Emergency stop at Motorway speeds.

Hintza

All the sceptics are absolutely right all written off cars are death traps and should not be touched, if you buy one all you are doing is making my next car a smidgen more expensive so please DO NOT BUY.

SLITHER99

Hintza wrote: »

All the sceptics are absolutely right all written off cars are death traps and should not be touched, if you buy one all you are doing is making my next car a smidgen more expensive so please DO NOT BUY.

I don't think that's what we're saying. But this particular one most certainly has enough to be cautious about!

AdrianC

OddballJamie wrote: »

If I had to guess from the photos, I'd say front end collision as the bumper is a different shade to the car and no longer sits right where it meets the wheel arch.

The CatD stamp just shows that the insurer paid their customer out the value of the car in settlement of the claim - but not because the repairs were more than the value of the car. Perhaps they were trying to mitigate hire-car costs. Perhaps there was some other reason. <shrug> But if the car was a bit more valuable, the exact same damage might have had it go unrecorded (not a "write-off"), or if less valuable, it might've gone CatC.

So never mind that it got recorded as CatD - it's been hit and had a shoddy repair. If it didn't have the stamp on the record, would you be concerned about the quality of repair? (Either I'm not looking at the same pic as everbody else, or there's some serious psychic abilities going on - it's a lousy shot, and the lighting could easily be making original paint not look matched. I don't see scary door shutlines, either. Not from _that_ bad a pic. And bumper removal's a frequent maintenance thing these days - even for headlamp bulbs in some cases)

The other question... If you buy this one, then try to sell it on in a couple of years, why would anybody buy yours (black mark on record and poor repair) rather than the next one (straight)?

At the end of the day, there's not exactly a shortage of 4yo Corsas out there. For you to buy this one, it'd better be cheap and you be planning on running it into the ground.

scheming_gypsy

Hintza wrote: »

All the sceptics are absolutely right all written off cars are death traps and should not be touched, if you buy one all you are doing is making my next car a smidgen more expensive so please DO NOT BUY.

I can't tell if you're actually being serious or if my sarcasm detector is faulty.

deanos

Just go on Ebay and search for Cat D , and look at the state of some of them before repair , then ask yourself the question would you buy one of those ?

scheming_gypsy

what about the others though?
quite a lot of cat D write offs have minimal damage. When I needed parts of a car, I went to a breaker and he had a Supra in that he was breaking. It was a cat D and they'd written it off because it had a slight crack in the front bumper and a cracked headlight. Literally a low speed bump but because of the cost of a new bumper (£800), couple of hundred quid for the headlight, spraying the bumper, rental car charges etc, they decided it was cheaper to write it off.

deanos

Yes some have very small damage but how do you know if you didn't do the repair ?