Sold Cat D car by dealer

Davidtomdavid

Hi, some advice please.

Bought a 2006 Z4 from a dealer in 2008, and now whilst trying to sell it, a HPI check has shown that the car is Cat D & was written off in 2007.

The dealership did not tell me this when I bought it & I paid full market value for it & not the price it should have been worth as a Cat D.

I've spoken to citizens' advice & they recommend finding out the difference between what I paid for it & what I should have done and contact the dealership requesting this money back.

I'm not sure to find out the difference in values from 2008 when I purchased it so have taken advice from a BMW dealership who believe the value is roughly halved for being Cat D.

So now I have this rough amount, how should I word my letter? What sort of language should I use? Should I request back interest, plus any other compensation figure?

Am I going around this the right way & what response time should I allow them to respond?

Would appreciate any advice please. Thankyou.

pappa_golf

do you understand CAT groups?


look what a CAT d might be , new bumper , new mirror?


Category A

Scrap only. For cars so badly damaged they should be crushed and never re-appear on the road. Even salvageable parts must be destroyed.
Category B

Body shell should be crushed. Signifies extensive damage, although some parts are salvageable. Should never re-appear on road, although reclaimed parts can be used in other road-going vehicles.
Category C

The vehicle is repairable but the costs exceed the vehicle’s value. Can re-appear on road.
Category D

The vehicle is repairable but repair costs are significant compared to the vehicle value – including time delays to source parts. Can re-appear on road.

The ABI Salvage Code dictates that Category A and Category B cars should be crushed, with Cat B vehicles allowed to donate some safe and serviceable parts.
However, write-offs in the latter two categories can be sold on by the insurance company, either to the original owner or to a third party via a car salvage company. Cars written off as a Category C case, according to the ABI’s Salvage Code, “require a Vehicle Identity Check (VIC) before a V5C registration certificate is re-issued by the DVLA.” The VIC is carried out by the Vehicle Operator and Services Agency (VOSA).
As no notifications are made to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) or VOSA when a car is written off in a Category D situation, the vehicle is not subject to a VIC before it is allowed back on the road – just make sure the repair work has been carried out to a safe and satisfactory standard.
Cars in the latter two categories can sometimes represent a bargain, if they are priced accordingly. An older car can be repaired to an acceptable standard at a lower cost than that dictated by an insurance company’s standards – especially if used parts or cheaper labour are used.

davemorton

It is irrelevant what damage caused the car to be a Cat D, it has devalued the car, and the dealer should have disclosed this.

bigjl

There will definitely be a value difference

It is unlikely that the dealer knew about it, the dealer will be indemnified against things like this.

No Dealer will ever buy in stock that hasn't been given a HPi check.

It isn't impossible that the previous owner damaged it, claimed for it, bought the car as salvage, repaired it and sold it on in a short period of time and did so to make a nice little side profit. The HPi database is not updated as quick as you might expect sometimes.

First of all contact the Dealer and show them your HPi check. If the car was two years old when purchased any repair must have been done to a very high standard, or it could have been stolen and recovered with just lock damage, or reported stolen and hidden as the first owner wanted out of the finance deal as hey had lost their job in the crash, the car was then "found" after the pay out.

The Dealer that soldier to you is likely as much a victim hear as you, and there is also the possibility that it was entered into the HPi database in error.


And also ignore the BMW Dealer, they are full of it, a Cat D is not worth half what a non Cat D is worth, they are taking the mickey.

Probably hoping you bite, trade it in and one of the staff gets a cheap car.

arcon5

You want some money back after 8 years?

Good luck with that one

In fact can you even take it to court, wouldn't the stature of limitations come in here (6 years)?

antrobus

arcon5 wrote: »

You want some money back after 8 years?

Good luck with that one

In fact can you even take it to court, wouldn't the stature of limitations come in here (6 years)?

S32 LA 1980;

the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud, concealment or mistake (as the case may be) or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.

On the presumption that the failure to disclose a car as being Cat D would be one of the three.

Davidtomdavid

The write off was about 15 months before I bought the car from the dealer, so surely the HPI database would have been updated in that timeframe?

Also, the BMW dealer had no interest in buying my car due to its age and mileage, so not sure why they would lie with their 50% estimate.

k3lvc

Davidtomdavid wrote: »

Also, the BMW dealer had no interest in buying my car due to its age and mileage, so not sure why they would lie with their 50% estimate.

Plus the fact it was a Cat D - no BMW dealer would touch it so their 'valuation' is a bit meaningless.


Anything of this age/Cat D would be non-main dealer material and with write off being nearly 10yrs ago then condition is more likely to impact price than Cat D

Rain_Shadow

I'm intrigued to know what sort of damage to a one year old Z4 caused it to be written off as a Cat D. That's an awful lot of repair costs. Could it have been a stolen recovered that had been paid out on before it was found?

daveyjp

Rain_Shadow wrote: »

I'm intrigued to know what sort of damage to a one year old Z4 caused it to written off as a Cat D. That's an awful lot of repair costs. Could it have been a stolen recovered that had been paid out on before it was found?

That was my thought to. Its an expensive car to be Cat D after only a few months.

The other thought is flood damage.

foxy-stoat

The only "real provable" loss here is the value of a 10 year old Z4 CAT D and non CAT D on todays private market, which is probably £1000-£1500 as there are a few clean Z4's for sale and a few that have CAT C/D markers. You could try and start a small claim for this loss, you may get somewhere with it.

The problem the OP has is he bought an overpriced car 8 years ago, drove it for 8 years without knowing it was overpriced.

Very much doubt he could get the difference of the value of a 2 year old car and a 2 year old car that was a CAT D - as there would need to be a calculation of 8 years of depreciation to account for. No idea the value in 2008 for a clean '06 Z4 and a CAT D Z4 but if the difference in price was say £4000 then you need to account for depreciation, a CAT D will depreciate faster than a non CAT D car.