Unknowingly sold a Category C Vehicle. HELP!

itsgraham

Hello
I'm looking for advice:
I bought a vehicle in Jan last year.
Put it in for MOT etc a few weeks ago and mechanic told me vehicle was a Cat C write off.
I bought the vehicle from a small garage and they did not tell me.
I have been in touch with trading standards but they require original advert.
AutoTrader confirm the vehicle was not sold as Cat C but i can only get the adverts text from AutoTrader as they do not have full advert.
I have not yet contacted the seller as TS advised against it.
Has anyone been in his situation before?
Where do I go from here?

Many thanks

debtdebt

Why have TS advised against contacting the trader? Anyway, are there any notes on the V5 to confirm it's a Cat C? Have you done an HPI yourself to confirm it's a Cat C or are you taking the garage's word for it?

mbwoy84

If the vehicle is a Cat C, it will state so on the V5.

Also, Auto Trader now automatically flags up a vehicle that is Cat C or Cat D when the vehicle details are entered by the seller, it comes up on the ad, so a seller can't (knowingly or unknowingly) sell a damaged recorded car without declaring it.

Warwick_Hunt

itsgraham wrote: »

Hello
I'm looking for advice:
I bought a vehicle in Jan last year.
Put it in for MOT etc a few weeks ago and mechanic told me vehicle was a Cat C write off.
I bought the vehicle from a small garage and they did not tell me.
I have been in touch with trading standards but they require original advert.
AutoTrader confirm the vehicle was not sold as Cat C but i can only get the adverts text from AutoTrader as they do not have full advert.
I have not yet contacted the seller as TS advised against it.
Has anyone been in his situation before?
Where do I go from here?

Many thanks

Does the mot system show the write off classification?

prowla

What you can do to confirm is go to the AutoTrader site and go through the first few steps of selling it and it will tell you if it has been a write-off.

A Cat-C means that the car can be repaired and put back on the road, so owning one should not be an issue; indeed, insurance companies don't even want to know.

Sometimes a Cat-C can just mean that the replacement of the parts may be more than the car's value.

Of course, being sold one as a perfect car does mean you may have paid over the odds for it.

I've owned a Cat-C before and it was scruffy but fine.

arcon5

How do the mot station know that? As putting an mot through the system doesn't alert the fact, at least not from what I can remember.

Do your own hpi check to confirm first.

But tbh after a year and not being able to prove or disprove anything your not really gonna get very far.

Also auto trader have for a long time automatically checked and flagged cars that have previously been written off as such in the ad. So if it has been a write off id hazard a guess it was showing as such. That or the mot station have jumped the gun.

More to the point though... is there actually anything wrong with the car?

mbwoy84

No, the MOT system won’t tell you anything like that. Cat C will always be stated on the V5. Cat D isn’t stated on the V5, but there will be a little clue on there...

What does it say in the bottom section of the front page of the V5 headed “3. Special Notes”?

Warwick_Hunt

mbwoy84 wrote: »

No, the MOT system won’t tell you anything like that. Cat C will always be stated on the V5. Cat D isn’t stated on the V5, but there will be a little clue on there...

What does it say in the bottom section of the front page of the V5 headed “3. Special Notes”?

So the mot garage wouldn’t know it was a cat c.

mbwoy84

Not from the MOT system, no. The only way they would know would be by HPI’ing the vehicle (which would be odd as they would have no reason to do so) or looking at the V5 (which is unlikely to be in the vehicle or their business to be looking at even if it was!)

konark

Thread should really be called 'Unknowingly BOUGHT cat C vehicle', or more likely 'Some grease monkey at the garage is talking !!!!!!!! to me'

n217970

Probably been crashed when it was younger and worth more so repaired rather then written off. MOT tester ( not usually the brightest) has noticed the repair and made the declaration the car must be a cat-c.