Would you buy a Cat D car?

[raceboy]

Currently looking for the PH favourite......an MX-5

Looked at a fair few cars and all are either a bit tatty, a bit too expensive, lacking any history, the wrong colour or sold by people I take a dislike to.
Discuvered a localish place that specialises in buying insurance write off mx-5's repairing them and selling them.
There business model is pretty much you pick a car out of their stock then they fix it adding any little extras you like at the same time.
So you see the car in it's 'crashed' state which in some cases is very very minimal they repair it you buy it....

I was on the verge of buying a cat D car from another dealer anyway...it's by far the best car we'd seen so far but had no idea what happened to gain it's 'D' status, the car at this new place we've seen in it's all it's 'crashed' glory and knowing it's basically just a new wing and the people sorting it do nothing but MX-5's all day every day I'm convincied the car will be absolutely mint when we collect it, price wise it's about a 1/3rd off the price of a 'straight' car.

So would you even entertain the idea of buying a car with 'history'?
I konw it'll make things a little harder to sell on, but then I'll be passing the savings on too and I'll be taking a few pics of the pre-fixed car for the service history file anyway.

So good idea or a nightmare waiting to happen?

[Ry_B]

Yeh I would...a lot of cars out there have damage, some are recorded some aren';t

[Jasandjules]

If you've seen the before and after then that sounds good to me. Plus, you can get them inspected and if deemed safe I believe the CAT D thing fallas away...

[Fleckers]

Yes

but not for a road car

track day special only

[AyBee]

In the situation you describe, probably, you know it's history, you know how bad the damage was and you know what's been done to repair it and how well it's been repaired!

[mikechandler]

I wouldn't hesitate in buying a cat D car, as long as this is reflected in the price and I could see the original engineers' report

[Flippin' Kipper]

I would consider buying one, but would get lots of photos of before any work is undertaken.

[slippery]

If it's a low value car then yes, absolutely. It doesn't take much to 'write off' something quite old in the eyes of the insurance company. As long as it has been repaired to a decent standard, it matters not. You buy for less, you sell for less and you drive a better car in between. A newer, higher value car could have been subjected to a much larger accident, yet due to its market value would be repaired unrecorded. There seem to be no shortage of takers for cat d on flea bay either, so selling can't be as difficult as some would have you believe. Having photos of the repair where possible was good advice too as this will really help come resale time.

Edited by slippery on Saturday 10th October 22:26

[Eagerbeaver]

One of the best buys I had was a cat D Boxster. I bought it at 2 years old with 8000 miles on the clock. Put 30000 miles on it and sold it 2 years on for £2K less than I paid for it. I still see the current owner who is delighted with it.

[Engineer1]

For a car worth a couple of grand the authorised repairers fees will eat up a fair percentage of the car's value, then add in original parts and a broken headlight dented bonnet and scratched bumper could do it, but 2nd hand or patern parts and teh repair is a hundred quid or so.

[lozriva]

My Bro did, he bought a ZetecS that he wanted, the one we found was a CatD and he got a good chunk off the price, i would say if you know what you getting into then ye...

[Rollcage]

slippery said:

If it's a low value car then yes, absolutely. It doesn't take much to 'write off' something quite old in the eyes of the insurance company. As long as it has been repaired to a decent standard, it matters not. You buy for less, you sell for less and you drive a better car in between. A newer, higher value car could have been subjected to a much larger accident, yet due to its market value would be repaired unrecorded. There seem to be no shortage of takers for cat d on flea bay either, so selling can't be as difficult as some would have you believe. Having photos of the repair where possible was good advice too as this will really help come resale time.

Edited by slippery on Saturday 10th October 22:26

Exactly this.

For most older cars, it only takes a minor bump to write a car off.Remember that the insurance company has to take into account hire car costs ,etc, so often it is not the damage itself that makes repair uneconomic.

If you can see the before and after ,then you are in the best postion of all. Imagine it was already your car, and had been damaged in your ownership. Would you want the car repaired ,and would you be happy to continue driving it?

[raceboy]

Well I think I'm convinced.
The specific car in question only needs a front wing and a bit of paint/filler down the drivers side, looks like the owner miss judged a gap.
We're taking sub £3k after they have added a load of optional extras to the car, serviced it, cambelt, and MOTed so a saveing of at least a 1/3rd over all the 'straight' cars we;ve seen and you never know whats happened to them.

[Munter]

raceboy said:

Well I think I'm convinced.
The specific car in question only needs a front wing and a bit of paint/filler down the drivers side, looks like the owner miss judged a gap.
We're taking sub £3k after they have added a load of optional extras to the car, serviced it, cambelt, and MOTed so a saveing of at least a 1/3rd over all the 'straight' cars we;ve seen and you never know whats happened to them.

Exactly. You could be buying my car. The only original panels are the passenger door and the rear wings. It's been damaged several times and never written off. And each time it sounds worse than the one you are thinking of buying....