Car Vertical report showed body damaged so I walked away.

[Sinbad1900]

I had made arrangements to view a vehicle today but last night did a Car Vertical report and to my surprise it threw up two "damage issues", see screen shots. I contacted the dealership and advised them of my findings and informed them that I was no longer interested in the vehicle.

The dealer replied, concluding that I had used CV and stated things like:

“The data is pulled from Audatex/Autodata, it’s a quotation usually at main dealer body shops”

“The reports are usually inaccurate as that is an estimate cost of repair, could be a front end respray to get rid of stone chips not necessarily accident damage, or a quote for a full respray.”

“It’s also not necessarily for this car either as I know exactly where the data is taken from and anyone can type a reg in on that system, I could type your current vehicles reg into that database and say it needed 20k worth or repairs and the marker would stick even if it never had it, so the system is flawed.”

Well, I did a CV report on my current car before I bought it 2 years back and it was absolutely fine.

Having read a few other posts about CV, mention has been made of a similar, cheaper platform namely vcheck.uk. So I did one of their 5.00 reports and there was no mention of damage.

So my questions are:
- Are Car Vertical reports to be trusted? And yes I do know many YouTubers promote them which is how I found about them back in the day.
- Was I right to walk away from the prospective car today?

Many thanks.

[stevemcs]

I would be going to view the car, I wouldn’t be relying on CV report, if it’s been written off or been through a salvage yard it would probably be a no but most cars have seen some point during their lives.

[cliffords]

You can see the pictures of the damage and the registration of the car on the two I have seen .
My son bought an ex police vehicle, the pictures are clear show the salvage company and the damage.
So that can't be inaccurate.

[P700DEE]

CV is expensive but does what it says. You can see damage to cars and details of mileage etc. from other sources. CV now also show any assessment of damage even if it did not catagorise the car. Looking at your report, the rear damage is indicative only. Tells you to check as its likely the rear has had paint. The front damage is listed as significant. Had the car been old it would have been catagorised. A reason to walk away. That said a lot of cars have minor bumps and if of low value or rare can be written off for insignificant damage. The data provided is great, it tells you where to look and an idea of what damage was done. It gives you leverage on value of the vehicle. Just because a car has had a crash does not mean it is any more likely to have issues etc. if the repair was carried out well. We put too much faith in insurance write off data, as some Utubers have shown the cat system is not accurate and often wrong.

[Sinbad1900]

P700DEE - thanks for your reply and the sanity check.

This is the first vehicle I've looked at during my current quest so I'll keep looking.

[UK_Scat_Pack]

Is been well advertised how inaccurate Car Vertical is. And you have no comeback if they get it wrong unlike HPI checks.

[119]

Or buy a cheap paint depth gauge and prod all the metal panels.

Our shed has different depths on nearly every panel but you would never know just from looking at it.

[Drive Blind]

vcheck is my tool of choice when doing these types of checks. Try vcheck for a second opinion?

or post the reg here and unleash the PH sleuths...

[skeeterm5]

Unless it is a rare car or one with an unusual spec that you are looking for I would walk away and buy another one. Why bother taking the risk?

[Evolved]

If it’s a one off car, go view, otherwise, move on. 10-15k isn’t a front end respray.