Cat D or not Cat D

[Benspickup]

Looking at buying a elise at long last. I know my way round the usual stuf on cars and do a lot of my own spannering.

Would you be put off buying a cat d car, is it worth the saving in price or will it be a nightmare to sell on should the need arise. It offers a significant saving for the same car. I'm not personally overly fussed if the car has had a accident as I bet there are plenty of repaired cars that have been done outside of the insurance.

Thoughts welcomed,

Thanks
Richard

[TrotCanterGallopCharge]

Benspickup said:

Looking at buying a elise at long last. I know my way round the usual stuf on cars and do a lot of my own spannering.

Would you be put off buying a cat d car, is it worth the saving in price or will it be a nightmare to sell on should the need arise. It offers a significant saving for the same car. I'm not personally overly fussed if the car has had a accident as I bet there are plenty of repaired cars that have been done outside of the insurance.

Thoughts welcomed,

Thanks
Richard

Main thing if buying is to see properly what has been done, if you can't, then walk away, or it has to be very cheap & the risk is yours.

They can be a lot harder to sell, especially if you try & sell quickly, & can't show what work & standard it's been done to. Also depends on the damaged area, not helped by Elises having the reputation of being a write off if certain areas damaged. If you can use the car a few years/build up it's provenance again, it helps.

Jack on his Youtube channel 'Number 27' has a S1 Elise he's had to do a lot of repairs on, incl the central tub & rollbar. It was sold cheap to him with repairs supposedly done well, but when he removed bodywork, he could see what bodges had been carried out. He then had to cut out & replace various areas (both welding & 'gluing'). Jack's logic was that lots of S1 Elises get bashed in motorsport & repaired, pass scrutineering & there are more repair solutions than previously. They shouldn't just be written off.

[spanky3]

It shouldn't put anyone off but probably will. Cat D was for insurance payouts when a repair was unstructural and economical but for whatever reason they chose not to. Perhaps it was almost new or the insurers own repair shop didn't want to do a lotus. Cat D is a safe bet.
Years back I bought a cat c (unstructural but uneconomic) motorbike which I still have. It was written off because list prices for bodywork came to thousands. I fixed it for hundreds using a fairing from eBay. I'd never sell it at full price but didn't pay full price either.

[Belle427]

Depends on damage and quality of repairs, body panel stuff wouldn’t bother me but chassis starts to get tricky.
Just be aware come resell time should it happen you may struggle.