Buying a cat 'D'?

[cjb1]

I'm looking at a cat 'D' car for sale. The retail seller tells me that it was previously stolen and stripped of some parts, this was the reason for the cat 'D'. He has no proof of the reason for the classification nor any details of the previous owner.

I'm going in with my eye's open and know the pitfalls of ownership of a cat 'D' however the car is the exact spec and condition I'm seeking and its sale price is around 60% of the equivalent non-cat 'D'.

Is there any way that I can find out exactly what happened to the car in the past?

[sleep envy]

Speak to the PO?

[rallycross]

cjb1 said:

Is there any way that I can find out exactly what happened to the car in the past?

no not really uinless its a one owner car and you can get hold of the previous keeper.

[hondansx]

If it's something a bit special, then i'd trawl club forums for other info. Otherwise, you're a bit buggered. Personally, i think it is really stupid to sell on a Cat D without some photographic evidence of the repairs; unless you're selling on for pennies, it's going to take ages to shift!

If you can see the previous keepers, the obvious route it to try and get hold of the ex owner. Bit of a drawn out affair though... otherwise get it inspected and take the punt if you can get a deal. Certainly not something you can have a nose at though; i'd want to ensure the chassis is straight and get the paint depth checked to see if this guy is actually telling the truth.

[e21Mark]

I had an e30 M3 that was a Cat D due to 'uneconomical repair', when a reversing box trailer tore a 4'' gash in a rear quarter panel. It happened when you could buy an M3 for about £5k, so it sat unloved for a few years, till values rose and it got a full documented and photographed rebuild. Despite that, when it came to sell, people couldn't see past that Cat D. Anyway, I did an HPI check and they gave me all the relevant information regarding the Cat D marker.

[Risotto]

cjb1 said:

Is there any way that I can find out exactly what happened to the car in the past?

Not routinely, no. Establishing when it happened might give you a broad indication of the level of damage though. Say the car was written off when it was a year old and was still worth a good proportion of its value when new - the damage necessary to cause the insurance company to write it off would probably have been fairly significant. If that same car was damaged when it was 10+ years old and worth comparatively little, there might have been very little wrong with it.

Edited by Risotto on Thursday 27th February 14:20