Audi A3 S Avant - Cat D, Would You...

[tony wright]

Noticed a 65 plate with low mileage at what I think is a decent price (£15k), down side is the cat D sticker. Never owned or even looked at a cat car before so don’t know if the gambles worth it, any advice appreciated.

[Trevor555]

Unless you really know about cars, and repairs, it's not worth the risk.

And if you do feel lucky, make sure you road test the car to include a hard brake at 70mph.

You don't want to be finding out the car's bent when you actually need to hit the brakes at speed.

[CJ1]

Not exactly a rare hard to find car. Instead of a 65 Plate Cat D just go for a 14 Plate Clean one. There’s no difference as they didn’t update them until 66 Plates.

[tony wright]

Great, thanks I’ll give it a miss.

[aka_kerrly]

Trevor555 said:

Unless you really know about cars, and repairs, it's not worth the risk.

And if you do feel lucky, make sure you road test the car to include a hard brake at 70mph.

You don't want to be finding out the car's bent when you actually need to hit the brakes at speed.

If a car has been in such a significant accident to require being put on a chassis jig I suspect it will not be a cat N but a cat S

The cat c/d have been replaced a few years back , N=non structural. S= Structural

If the car has a cat D then it was damaged before 2017.

[Trevor555]

aka_kerrly said:

Trevor555 said:

Unless you really know about cars, and repairs, it's not worth the risk.

And if you do feel lucky, make sure you road test the car to include a hard brake at 70mph.

You don't want to be finding out the car's bent when you actually need to hit the brakes at speed.

If a car has been in such a significant accident to require being put on a chassis jig I suspect it will not be a cat N but a cat S

The cat c/d have been replaced a few years back , N=non structural. S= Structural

If the car has a cat D then it was damaged before 2017.

My experience has taught me that the ratings are pretty vague.

Do insurance companies pay to have every vehicle examined closely just to give them a rating?

And pretty much any insurance quote/inspection will say "subject to further stripping/inspection"

The cars do not have all the undertrays removed, and body panels, just to categorise them.

I've seen plenty of "only light damage" cars with some serious kinks underneath.

[aka_kerrly]

Trevor555 said:

My experience has taught me that the ratings are pretty vague.

Do insurance companies pay to have every vehicle examined closely just to give them a rating?

And pretty much any insurance quote/inspection will say "subject to further stripping/inspection"

The cars do not have all the undertrays removed, and body panels, just to categorise them.

I've seen plenty of "only light damage" cars with some serious kinks underneath.

Do you think it's better for insurance companies to just pay out and accept losses all over the place by writing off barely damaged cars or better to perform inspections to determine the extent of a potential loss in order to make the most cost effective decision.

I know I would want a proper inspection before deciding between spending £5k repairing a £30k car or paying out £30k for a new car.

[Trevor555]

aka_kerrly said:

Do you think it's better for insurance companies to just pay out and accept losses all over the place by writing off barely damaged cars or better to perform inspections to determine the extent of a potential loss in order to make the most cost effective decision.

I know I would want a proper inspection before deciding between spending £5k repairing a £30k car or paying out £30k for a new car.

Re your first point I think yes.

They seem to make decent money selling them on Copart in their damaged state, so many just go there after a body shop's had a quick estimate.

I guess to do a proper inspection to see all the damage it would involve many hours labour stripping down. Money the insurance company will have wasted if more damage is found.

So yes, many cars just get written off quickly, customer paid out promptly so hire car charges etc stop.

My first ever job back in the eighties as a spotty youngster was working for a company repairing write offs bought from Universal salvage.

I got to see the bodges. It was scary stuff.

I later worked for a bodyshop who did proper insurance repairs. I then saw that some of the cars still weren't right after the repair.

Modern cars bend so easily, they're designed to crumple to protect us. And parts are so expensive.

That brings us to another subject.

Many written off cars are repaired with parts from all the stolen vehicles. Or even parts stripped from cars and left where they are.

The whole subject of written off cars is a very scary one. And so many modern cars just don't drive right after a bump.

And the dealers who deal in them. Are they the nicest dealers/people? Sorry to the genuine ones.

Sorry I'm waffling, but having been a vehicle buyer for so many years now, I've seen some scary stuff on "only had light damage" cars.

[aka_kerrly]

^^ Interesting stuff.

Your point about CoPart is a good observation, i have looked at loads of cars on there and some of the estimates/prices being paid for cars that clearly need substantial amounts of work is quite staggering.

Clearly there are some absolute horrors around & it pays to always inspect a car as best you can or consider professional help. If you consider that up until a few years ago cars that have been written off, repaired using stolen cars/other write offs/ clones would have been flagged up by the VIC test which CAT C cars used to require. However it would seem that the number of cars found was so miniscule it cost more money to run the scheme than any value generated by preventing a few bodge jobs getting back on the road.

Ironically the worst car that I have ever seen had an MOT and was hpi clear but it was a cut & shut!!!. A mk4 Astra estate that was circa 10years old that wasn't even that cheap on ebay .. we'd driven 5 hours to buy this POS. I'm under the impression the owner drove through a field of st and the MOT tester didn't want to go near the underside, they should have spotted the torn carpets, poorly fitted B panel covers, horrendous door gaps , multiple shades of silver and other tell tale signs that all was not what it seemed.

[Dr G]

In the same way that broken air conditioning "just needs gassing", the "minor panel damage" write off is rarely anything of the sort.