Need help buying a Cat C car
Discussion
For a 2 year old BMW to be written off requires a lot of damage and usually a fairly large accident - take a look on copart site for cat C BMW 2014 models to get an idea of what you might be buying.
When you come to sell it no one will want it unless it's mega cheap and you will need photos of damage and repair ( highly unlikely).
Was it repaired in a back street garage using 2 nd hand parts?
Has it been on a Jig?
Does it drive straight?
If you don't know what you are doing buying cat C cars is a daft thing to be doing.
When you come to sell it no one will want it unless it's mega cheap and you will need photos of damage and repair ( highly unlikely).
Was it repaired in a back street garage using 2 nd hand parts?
Has it been on a Jig?
Does it drive straight?
If you don't know what you are doing buying cat C cars is a daft thing to be doing.
Kwakz said:
Help please?
Here's a similar-age Cat D 116D (so much less damaged)http://www.copart.co.uk/uk/Lot/25268766?searchId=2...
And here's a similar-age Cat C A-class Merc.
http://www.copart.co.uk/uk/Lot/30162766?searchId=2...
Now, have you seen before-repair pics of this 3-series that they've undoubtedly told you was fairly minor damage?
Looks like a dent in the rear passenger door on the 'undamaged' side of the car. Sometimes you see a car that looks to have been damaged in a very specific location, but then when you have a good look around it you start to notice dents and creases elsewhere, suggesting that during the course of whatever happened the whole structure was given one hell of a shock. There could be a whole world of pain lurking in impossible-to-reach places.
My advice....nothing wrong with buying a repaired car, on something at that price I would get an independent engineers report done prior to buying it to look at the quality of repair work (report will prob cost £250 ish)....value, very subjective, I would want 33% off a straight one personally
POORCARDEALER said:
My advice....nothing wrong with buying a repaired car, on something at that price I would get an independent engineers report done prior to buying it to look at the quality of repair work (report will prob cost £250 ish)....value, very subjective, I would want 33% off a straight one personally
This. I've had loads of CAT cars and will carry on buying, My mrs is driving a CAT D Q5 as we speak. Don't listen to the scare mongers on here as PCD said just get an independent report done and you'll be fineI was going to use clickmechanic to inspect the thou roughly before deciding to buy. Are they any good or is there another company I could use instead?
Like I said my main issue if the car is fine is how much I should pay. I realise that the market value should be lower because of the cat status, I just don't want to overpay.
Like I said my main issue if the car is fine is how much I should pay. I realise that the market value should be lower because of the cat status, I just don't want to overpay.
Edited by Kwakz on Thursday 1st September 14:00
TooMany2cvs said:
That looks VERY minor to be CatC.
I'd have thought that'd be repaired by the insurers, not even cross the line into D.
The category is applied based on the estimated total cost of the claim, not the extend of damage from a picture.I'd have thought that'd be repaired by the insurers, not even cross the line into D.
i.e. car repair (possibly at main dealer rates if that box is ticked), hire car cover (if the claimant had that box ticked), recovery costs, storage fees, administration costs etc.
So you do sometimes get cat C cars with minor damage, and cat d cars with quite major damage.
Myself I would only buy if there is no evidence of "structural damage", mainly because it would be very hard to rustproof any repair to factory standard.
Any recorded car expect to be at least 20% cheaper than equivalent.
Bear in mind in all this that any non recorded car could have had a similar repair in its history wither owner funded or non fault insurance funded, so inspect any used car rigorously.
TooMany2cvs said:
aspirated said:
Would't touch anything accident repaired unless it was superficial damage or a minor bump
And how do you know? Even if you only buy brand new, that's no guarantee.All you can say for sure is that something's not been written off by insurance, not it's never been bent.
93DW said:
This. I've had loads of CAT cars and will carry on buying, My mrs is driving a CAT D Q5 as we speak. Don't listen to the scare mongers on here as PCD said just get an independent report done and you'll be fine
Me too, just bought one with a seized engine, 15 platecouldn't work out why it'd been written off as the body was mint no damage at all, no water in the engine but seized solid
got the V5 back and wrote to the previous owner , nice guy , he'd hit a parked car in it , it'd gone to an approved merc repairer, he got a phone call monday saying come and get it wednesday, tuesday they rang again, forget it , car's written off
They'd spent 10k fixing it but when it wouldn't start they found it was seized, my mechanic thinks they've left it running with no water in it
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