Cat S - Valuation Drop

[WhyNotEh]

Morning Chaps

Seen a car up for sale recently which caught my eye as it belonged to someone who's very active in the owners group. It was involved in a crash in Feb and was written off as Cat S with the following damage:

New drivers door needed
Rear quarter and rear door scratched
Outer drivers door sill bent (inner sill was fine. Prev owner had it on KDS machine and nothing was bent)

I've seen the accident damage pics and it ties up. The quote was £7.8k to repair and with the car being valued at £12k it was written off as a Cat S. He purchased it off the insurance co to strip the mods from the car and then sold it as-is.

The car has now been repaired and is back up for sale at £11k. Is it worth buying do you think knowing what the previous damage was, and how much would a Cat S marker knock off the cars value? Considering similar non-cat cars are selling for 12-12.5k

Thanks

[LeroyLoser]

WhyNotEh said:

Morning Chaps

Seen a car up for sale recently which caught my eye as it belonged to someone who's very active in the owners group. It was involved in a crash in Feb and was written off as Cat S with the following damage:

New drivers door needed
Rear quarter and rear door scratched
Outer drivers door sill bent (inner sill was fine. Prev owner had it on KDS machine and nothing was bent)

I've seen the accident damage pics and it ties up. The quote was £7.8k to repair and with the car being valued at £12k it was written off as a Cat S. He purchased it off the insurance co to strip the mods from the car and then sold it as-is.

The car has now been repaired and is back up for sale at £11k. Is it worth buying do you think knowing what the previous damage was, and how much would a Cat S marker knock off the cars value? Considering similar non-cat cars are selling for 12-12.5k

Thanks

8-9k for my mind, you need to insure the ‘undesirability’ come re-sale.

[Hub]

You might be happy with the repair, but the write off marker would severely limit your market when you come to sell. I don't think £11k Vs £12k for a non write-off is cheap enough for me.

[ilikejam]

In terms of the knock on value, it doesn't matter too much as you should be haggling hard to get it as cheap as possible - then when you sell it cheaper than a similar one the effect should be minimal.

The things that would concern me are has the repair job been done properly, will an insurance company entertain it (and how much £££) and when you do come to sell you'll be limiting your market as a lot of people won't entertain Cat S cars.

Wouldn't stop me buying one if I was happy with all of that.

[Roboticarm]

Worth considering what would happen if you needed to make a future claim, the insurer would likely pay you much less than market value as it was already a write off so you could be left out of pocket
The old rule of thumb used to be that a cat d (similar to n now) was work about 60 -75% of a non damaged equivalent and a cat c (similar to s) more like half

[ZX10R NIN]

If the car was valued at 12K as a non Cat car then at best it's worth 8k & I'd guess insurance companies would have a book price of nearer 7k.

What car is it OP?

[WhyNotEh]

Thanks for all your responses

The car in question is a 2016 Seat Leon Cupra 290:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174713141434

[stevemcs]

Sounds like your paying for the modifications, personally i'd never buy a Cat S car, its all very well buying them when they are stupidly cheap but it will have a very limited market when coming to sell it.

[IJWS15]

Wonder how he will get the MoT - “decat”

[ollyprice87]

Not only is it a Cat S, going from the mods I’d imagine it’s been ragged to death. He’s having an absolute chuckle with that price.

[ZX10R NIN]

WhyNotEh said:

Thanks for all your responses

The car in question is a 2016 Seat Leon Cupra 290:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174713141434

The first thing I'd do is get in contact with the previous owner & find out how many of his mods he took off the car before selling it on.
That way you can then ascertain from the seller what they have added in terms of mods that the original owner took off.

I still feel even with the mods 9.5k would be my max, as for it been well driven I imagine you'll be doing the same so no harm, also you know the previous owner & where all the damage was so do you're due diligence & decide on what the mods are worth to you.

[Trevor555]

It's not just the valuation drop you have to consider, it's who you'll have to sell it to when the time comes.

Fine if you're happy to sell it yourself on Ebay/Autotrader Etc..

Most main dealers will simply say "sorry, not for us"

Some independent dealers may consider it but will probably offer you half of Cap clean if the car looks ok.

Dealers will also spot if it's a poor repair and will then simply not buy it.

So what I'm really saying is get the car looked at buy an expert. An expert similar to the one who you might have to sell it to one day.

[maz8062]

As has already mentioned, Cat S cars are difficult to sell especially in this day and age. I’ve bought and sold a few over the years and never had a problem provided it is priced competitively, but now folk seem to have lost their appetite for them. Prospective buyers will ask question after question after question - they’ll want to see pictures of the car pre-accident, poke around at the car looking for any imperfection to blame on the accident.

The biggest mistake that people make with these types of cars, and I’ve been there, is that they mod them. They buy them relatively cheaply and then spend £££ on mods, and then have to advertise the price too high to recoup their spend.

To the op, if you want to buy it don’t fret, but understand that you might struggle selling it when you want to move on. No px deals, no WBAC, just the good old public with their endless questions, tyre kicking antics and low ball offers.