Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Would you buy a Cat D damaged car?
  • donsimon
    Free Member

    As title, I’m trying to get a feel of what Cat D means in the real world. It’s all new to me. 🙁

    domwells27
    Free Member

    Increased insurance premium. Potentially harder to sell in the future. What car?

    Jamie
    Free Member

    Yes and I did.

    Fiesta 1.4 with light driver side cosmetic. Had it for about 18 months now and it’s been fine. The most important thing is you know the history of the vehicle. I knew everyone down the chain so knew what had happened to the car as well as seeing it before repair.

    It should be fine if the discount is enough and you’re planning on keeping it for a decent period of time.

    Buyer beware as usual, so do your homework.

    Increased insurance premium

    I did not find this, and I am also a new-ish driver. This is with Carole Nash.

    …the harder to sell bit is right though.

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    weeksy
    Full Member

    Nopes, but i would buy a CAT D or even CAT C motorbike 🙂

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    yes usually means it was uneconomical to repair rather than impossible. My not even be substantial damage – this depends on the price range of the car tbh. Ideally see photos before the repair or a report obviously harder to sell but some bargains to be had still I assume.
    I have fixed them up in the past and it would not put me off but it would also depend what the damage was
    I would want to take someone along who knew cars to see what had been done though

    donsimon
    Free Member

    Increased insurance premium. Potentially harder to sell in the future. What car?

    It’s actually a general question to see how people react to CAT D rather than specific. The car tha I’ve seen is an A6 with few miles on the clock but cheap.
    What insurance premium increases, real or anecdotal? And would it really be difficult to sell and would it be more difficult because there is a problem with the car or people’s understanding of CAT D?

    weeksy
    Full Member

    There’s not a problem with an understanding of CAT D. It can vary from slightly bad… to more bad (lol)… but in simplest terms, a CAT D has at some stage of it’s life had something bad happen.

    kayak23
    Full Member

    What insurance premium increases, real or anecdotal?

    Best thing to do is phone around a few quotes as if you were already the owner…

    I wrote my own car off….a bit.. but carried out the repairs myself, had it inspected by VOSA and carried on. Just a bit of panel damage to an old Fiesta, and I can’t say as I recall any increase.
    It did come up when I finally did a part-ex on it though at a dealers but not really a significant problem.

    Jamie
    Free Member

    What insurance premium increases, real or anecdotal?

    For me, not real. I did have to give my insurers an engineers report saying the work had been carried out to a safe standard. This entailed the mechanic from the garage jotting down a sentence on a a piece of paper.

    And would it really be difficult to sell and would it be more difficult because there is a problem with the car or people’s understanding of CAT D?

    It will be easy to sell if the price is low. A lot of it is misunderstanding, as people assume anything with a CAT cert has been piledriven into a wall and is made up of 3 cars welded together by illegal immigrants on benefits.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    re sale it like having a damaged repaired frame- whilst it is as good as new you still have the words damaged repaired in the description so fewer people are interested

    Having filled in a number of insurance forms to get the cheapest none asked me about the car – perhaps they know from the registration though??? – test it I guess with the same car with different regs??

    A6 is a step up from the pug workhorse

    hora
    Free Member

    It all depends. I’d buy a Cat listed car if the saving over a similar priced non-damaged car was substantial and I had all the details (and photos if possible) of the pre-damage.

    Saying all this buying a cat listed car wouldn’t be an option really for me as I like to change cars. It’d make impossible to PX and harder to sell privately as you’d have to drop the price again against similarly other priced cars on the market. So you ‘might’ lose any saving you made when you come to sell.

    I’ve also noticed ‘some’ post-repaired cars lose their logbooks or have sparse history and/or seem to have slimmer miles.

    Not saying ALL but you do need to go into a bargain car with open eyes and carry out all the other usual pre-purchase checks still.

    donsimon
    Free Member

    It will be easy to sell if the price is low. A lot of it is misunderstanding, as people assume anything with a CAT cert has been piledriven into a wall and is made up of 3 cars welded together by illegal immigrants on benefits.

    This is the purpose of the thread, to see how people react.

    The Pug has been very loyal and is getting a bit tired now, Junky, so I thought that I could get an A6 to cart it around in.
    The A6 seems to tick all the need boxes at the moment, comfortable for eating the miles and strong enough to do the odd trailer trip to Madrid, if needed. Don’t forget most of my MTBing is done at Llandegla. 😉

    steveh
    Full Member

    I’ve had several over the years, the increased insurance thing is a myth. I’ve never even had the question about it raised with various different insurance companies.
    In terms of the car it’s about the price, if the price is right and it’s a lot cheaper than an equivalent car then why not. You need to look over the car carefully to make sure it’s been structurally at least well repaired. Resale is harder as some people just won’t buy previously damaged cars but with the price lower than those normal cars it’ll still go. This is also less important the further down the car market you go, on £1kish cars it’s all about condition really and things like this have much less of an impact on the value.

    Mugboo
    Full Member

    My Stilo took a knock to the side last year. It would have been Cat D but we took a slightly lower payment and kept it.

    We won’t fix the dent but will run it till it dies.

    Cat D to me means, run it till it dies.

    owenfackrell
    Free Member

    You can get the markers removed from the car if you take it to the right places. The thing is if your buying a scond handcar how do you know that its not been in an accident that on a older one would have ment it was a cat D/C but due to its age/value they repaired it?

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