Anyone had any experience of buying a Cat C insurance write off car that has bene put back on the road with a VIC certificate?

I’ve seen a motor that ticks all the boxes but is a Cat C and I don’t want to get burnt buying a pup.

Repaired well they should be fine but personally I’d want an independent inspection. Of course it will always be harder to sell the car on again.

Harder to insure, it would need to be a great deal cheaper than the equivalents for me to consider and also something i’d want to run into the ground as very hard to sell.

I was very close to buying one recently, it was priced well below its pre accident value as well. It’d had a front end bump, no chassis or suspension damage. The seller had an engineers inspection done to help sell it. He picked up items such as odd wear to all four tyres, aircon not working, damage to exhaust down pipe due to impact, damage to sump due to impact, only one ignition key, engine noisier that you might expect etc.

It’d only done 1000 miles since the repair so it was the tyre wear that put me off. Plus the aircon won’t just be a re-gas after such a short time. He did say that the bodywork had been repaired to a high standard though.

So, I’d say expect to find faults (some of which might not appear for a while – like funny tyre wear) and always realise that it’ll only ever be worth what a Cat C car is worth.

A VIC certificate is just a vehicle identity check to make sure its not a ringer. The car will have had an MOT and that’s all.

IMO there are too many cars around that aren’t ‘Cat’ to risk buying one that is, no matter how cheap.

ive seen many a badly repaired car come from even pro body shops.

cosmetics look fine but you get underneath.

saw a fiat 500 a friend had bought that had unknowingly been rear ended , boot floor creased and bumper rail damaged. New bumper and boot lid – you’d have been none the wiser , stuck it on my mates ramp. Shagged.

another mate bought a shogun with a front left damage cat C repair. – as above – aircon never worked , the dash rattled like a maddy , the windscreen leaked.

As a side note… as of October this year VIC checks are abolished.

If it’s cat c at 6months it’s a big accident

Cat c at 6years it’s a smaller bump.

Tbh there’s plenty of non recorded badly repaired shite out there.

I drive a Cat D and am very happy with it. However Cat C would be a step far for me, it’s quite serious damage.

Insurance is no problem, I am with Admiral and it costs no extra. They just want to be told and the car to have a valid MOT even though it’s under three years old.

Well the car I’m looking at was Cat C in 2008, so I’m sure any issues with it would have come to light by now.