Would you buy a 'Category C' car?

Soldato
Joined
13 Mar 2004
Posts
16,649
totally depends on price and what you want. My car is a Cat D. Mechanically sound, but the bumpers had a cheap spray and the paint is coming off, some of the plastic trim under the cars is broken and the wings,bonnet,bumper don't line up exactly. Do I care? not at all as I got the car for under 50% of what a normal version would go for.

i almost bought a cat c 180sx a long time. the car was made in 96 (i think) and it was declared cat c 10 years later when it was worth nothing. the write off value of a 10 year old nissas is nothing, hence that cat c was a perfectly servicable car.

but unless you understand how it works, dont touch them tbh
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
2,691
Location
Nr Colchester, Essex
Thing is cars that aren't listed as CAT C or D doesn't mean they weren't. I know for a fact our Accord isn't listed and it was written off by the Insurance Co as a Cat C.

The system is 100% accurate.

Also as stated, the only difference between CATD and C is the cost is Uneconomical or the cost is more than the value of the car, depending on the age of the car should give you an idea of damage substained. Cars only worth £1-2k will nearly always be a CAT C unless damage is very light.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Mar 2004
Posts
16,649
Also as stated, the only difference between CATD and C is the cost is Uneconomical or the cost is more than the value of the car, depending on the age of the car should give you an idea of damage substained. Cars only worth £1-2k will nearly always be a CAT C unless damage is very light.
exactly. i could smash some windows and key the paint and cat c my car... there are so many misconceptions so unless someone knows about it they should just avoid it
 

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Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2008
Posts
3,283
Location
South Wales
You are looking at a car that's just over 2 1/2 grand, so at some point it's suffered damage that would cost more than 2 1/2 grand to fix.

Given that insurance companies always use big expensive repair shops you could rack up enough damage for a cat C on that car just by keying every panel. You might also have to smash the glass too.

If you're not charging £50 an hour to respray the car (and lets face it the guy doing the spraying is probably lucky to get £10 - £15 an hour then the cost reduces dramatically and suddenly the car is economically repairable.

Alternatively the damage could've been done by having a lorry drive into the back of it, and the car was "repaired" by using the back end from another car with severe front end damage.

You could always ask the garage what the damage was that caused it to get written off and to provide photographs of it in it's before state?
 
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