Moral of the story - Always HPI check your new purchase!

+1 what Fox said.

It's all very well saying "stick to your guns" but put yourself in the buyers shoes - you'd expect it to be on the market for less as every other car registered as Cat D or worse is. Irrespective of what condition it currently is in or how good the repair job was the fact remains it has a blemish on its record that will affect it's resale value to everyone.

The logic with buying cars that are Cat D is that you pay less when you buy them and expect to get less when you come to sell, no one is going to buy it for market value when equivalent unrecorded examples are out there.
 
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[TW]Fox;15679284 said:
It will make HUGE difference - its a £30,000-£40,000 car and its listed as a Cat D Stolen Recovered. It will knock thousands off its value because most people buying at this level simply wont want it.
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Exactly. If I was a buyer and did a check, I'd pass on it as I'm sure there are others to choose from. The only way he will sell now is to drop the price or if someone repeats his original mistake and fails to run a HPI check.
 
Durzel said:
Holy **** there's me thinking you bought an E36 or maybe even E46 M3 without HPI'ing, but you bought one worth over £30k and it didn't occur to you to spend £5-£25 for your own peace of mind? I'm sorry but that is cataclysmically dumb.

Personally whilst I wouldn't be put off by a stolen/recovered (Cat D anyway) I'd expect it to be cheaper than an equivalent car without that on its record, and I'd probably only buy if the current owner could provide some clue as to what caused it to be on there in the first place (e.g. garage invoices for repair work, etc).
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Its not a case of didn't occur to me, I have done it on every other car that I have bought from memory. Just so happened that the one car that would have really helped from having it done, I didn't.

Point of my OP was to try and give some real life experience of why its worth spending the little bit of money it costs to get it done to avoid a similar situation to me. And not to forget to do it as I did in this case!

edit - and yes the E55 was done and it was all clear!
 
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TomO said:
Its not a case of didn't occur to me, I have done it on every other car that I have bought from memory. Just so happened that the one car that would have really helped from having it done, I didn't.
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I'm not sure that really makes sense but I'll leave it be. :D

Seriously though I cannot imagine how frustrated you must be with yourself. Maybe keep on selling and hope that someone, like yourself, forgets to do it themselves.
 
alexthecheese said:
I'm not sure that really makes sense but I'll leave it be. :D

Seriously though I cannot imagine how frustrated you must be with yourself. Maybe keep on selling and hope that someone, like yourself, forgets to do it themselves.
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I guess that depends whether he would want to knowingly sell a car with such a problem or not. I'd feel pretty uncomfortable knowing I was conning someone out of 5 grand or so.
 
Personally I think your best bet is to re-advertise the car at a price tempting enough for someone to export it to Europe as the title won't follow it and therefore wont affect their resale (up to you whether you tell them or not, although personally I would).

Unlucky though, harsh reminder that some people have no morals (previous seller).
 
I recall my old Escort RST being stolen & recovered, instead of selling it for Circa £5k which they were going for at the time, I struggled big time to get £3k for it.

On the other hand, I would not pay top money for a stolen recovered car if I were buying.

Live & learn TomO, unlucky mate all the same.
 
Have you confirmed yourself that it really is stolen recovered, and not just a scam to knock £5k off the asking price or a mistake in the HPI database?
 
e: Beaten

TomO said:
Its not a case of didn't occur to me, I have done it on every other car that I have bought from memory. Just so happened that the one car that would have really helped from having it done, I didn't.
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I'm not sure that makes sense... either it did occur to you to get one done and you chose not to, in which case you were negligent, or it didn't occur to you to HPI a £30k car which seems pretty fantastical.

Anyway, what's done is done and all you can really do is write off the partial loss to a bad experience. I'd be expecting to sell it for sub-£30k if I were you to be honest, and it being a prestige car you might get quite a few people making OIRO £27k. :(
 
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