Almost bought a New (used) Car, Turn out to be a Cat-D :(

WHAT!!!

WHAT!!!

WHAT!!!

Associate
Joined
5 Aug 2004
Posts
1,783
Location
S Wales
Hay all

Well saw a Honda civic Type R 2005 Milano red for sale at £5,500 with 37k on the clock.

Description did'nt give much detail so sent off a message inquiring about the cars detail's got replies but did'nt contain much other than come view the car.

Off i shoot to the bank asking can i please have my monies which took 25 minutes due to it being a large ish sum of money being taken out of the bank, go straight to view the car and it did look lovely.

Gleming red, little damage to alloy wheel's and little dent on bumper, also noticed that the bumper was'nt aligned striaght with headlights but thought maybe it was move when side of bumper was kerb maybe with very light damage about the size of a 50p coin.

interior was lovely, no scratchs as such very clean, did notice abit of a sound of air moving but due to the excitment of driving the car and not being used to the car i was being extra careful and could'nt get it out properly.

Seller said the damage to the front grill was due to someone trying to pull it off and steal it, looked into how to replace and how much i could buy one for and was either £160 from honda or sube £100 off the net.

I took all the relavant details such as VIN & MOT number to go my check's online for the car and it turns out it was registered as a CAT D on 8th march 2010 :(

Wasted £4 on a cheap HPI before doing an expensive one which would include a free 7 day insurance and say £2 on petrol running around.

I did get to have abit of joy driving the car i must admit.

moral of the story... IF ITS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT USUALY IS

was worth a punt i guess and would have been a lovely summer car, ahh well back to my Honda civic IMA Hybrid I guess :D
 
Good catch. I do think you're mad for getting the cash before going to see the car. You're lucky you didn't get done over and lost the lot.
 
Did the cheap HPI show up it was CAT D? Why did you get another one?

Well avoided! Make sure you inform where ever it is being sold so that someone else dont get caught out.
 
Luke said:
Good catch. I do think you're mad for getting the cash before going to see the car. You're lucky you didn't get done over and lost the lot.
Click to expand...

Had to get the cash first as my bank is only open til 3pm in a near city, local town centre branch closed at 1pm, also i did'nt want to loose out on the car if it did turn out to be legit as the bank would be open monday morning next.

I would'nt of just bought the car with out doing any check's and would say to anyone buying a car you just have to do this, its only £4 what i spent and it could save yourself £1000's.
 
TheCrow said:
Did the cheap HPI show up it was CAT D? Why did you get another one?

Well avoided! Make sure you inform where ever it is being sold so that someone else dont get caught out.
Click to expand...

I only did the cheap HPI, it showed up it was a CAT D, reason I did the cheap one first without the free 7 day insurance was in this case that the car turned out to be a ringer as it would have saved me around £15+ compared to more expensive one.

Unfortunately would be impossible to inform people of the car :(

He did say to me the car was not involved in any accident as I enquired via message on ebay was it a CAT D/C

guess I will keep the monies in my house fund and keep my sensible car for now :D
 
WHAT!!! said:
Had to get the cash first as my bank is only open til 3pm in a near city, local town centre branch closed at 1pm, also i did'nt want to loose out on the car if it did turn out to be legit as the bank would be open monday morning next.
Click to expand...

Easily avoided by leaving a deposit in return for the buyers slip.
 
HPI has saved me before when I was looking at ST TDCi's, it turned out to be clocked but looking at the car you couldnt tell. I'd tell more people to budget in HPI's and Day insurance when car hunting. It's not worth the risk
 
If the bumper had been ripped off then that's not technically an accident, so he didn't explicitly lie to you ;)
 
mejinks said:
This was a private seller right?
Click to expand...

mjt said:
If the bumper had been ripped off then that's not technically an accident, so he didn't explicitly lie to you ;)
Click to expand...

the grill was the part that someone had "tried to rip off" not the bumper, the bumper looked as though it was'nt aligned right.

reply i got and i quote "car is mint and has nothing to hide cheers"

did seem really keen to get shot of the car, even lowered it to £5000 if i got the grill sorted my self, Will admit alarm bells was ringing with in 10 min's of speaking but thought i would give benefit of dout and maybe i would have been fortunate
 
WHAT!!! said:
http://www.hpicheck.com/driveaway.html

maybe possible but it does say "with your new car" so im guessing they have some term's and condtions.

its 1 free 7 day insurance per number plate you check so you could'nt try getting a year's worth haha
Click to expand...

did this when i brought my 172, but i will just say make sure your 21, as you can't get the 7 days free insurance without being 21! which i found out to my cost! annoying this was i was only a week away from being 21 lol. :(
 
Did you tell the seller that it has shown up as cat D? what was his reaction ?

edit - ill just add if you are definatly after a CTR do keep doing the HPI's because there are TONS that are cat D, i found out the same when looking for one
 
I think people get far too worked up about previously written off cars. They make the assumption that if it is a Cat C/D it must have been involved in a horrific accident which certainly isn't always the case. Just because it was involved in an accident were the insurance company deemed it uneconomical to repair doesn't mean that the accident was massive.

An ill fitting bumper could just be a poorly fitted bumper and just that. If it was considerably below the average market value (which a quick search reveals that the car in question was) it may have still been a decent buy, especially if you tend on keeping it for a while.

It's a good example of always HPI'ing a car but I don't agree with the "If it is has been written off, automatically run for the hills", especially if it is cheap, but it is your money.
 
Joshy said:
I think people get far too worked up about previously written off cars. They make the assumption that if it is a Cat C/D it must have been involved in a horrific accident which certainly isn't always the case. Just because it was involved in an accident were the insurance company deemed it uneconomical to repair doesn't mean that the accident was massive..
Click to expand...

Cat D is something like the damage is 60% of the value

Cat C though is a total write off, normally extensive damage totally more than the value of the car so certainly stay away from cat C

To be honest buying a CATD even if the damage was not immense can still cost you, insurance can be more and trying to sell on is a nightmare
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom