Category D cars - your thoughts?

Injectors are the big issue on those engines. Costs around £1k to fix all four, although can be done slightly cheaper if you get refurbs or trade in. £700 min. At 130k I would hope they've already been done, or they will need to be soon. Watch out for the engine light staying on for ~10 seconds after the car starts. Also watch for lots of soot on starting, or the engine spluttering under load depending on if the faulty injectors are causing the engine to run rich/lean. Other than that they're reliable cars. Mine is approaching 200k.
 
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Spunkey said:
Watch out for the engine light staying on for ~10 seconds after the car starts. Also watch for lots of soot on starting, or the engine spluttering under load depending on if the faulty injectors are causing the engine to run rich/lean. Other than that they're reliable cars. Mine is approaching 200k.
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Glaucus said:
Thanks, is there anyway to tell if they're about to go?
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I think he did in his original post :p
 
There's also a common split hose issue with these that causes almost exactly the same symptoms as the injectors that costs about £20 to fix with a new silicon replacement.
 
All depends on the car really.

E.g. I wouldn't touch a cat D Lotus Elise, because ANY bodywork damage is crazy expensive to repair and ANY chassis damage is pretty much un-repairable. But something like an LS400, it's probably been written off for something trivial.
 
I was recently having a perusal of E92 M3's and noticed at the bottom end of the price to age bracket (2011+) that there were a lot of cat D's. Out of curiosity I called up a few of the dealers to ask what the markers were for.
A few straight up denied it had one. Tut tut. Others were generally quite open that it had had a front or rear end prang but the majority seemed to be paintwork damage. Now on a £25k + car that has to be a hell of a lot of paintwork damage!?
 
I've always been suspicious of cat d and cat c cars.

I keep thinking what if someone had a light shunt took pics got it repaired and than had a proper accident and got it repaired and registered D or C with insurer. When selling showing pics of the previous light shunt to possible buyers. etc.
 
I was looking at the cheapest MK7 Fiesta ST's on the market as of late, I looked at a couple of Cat D's just out of interest as 9k for a 15 plate seemed cheap of course, cat D. Totally, and I mean totally caved in rear end! Don't even go there if you're looking at a Cat D car worth a few quid/quite new.
 
Cat D? Not with someone else's barge pole. Imagine being in a collision with some friends / family and it transpires that the car you were "safely carrying your friends / family" around in was bent or welded. Never.
 
Diddums said:
Cat D? Not with someone else's barge pole. Imagine being in a collision with some friends / family and it transpires that the car you were "safely carrying your friends / family" around in was bent or welded. Never.
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Generally if it's cat D it won't be chassis damage or something dangerous, it will be a financial write-off. On old cars it can be so much as a dinged panel. Serious stuff would be cat A or B and are never allowed back on the road (though cat B can still be used for parts).
 
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Dis86 said:
I was recently having a perusal of E92 M3's and noticed at the bottom end of the price to age bracket (2011+) that there were a lot of cat D's. Out of curiosity I called up a few of the dealers to ask what the markers were for.
A few straight up denied it had one. Tut tut. Others were generally quite open that it had had a front or rear end prang but the majority seemed to be paintwork damage. Now on a £25k + car that has to be a hell of a lot of paintwork damage!?
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My thoughts too. There is a 2015 plate Audi A6 Avant up on AT and ebay that is worth around 26-27k clean and is up for £24000 Cat D and it says "very light panel damage now repaired."

Surely very light panel damage to a car that cost £40k list price 1 year ago couldn't cause a write-off?
 
It wouldn't. Unless they are using a really crappy insurer.

If it was only light panel damage why didn't they just pay for it themselves and not have cat D slapped on it. Also why are they trying to sell it so quickly?
 
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