Page 1 of Buying a damaged repairable motor?

Went down my local car salvage place today and spotted a very nice looking Vectra with minimal damage (a rear passanger door) on a P reg for £895 listed D catagory. Not being up to speed with buying damaged motors I was wondering if anyone on here has ventured into this type of past time. I can source the parts for the motor quite cheap but im aware of a different type of MOT (to the ususal) damaged motors have to undergo before they are classed as road worthy? I cant find bleedin nothing about the cost or where these inspections are carried out not ot mention any other useful info regarding this, google returned lots of useless info.


Any idea`s anyone


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The Shi*house poet needs a good thrashing, Grafitti ISNT cool.... kiddies!

you could always give the dvla a ring or try the web site

if not then parkers or the top gear website.

off the top of my head i`m pretty sure that a catagory D or C can be repaired and put on the road again, but A and B are total write offs.

then again i may have it back to front!!!

taken from: http://www.car-crime.com/salvage_category.htm

Quote:
Salvage is categorised from A to D

Category D

The least damage suffered of the four categories e.g. vehicles replaced under `new for old` schemes, vehicles written-off to minimise hire charges.

The vehicle can be safely and economically repaired either by the insurer / motor trade or by an enthusiast using cheaper parts and reduced labour costs. The PAV (Pre Accident Value) does not exceed £2,000 (£1,000 for motorcycles), or for more expensive vehicles, where the engineer`s assessed repair costs do not exceed the PAV.

Category C

Substantial damage, but repairable by an repairer or enthusiast.

The vehicle can be safely and economically repaired either by the insurer / motor trade or by an enthusiast using cheaper parts and reduced labour costs. The PAV (Pre Accident Value) exceeds £2,000 (£1,000 for motorcycles) and the engineer`s assessed repair costs exceed the PAV.

Category B

Heavy damage e.g. bent chassis

The vehicle cannot be safely and economically repaired either by the insurer / motor trade or by an enthusiast using cheaper parts and reduced labour costs. However, the vehicle contains economically salvageable parts.

Category A

A `total loss` e.g. burn-out. The only value is the scrap metal.

The vehicle cannot be safely and economically repaired either by the insurer / motor trade or by an enthusiast using cheaper parts and reduced labour costs and there are no economically salvageable parts.

I have had a damaged-repaired vehicle myself in the past, and to be honest, i wouldn`t have one again.

They do provide a cheap way to buy a fairly new vehicle, if you can source the parts cheaply, and repair it yourself, or get it done cheap enough.....BUT, they are very difficult to sell on in the future.

A dealer will give you less than bottom book price at a trade in, if they take it at all, and the vehicle will be listed on HPI or equivalent, if a private buyer checks up on it, and this usually kills any potential deal.

My Dad (who is in the trade) is currently having problems selling his car, which was also a category C damaged repaired car.

Problem is, most people don`t care that the vehicle may have been repaired correctly, or professionally, they just tend not to want to buy a car that has, in it`s past been in a major accident (major enough to be classed as salvage).

To be honest, I would avoid them.

Hope this helps.

MJ

This item was edited on Wednesday, 15th October 2003, 08:47