Selling Help

[mr fantastic]

Hi there,

Just wondering if you guys could give me some help???

My friend has a celica st 1997 R-reg in cinnabar red eith 54k on the clock , full toyota dealer service history, every mot , imaculate in and out , totally standard but sadly on a cat d ,

It had a little ding on the back end years ago nothing major at al.

All i can say is that if this car was not on a cat-d it would probably be one of the best you could find, im just not sure what i should offer him???

:) any help much appreciated :)

[sotal]

Before you buy it make sure it hasn't got the oil problem that ST's have! It's the right kind of age. Read all the other posts about oil. There are no visible signs of oil usage (no smoke, leaks etc) but if it has the problem it will use about 1 litre every 600-1000 miles

If it doesn't have the oil problem I would guess about £2k with it being a cat d, if it is as good as you say. Don't forget it will be hard for you to sell in the future

Welcome to the site as well

[mr fantastic]

Hi there,

Just wondering if you guys could give me some help???

My friend has a celica st 1997 R-reg in cinnabar red eith 54k on the clock , full toyota dealer service history, every mot , imaculate in and out , totally standard but sadly on a cat d ,

It had a little ding on the back end years ago nothing major at al.

All i can say is that if this car was not on a cat-d it would probably be one of the best you could find, im just not sure what i should offer him???

:) any help much appreciated :)

←

Thank you mate for taking the time out to reply

Would you say 2k is a good mates rates price ?

[sotal]

I would have thought that 2k would be a good price, but some others will probably post soon with their views.

Did your mate own the car when it was bumped?? I would have thought it would have to be a fiar amount of damage to get it put on a cat d. From what I remember cat d basically means it was uneconomical to repair. For most insurance companies that means that it would have cost more than half of what the car was worth to repair (they won't repair very often - normally replace panels etc) Then someone (probably the owner) bought it back cheap from the insurance company after a full payout and then had it repaired using cheaper methods.

If you say it was a few years back and we guess the car was worth £6000 then, then it would have had to have had £3000's worth of damage.

^--- Don't take any of that as gospel as I'm only going from memory of my dealings with insurance companies and Cat C write off's

[mikeb]

I would have thought that 2k would be a good price, but some others will probably post soon with their views.

Did your mate own the car when it was bumped?? I would have thought it would have to be a fiar amount of damage to get it put on a cat d. From what I remember cat d basically means it was uneconomical to repair. For most insurance companies that means that it would have cost more than half of what the car was worth to repair (they won't repair very often - normally replace panels etc) Then someone (probably the owner) bought it back cheap from the insurance company after a full payout and then had it repaired using cheaper methods.

If you say it was a few years back and we guess the car was worth £6000 then, then it would have had to have had £3000's worth of damage.

^--- Don't take any of that as gospel as I'm only going from memory of my dealings with insurance companies and Cat C write off's

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That's about the gist of it. The general rule that insurance companies work to is that if the cost of repair is more than 50% of the value of the vehicle, they write it off. This could be for any reason (e.g. stolen/recovered with slashed interior).

In this case you say it's down to accident damage, and I would imagine it would have to be reasonably substantial to write the car off. Like sotal says, it depends on the value of the car in the eyes of the insurance company. Bear in mind that they usually have horrendously low valuations on vechicle value. Their 'guide prices' are often way below the market value.

Even so, I would be very wary of buying a car that is technically a write off. You might find it more difficult to get insurance, and it will make the car near enough impossible to sell on. I wouldn't pay more than £1500 for it.

[mr fantastic]

Ive gave him 1800k for it , but ive just sold it to another mate for 2500k so im happy as larry.

I tryed to get it for 1500k but he wouldnt stand for it.

Thanks for your help guys uve been really helpful.

[sotal]

That sounds like a nice 700 quid profit for not much work

Mikeb - Insurance shouldn't be any more difficult to get on a cat c or cat d as they can only be through cosmetic damage. Any structual damage etc and it's a cat b or a. Then you have to have an engineers report.

My bike is actually a cat C - Written off because the price of plastic is too much to replace! eBay was the answer to that at £45 a side for the fairings instead of £500. To get it back on the road I was "advised" by my insurance company to get an MOT even though it didn't need one just to make sure it was road legal but they required nothing else!

Did you also know that only people with Fully Comp insurance end up on the Cat ABCD register??? If you are only TPFT and crash into another car and effectively write your car off. They will sort the other persons car out etc but it's up to you to sort yours out so it never gets put on the register. BIG FLAW in the system resulting in lots of cars which should be written off still being on the road

[mikeb]

That sounds like a nice 700 quid profit for not much work

Mikeb - Insurance shouldn't be any more difficult to get on a cat c or cat d as they can only be through cosmetic damage. Any structual damage etc and it's a cat b or a. Then you have to have an engineers report.

My bike is actually a cat C - Written off because the price of plastic is too much to replace! Ebay was the answer to that at £45 a side for the fairings instead of £500. To get it back on the road I was "advised" by my insurance company to get an MOT even though it didn't need one just to make sure it was road legal but they required nothing else!

Did you also know that only people with Fully Comp insurance end up on the Cat ABCD register??? If you are only TPFT and crash into another car and effectively write your car off. They will sort the other persons car out etc but it's up to you to sort yours out so it never gets put on the register. BIG FLAW in the system resulting in lots of cars which should be written off still being on the road

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I think there is a legal requirement now to declare any major repairs to 'the register'? They were definitely trying to crack down on write offs getting back on the road.

I once bought a car that was cat d (stolen recovered). Had the police round a few times (out of the blue) to give it a good look over, and ask why it had been put back on the road. Must have been alerted by DVLA I suppose. Also happened to a few friends in similar situations.

I just had a feeling that insurance companies might get a bit jittery if you told them that the car 'used to be a writeoff'. <_< Depends what category I suppose.

[=IWM= Spectre]

Dont mean this to sound blunt but imo a car thats been written off or stolen/recoverd is going to give more grief than a strait one...........

but n1 on the quick profit