Category D cars sales

[Kido 4]

Hi Kido

 

Its not repairing and selling them. Its trying to hide this fact that I think is bad for the industry. Our customers should know what they are buying, people misleading them gives us all a bad name.

 

Providing cars are repaired properly and advertised openly, they can be a great way for consumers to grab a bargain, providing they know what they are buying.

 

However, surely a small kerbside trader, cheaply repairing small cars and selling them onto a young innocent driver without divulging the history is bad for all of us in the industry, never mind the potential dangers for the end buyer?

Your a 100% right there hiding the fact that a car is recorded is a low life thing to do and there is no real reason to do so cause the recorded class is the sales pitch. But then again guys that are kerbside traders don't feel that they have been embraced by the industry so would not do any thing to enhance it why would they when main dealers rip them up for any services they request Eg ; parts , tools hire or car data .

[Sambat 0]

Kido, are you still repairing Cat D's?

[Tom 164]

Ill doubt he will answer this 4 year sold thread! 

[Sambat 0]

It was just on the off chance.......

[metcars 397]

50 minutes ago, Sambat said:

It was just on the off chance.......

Don't do it! As the saying goes "there be dragons!"

[have a word with the wife 299]

no cat d from 1st october 2017 new codes apply 

[trade vet 702]

Why not just buy Grade 5's from BCA  do the work and trade them on !

[metcars 397]

1 hour ago, trade vet said:

Why not just buy Grade 5's from BCA  do the work and trade them on !

Like anyone could make a grade 5 roadworthy?

[justina3 518]

I think there is still far to much stigma surrounding these kind of cars to make it work, but i do agree there is a huge gap in the market for someone to deal just in these kind of vehicles and hit it big

 

[sparky 274]

A bloke near me who I get my Ford bits off has only ever sold write offs and has done well out of them. He also has a bit of following and reputation for doing them well and business appears to be good. He has only ever done Fords and at the moment it's only Fiestas. Last week he was showing me an 11 plate 1.25 Zetec, in white with 33k. Nice car that had just had some front end damage. Many would rightly turn their nose up at that, but at £3k there must be plenty out there who only care about getting a nice shiny new car whilst saving 1500 quid. 

[BHM 994]

Yep - that's why they make good money at the block, I guess. Only worth the hassle if you're repairing them properly yourself or not declaring them as write-offs, which seems to be the way nowadays.

[metcars 397]

As I've mentioned before, the Polish guy at the end of my road has been rebuilding newish German Performance saloons in his front garden for a few years. He's a mechanic and has some sort of contract to service commercial vehicles for a few local delivery companies. My road is usually full up with various vans in various states of repair. Every now and then the council put stickers on cars but they're all taxed and MOT'd, just missing the for sale sign. He has 3/4 up for sale, god knows where because I've never found the ads. Although he seems to deal mostly with Eastern European buyers, and I think that they ignore the write-off and just buy what they see? But as has been mentioned before, the market for German Performance saloons is full of greedy people with no money.

Interestingly, the paint is excellent. I don't know anyone round here can paint like that?

[andymc1973 199]

they can take them abroad and register them and when they reregister them in the UK they lose the marker

2 hours ago, BHM said:

Yep - that's why they make good money at the block, I guess. Only worth the hassle if you're repairing them properly yourself or not declaring them as write-offs, which seems to be the way nowadays.

yes i have watched "hitters" do almost the same at the block, usually auctions that deal in cash, utter shit bags

[BHM 994]

1 hour ago, andymc1973 said:

they can take them abroad and register them and when they reregister them in the UK they lose the marker

They normally take them abroad to sell abroad - have you seen the price of secondhand cars in Eastern Europe!?!!! In Poland all of the mega mileage shite from Germany heads over the border to Poland. Although the Polish can only register LHD cars (there was talk of accepting RHD sometime in the future) it's worth them buying our cast-offs, taking it 1200 miles across Europe then ripping out the dashboard, steering gear etc. & still make a good profit.

I once saw on a side street, amongst the communist-era apartment blocks, a couple of back-street boys starting work on a RHD Octavia that had been absolutely pancaked - the A-post was totally collapsed on one side! One weekend with the aid of scaffold poles & ratchet steel ropes (whatever they're called!) they eventually got it back into a vaguely Octavia-shaped roof then began ripping the guts out of the front & installed LHD running gear. God knows how on earth they ever got the doors to fit & it must of been finished off with about 200kg of body filler! Honestly, it was only fit for melting down into baked bean tins but as these boys presumably bought it in Blighty, dragged it across Europe & grafted like dogs on the piece of shit I guess it was worth it financially.

[metcars 397]

1 hour ago, BHM said:

They normally take them abroad to sell abroad - have you seen the price of secondhand cars in Eastern Europe!?!!! In Poland all of the mega mileage shite from Germany heads over the border to Poland. Although the Polish can only register LHD cars (there was talk of accepting RHD sometime in the future) it's worth them buying our cast-offs, taking it 1200 miles across Europe then ripping out the dashboard, steering gear etc. & still make a good profit.

I once saw on a side street, amongst the communist-era apartment blocks, a couple of back-street boys starting work on a RHD Octavia that had been absolutely pancaked - the A-post was totally collapsed on one side! One weekend with the aid of scaffold poles & ratchet steel ropes (whatever they're called!) they eventually got it back into a vaguely Octavia-shaped roof then began ripping the guts out of the front & installed LHD running gear. God knows how on earth they ever got the doors to fit & it must of been finished off with about 200kg of body filler! Honestly, it was only fit for melting down into baked bean tins but as these boys presumably bought it in Blighty, dragged it across Europe & grafted like dogs on the piece of shit I guess it was worth it financially.

Interesting, the cars I see locally on eastern europian plates are usually top line stuff. Often wondered how a guy could walk into a showroom in Romania (cars on dealer plates), buy a new/nearly new German performance saloon then drive half way round the world to work at B&M?

[grant8064 219]

Off topic so apologies;

I never really look at car sales when on holiday, what are prices like in comparison?

I saw a few in Hamburg and the outskirts of Berlin and the stock seemed to mostly be old stuff at what seemed mega money, 92 - 02 BMWs and Mercs mostly.

[NoMargin 11]

My friends dad has been buying insurance right offs for as far as I can remember, he buys from copart, don't know how he does it, with all the shite on there... Hes currently driving round in a 6 litre Bentley

[metcars 397]

6 hours ago, NoMargin said:

My friends dad has been buying insurance right offs for as far as I can remember, he buys from copart, don't know how he does it, with all the shite on there... Hes currently driving round in a 6 litre Bentley

I don't know about you guys, but around here I see a Copart lorry delivering a few times a week? Nobody I know in the trade has anything to do with them. But, they're selling big numbers and 'someone' is buying them?

[metcars 397]

3 hours ago, tradex said:

it's a dark and murky world rebuilding write off's.....I always wonder how they make money from it, from what I've seen the cars are never cheap enough anyway?

We never retail anything on the hit list, it always goes off to the block.

A lot more are appearing in AT over the years. In fact one of the questions I'm often asked is "is it a write off" so I know where they've been looking? I'm at the cheaper end of the market and there is far too much customer resistance to buying a write-off than makes it worthwhile for me. I suppose you can blame those consumer programes, although it's the same programes that encourage punters to buy from auction because apparently, there are "huge bargains" and little risk? 

[BHM 994]

2 hours ago, metcars said:

I'm at the cheaper end of the market and there is far too much customer resistance to buying a write-off than makes it worthwhile for me. I suppose you can blame those consumer programes, although it's the same programes that encourage punters to buy from auction because apparently, there are "huge bargains" and little risk? 

Snap & there's no point in buying stock with a hung cloud over them (in the buyers eyes) when there are enough straight cars out there - & sometimes they're bad enough! 

I suspect many aren't declared as such & I bet the Gumtree/Facebook brigade certainly don't - from what I hear most weeks in the trade there's always a tale about the latest greedy bottom-dollar merchant who's bought cheap via "social websites", wonder why their car won't start the next morning, expect a third party mechanic to get involved speaking to the seller (WTF!!) & wonder why the seller won't answer the phone. Wonder indeed!! 

[NoMargin 11]

8 hours ago, metcars said:

I don't know about you guys, but around here I see a Copart lorry delivering a few times a week? Nobody I know in the trade has anything to do with them. But, they're selling big numbers and 'someone' is buying them?

They have loads of people abroad bidding up the cars, and some of the prices they go for are absolutely ridiculous, plus there's so much hidden fees. My friends dad has been buying from them for over 10 years, so he has a strong relationship with them and always seems to get the decent unrecorded straight cars. 

[metcars 397]

41 minutes ago, NoMargin said:

They have loads of people abroad bidding up the cars, and some of the prices they go for are absolutely ridiculous, plus there's so much hidden fees. My friends dad has been buying from them for over 10 years, so he has a strong relationship with them and always seems to get the decent unrecorded straight cars. 

As far as buying to resell, does your friends dad run as a business or hobby?

[NoMargin 11]

7 hours ago, metcars said:

As far as buying to resell, does your friends dad run as a business or hobby?

I could only assume as a business, because I remember him having a lot of cars parked outside his house. He use to buy damaged,  fix, then sell via exchange and mart. Not sure if he still does, or just buys them straight. Will be nosey and asked my mate next time I speak to him. 

7 hours ago, metcars said:

 

7 hours ago, metcars said:

 

[Roberto82 0]

On 10/20/2013 at 8:47 AM, Andy Entwistle said:

Hi Kido, welcome to the forum.

 

I'm sure you'll get plenty of other feedback from others in the next few days, but having spent 7 years working with categorised vehicles I found that most dealers stayed well clear of them.

 

Categorised cars generally fetch around 50% of their non write off value at auction, the big franchised and independents won't touch them, so your pool of bidders is limited.

 

You are always going to be fighting an uphill battle, as the industry has always been very much against written off cars. The biggest problem is the patchy quality of repairs and the charlatans out there, I have sadly seen too many that are dangerously rebuilt in a back street garage on the cheap, no one wants to risk being associated with that.

 

Have you considered getting these officially checked. Although this would not remove them from HPI's condition alert register, it does mark them as "Condition Inspected", which is a check of the quality of repair and safety ( unlike a VIC test which is purely identity). This may add value and make the cars more attractive

50% cost cat d car of normal car?????????????? Are you kidddddddimg me? Give me these cars any moment I buy all of them lol. I buy cat D cars for export since this year march, mostly bmw mercedes audi to get good car which is not shit I always pay close to 80% of non cat d car if its 70% it looks like 15 y old even though it is 1 y old with 10k miles... and most times dealers want 90% of non cat d cars which is ridiculous because its a big risk nobody know about airbags maybe most if them gone and they put £50 resistor instead spending thousands frame damage etc rust after time and probably next, week someone will put on autotrader 10% cheaper non cat d car.... 

[trade vet 702]

51 minutes ago, Roberto82 said:

50% cost cat d car of normal car?????????????? Are you kidddddddimg me? Give me these cars any moment I buy all of them lol. I buy cat D cars for export since this year march, mostly bmw mercedes audi to get good car which is not shit I always pay close to 80% of non cat d car if its 70% it looks like 15 y old even though it is 1 y old with 10k miles... and most times dealers want 90% of non cat d cars which is ridiculous because its a big risk nobody know about airbags maybe most if them gone and they put £50 resistor instead spending thousands frame damage etc rust after time and probably next, week someone will put on autotrader 10% cheaper non cat d car.... 

Borat...?