Buying 'salvage' from Insurance company

[pjs]

Has anyone ever bought their damaged car back from their insurers to either break or sell on themselves.? ( and Mods - if this is in the wrong section - apologies and move to the appropriate one)

Reason being the wifes BMW has been declared a CAT D Total loss and they have valued the salvage as part of the settlement as £1600. This is for a car with a realistic market value of £10k ( 56 plate 335i coupe) . It had a shunt on the rear quarter when parked.

Option 1 as i see it is that if I broke it for parts ( If I could be bothered) I could make at least another £2k minimum using ebay. - eg Electric folding mirrors, xenons, 19" wheels & tyre set, Prof nav, Interior, exhaust, turbos, whatever...

Option 2 as I see it is to slap it on ebay myself were there seems to be loads of damaged cars for sale where someone might take a punt, repair it and get it back on the road as a Cat D or have more expertise at breaking and selling.

Both of the above might incur additional cost of moving the car as well, but I do have a nice empty double garage.

Any advice,experience or opinions welcomed.

When it is all settled I plan to write an account of the whole process, it involves an uninsured banned driver, police investigations, claims management companies and a whole lot of hard work over the last 3 weeks. It will be useful for someone one day.

 

[Tazz666]

I have, and I rebuilt the car took it for a VIC, check,re- mot'd the car and it was fine, I ended up buying another car, and swapping parts over onto the new one and sold the old car I had no problem in the proscess

 

[John]

I believe all you need to do is offer them their valuation to take it off their hands.

 

[219]

I'd double check the value , look at similar cars offered for spares etc , and be sure they aren't asking too much .

Scrap value for any car tends to be a couple of hundred at most , based on weight , and this is what many breakers pay , regardless of what it is , anything they can sell off the car is looked on as profit , with the rest going to the scrap metal merchants for roughly what they paid for the whole car . Value fluctuates according to scrap metal values .

I have broken a few cars and sold parts on eBay , without any problems .

Rather than buy it to break , it is usually a better idea to buy it back if you are going to repair it yourself and either keep it or sell it on as a running car ( with disclosure of its history ) .

 

[W2--]

Yep, we'd kept our CAT D car, because I can sell it to scrappy at a slightly higher price. Insurer offer you a separate salvage on the car if you don't agreed with the price, then the car is yours to do what ever you won't to do with it.
Also haggle for a better price, as the original offers are often very low. You can probably make £1600 by selling the wheels and sav nav.

 

[jam38]

Have they offered you the car to buy back for £1,600? I'll buy it for that much if you don't want to! I have owned Cat C/Ds in the past and the only thing which is irritating is running around scrap yards to get the right parts. Repair the car and use it, or sell it. Either way there is money to be made. Even if you buy the car as it is and stick it on ebay. Let us know what you decide.

 

[pjs]

Have they offered you the car to buy back for £1,600? I'll buy it for that much if you don't want to! I have owned Cat C/Ds in the past and the only thing which is irritating is running around scrap yards to get the right parts. Repair the car and use it, or sell it. Either way there is money to be made. Even if you buy the car as it is and stick it on ebay. Let us know what you decide.

Looks that way, if I decline their offer they simply deduct that amount from my settlement and I'm left with the car. Its tempting to just get it delivered back home and then stick it on ebay - then you're welcome to make a bid! I'm not interested in repairing to use, just bought a 57 plate 330d saloon as a replacement

 

[John]

Why did you go for a 330d and not a 335d?

 

[pjs]

Why did you go for a 330d and not a 335d?

No desire to really. We ran a 330d before the 335i and its plenty quick enough. Its mainly for the school run and we found a well specced 2008 msport saloon for a good price. You'd be paying an extra 3-4k at least for a little more power.