SL55 17k with about 17k on the clock?? Cat-C

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"cat C" says it all..

Category C: Vehicle extensively damaged and insurer has decided not to repair. The vehicle should have an independent inspection before being allowed back onto the road.
 
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"cat C" says it all..

Category C: Vehicle extensively damaged and insurer has decided not to repair. The vehicle should have an independent inspection before being allowed back onto the road.

Yep, death trap.
 
barge and pole come to mind, nearly 500 bhp in a cat c car... wouldnt touch it.

also an 8 year old car thats probably been sitting around at a salvage yard then a garage waiting to be repaired, hence the low milage!
 
Roof damage is likely to cause a cat c. It may have had somthing fall onto it?

If has been repaired properly then it may be ok.

Don't write off all CAT cars.
 
Needs someone with expertise to confirm safety first-aligned properly etc.
personally wouldnt go near it!:confused:
 
Hi olly, personally i would want to see pics with the damage before even considering, ive bought CAT C cars before and you are right not to exclude them, but on a SL55 id be a bit dubious
 
Try looking at Cat C/D cars another way- the more expensive the car, the more likely it is to be written off.

The different categories C & D are the actual cost levels to repair. I've seen cars that look fit for the crusher be a Cat D, yet I've seen cars with very little damage as Cat C.
 
Try looking at Cat C/D cars another way- the more expensive the car, the more likely it is to be written off.

The different categories C & D are the actual cost levels to repair. I've seen cars that look fit for the crusher be a Cat D, yet I've seen cars with very little damage as Cat C.

This is the point most seem to miss - Cat C/D are assessed based on the costs of repair as a percentage of pre-accident value, as opposed to severity of accident damage. It does follow that the more severely damaged a car, the more it'll cost to repair, but it's a bit of a broad brush approach.

My C43 started off as a Cat C when the insurance assessor first wrote it off, primarily because they offered me a crap value for the car, so the repair costs they estimated actually amounted to 100% or more, of the car's pre-accident value. When I'd finished disputing with the insurer, and they agreed a higher payout, the car became a Cat D (est. repair costs exceeded 60% of pre-acc value).

In the case of the SL55, AMG bits are pricey so it wouldn't take much to write it off, but if it was a Cat C early in its life, when it was a £100k car, it starts to look less convincing as it's likely to have had a lot of damage - maybe water damage? Doesn't necessarily mean it's structurally unsound or a death trap though.

That said, the fact it's in Birmingham would put me off.:rolleyes:
 
I purchased a 2007 black Honda S2000 from a salvage yard in Southampton. I paid £7000 for the beauty. She had rear corner panel impact with some minor damage to the front bonnet and bumper. Yet she started and drove. Sure she looked a mess but when i popped the bonnet and saw an immaculate 2.0 VTEC without a scratch and only 5K miles on the clock from new i knew this would be a great find. Friend up north had her fixed up for 5K and she was as good as new.

Fast forward 2 years and another 10K miles and she never missed a beat. The only thing that went wrong was the CD player packing up, but my local Honda dealer fixed it under warranty (without even realizing it was a Cat -D).

In the end the biggest issue was resale with all Cat-D's however it was snapped up for £12K, not bad when the same spec new was selling for around 18k at the time. So for me it was 2 years of free motoring.

Sure not everyone has this luck but in my opinion the car should not have been a CAT-D. What is more surprising is that speaking to a few people in the trade a lot of inspectors are creaming it by classing cars as CAT-D when in fact they are nowhere near this - thus feeding the market.

Lastly you'd be surprised how many cars on the road are actually unregistered CAT-D's that have simply not been recorded and fixed for cheap.
 

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