What to do with a really tatty yet mechanically sound Cat D Beamer?
14 December 2011, 12:46 PM
#1
What to do with a really tatty yet mechanically sound Cat D Beamer?
Its probably stupid me asking this as I already know the answer, but its not what I want so looking at ways to convice myself.
I unwittingly purchased e39 530 sport off a distant friend. Car was mechnically sound and was a Champagne edition, so fully loaded - M5 alloys, TV/sat nav etc. But the bodywork needed alot of TLC, it had been keyed, and was covered in fall-out from the local steel works, had door dents and it had a rear end hit and run which had caused some rust on the boot and rear arch (nothing major, but still costly to repair).
The idea was to tart it up, repair the bodywork, probably do a part respray (everything bar the roof) to make it concours again. Basically it needs £800-£1K spending on it to make it nice again. That is assuming I can get a new rear bumper for a fair price (current one is fubared).
That was before I found it was Cat D and the b*****d never told me. Because of this I essentially paid far too much for the car, the car is worth f**k all in its present state and I can't help tthinking that the cost of tidying it up will be money down the drain. As just from looking at the autotrader I can get similar mile M-Sport e39s for very little, and this car having a catD marker makes it worth even less.
Ideally I want to get rid of the car and try and recoup as much money from it as possible; I'm stuck with these options:
Sell it as is
Sell it to a breaker
Fix bodywork (as above) then sell
Break it and fleebay teh parts
Keep it and just let it rot on the drive
Track day car is out the question as its automatic (thats was my first idea
).
Parts wise, looking at what parts are selling for, I'm looking at raking back upto £2K in parts plus the shell (which I'll fill with scrap before weighing it in)...The angel-eye headlamps alone are ebaying for over £100 each! And the M5 wheels...even with scuffs they are worth fair chunk! Basically the car is currently worth more in parts than whole.
Problem is I need space to break it. And time to do it and deal with the fleebay messers. It is a whole load of hassle, so obviously time/labour/storage spent whilst breaking needs to be deducted from what I'll get for the parts.
Tried a few traders and all they want to give is £800-900 TBH I doubt I'd get more than £1300 selling privately anyway.
Restoring it puts me at roughly £2200, but looking at what is up for sale on autotrader for around £2-2.5K that is NOT cat D and appears to be quite tidy....would somene be willing to pay similar money for a better spec car, albeit with a cat D marker?
Why is cat D? Well its had a rear ender but one before the current one (this car must be unlucky ), there is some filler down the two nearside doors and its had replacement tailgate and rear wings (hence rust after the second rear ender - they didn't rust proof it! ), It looks totally cosmetic, chassis rails, sills, B-pillar, boot floor etc seem fine (no evidence of new structral sections), looks mainly tailgate, bumpers, doors and rear wing....but how would I convince a buyer that? The first thing they'll see is the cat D marker, think its a death trap and run a mile. 
Its strange that its Cat D, as looking at what has been repaired, and the HPi report says it was done when the car was relatively new. The work done does not outwiegh the car's value at the time, the first owner must have rejected the car for some reason, hence writing it off.....I knew the car had repair work before buying it, but I assumed it was done by the insurers...as there is no way the cost of repair originally done would have wrote off a car still worth £35K at the time, especially one with no structural damage! Methinks the original owner wanted a new car.
Seeing loads of cars on the road have some really appauling quality insurance repairs so remain HPi clear, I assumed this car was no exception. Lesson learnt.
Anyhoo, what to do with the bloody thing?
I unwittingly purchased e39 530 sport off a distant friend. Car was mechnically sound and was a Champagne edition, so fully loaded - M5 alloys, TV/sat nav etc. But the bodywork needed alot of TLC, it had been keyed, and was covered in fall-out from the local steel works, had door dents and it had a rear end hit and run which had caused some rust on the boot and rear arch (nothing major, but still costly to repair).
The idea was to tart it up, repair the bodywork, probably do a part respray (everything bar the roof) to make it concours again. Basically it needs £800-£1K spending on it to make it nice again. That is assuming I can get a new rear bumper for a fair price (current one is fubared).
That was before I found it was Cat D and the b*****d never told me. Because of this I essentially paid far too much for the car, the car is worth f**k all in its present state and I can't help tthinking that the cost of tidying it up will be money down the drain. As just from looking at the autotrader I can get similar mile M-Sport e39s for very little, and this car having a catD marker makes it worth even less.
Ideally I want to get rid of the car and try and recoup as much money from it as possible; I'm stuck with these options:
Sell it as is
Sell it to a breaker
Fix bodywork (as above) then sell
Break it and fleebay teh parts
Keep it and just let it rot on the drive
Track day car is out the question as its automatic (thats was my first idea
). Parts wise, looking at what parts are selling for, I'm looking at raking back upto £2K in parts plus the shell (which I'll fill with scrap before weighing it in)...The angel-eye headlamps alone are ebaying for over £100 each! And the M5 wheels...even with scuffs they are worth fair chunk! Basically the car is currently worth more in parts than whole.
Problem is I need space to break it. And time to do it and deal with the fleebay messers. It is a whole load of hassle, so obviously time/labour/storage spent whilst breaking needs to be deducted from what I'll get for the parts.
Tried a few traders and all they want to give is £800-900 TBH I doubt I'd get more than £1300 selling privately anyway.
Restoring it puts me at roughly £2200, but looking at what is up for sale on autotrader for around £2-2.5K that is NOT cat D and appears to be quite tidy....would somene be willing to pay similar money for a better spec car, albeit with a cat D marker?
Why is cat D? Well its had a rear ender but one before the current one (this car must be unlucky
), there is some filler down the two nearside doors and its had replacement tailgate and rear wings (hence rust after the second rear ender - they didn't rust proof it! ), It looks totally cosmetic, chassis rails, sills, B-pillar, boot floor etc seem fine (no evidence of new structral sections), looks mainly tailgate, bumpers, doors and rear wing....but how would I convince a buyer that? The first thing they'll see is the cat D marker, think its a death trap and run a mile. Its strange that its Cat D, as looking at what has been repaired, and the HPi report says it was done when the car was relatively new. The work done does not outwiegh the car's value at the time, the first owner must have rejected the car for some reason, hence writing it off.....I knew the car had repair work before buying it, but I assumed it was done by the insurers...as there is no way the cost of repair originally done would have wrote off a car still worth £35K at the time, especially one with no structural damage! Methinks the original owner wanted a new car.
Seeing loads of cars on the road have some really appauling quality insurance repairs so remain HPi clear, I assumed this car was no exception. Lesson learnt.
Anyhoo, what to do with the bloody thing?
Last edited by ALi-B; 14 December 2011 at 02:21 PM.
14 December 2011, 02:13 PM
#2
I've bought and sold a few cat d's, privately. I've never marked them up for the supposed 30% cheaper than a non cat D, or whatever the figure is. Just price them as normal. There is a lot of scaremongering surrounding Cat D's, I think people assume because they are damaged, they are cut and shuts. for a car of that relatively low value, just price it up as it is.
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15 December 2011, 12:01 AM
#8
Manual to auto swap will cost more than the car is worth..
Will need new ECU (as all of the gearbox control is combined into it, so it'll throw a hissy fit), pedal box, master cylinder+pipework, gearbox, linkages and possibly a new diff too (IIRC I think the auto has a higher diff ratio, which'll make 1st gear on a manual useless).
May as well buy a manual car straight off.
Will need new ECU (as all of the gearbox control is combined into it, so it'll throw a hissy fit), pedal box, master cylinder+pipework, gearbox, linkages and possibly a new diff too (IIRC I think the auto has a higher diff ratio, which'll make 1st gear on a manual useless).
May as well buy a manual car straight off.
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