Crashed S2

[tazbaz69]

i have rang a place that has a s2 for sale in a salvage yard, it has front end damage but the guy reckons he has all parts to repair car(clam, headlights. etc etc). the car is on a 51 plate and has covered 13k. he is lookin for £11950 for car with all bits.

do u reckon i should trade him my 1997 S1 with 53k and do this s2 up?? is it worth it??

[ipanter]

I was considering buying a crash damaged elise, but found out that the ones i looked at were either cat. D or C, and a lot of insurance companies wouldn't provide cover on them, because of the crash history.

 

Is the car registerd as a write off?

[JAMES]

Yeah I'd definitely go and have a look at it Baz, you've got nothing to lose mate, I'll give u a bell over the weekend

[Maxf]

Get someone who really knows what they are doing (no offence to anyone) to have a look with you. Fixing a scrapper can be done, but its often attempted on a budget and corners cut.

 

Repairing a scrapper hatchback is somewhat different to an sports car IMO - where stresses on cornering etc are going to be much greater and small structural anomalies could create a large handling difference.

 

Find out why it was scrapped. Sometimes, depending on insurance co., if the damage occurred within a certain time of manufacture the % values change - ie a 6mth old car might be scrapped for 35% repair/value, where a 2 year old car might take 60% before it's scrapped. Something to bare in mind.

 

Ive driven write offs fine - never a performance car though, and a couple were water damaged, or stolen/recovered. Can be a good way to get a cheap runner - but perhaps not a performance car (IMO anyway). Saying that I knew a guy who was sniffing round a scrapped F40!

 

I worked at my old mans bodyshop for about 6 years - till I got a degree and a propper job, so kind of know what I'm rambling on about.

[tazbaz69]

well the bloke said its cat D(panel damage), not car c( which is write off). from sounds of wat hes saying is the impact was right in front centre of car, smashing clam, lights, rad and anti roll bar.

he says he got all parts to repair which is a good start if i decide to get it. but like u say maxf, its looking at it as a car thats designed for proformance. i guess there i,ll check for chassis damage and suspension ans wish bone damage, and if thats ok i reckon it good be a good deal??

oh and james that car is gunmetal grey....we will look like brothers if i do it..lol. :-p chat to u over weekend james

[GCCK]

£12K is a lot to pay for a Cat D. Bear in mind that even when it's as good as new, the stigma of being written off will drag its value down by around 25% for the rest of its life.

 

So your rebuild calculation must be based on the Cat D resale value rather than that of a car with an unblemished record. Most people who come unstuck on rebuilds do so not because they missed something major that needed replacing but because they overpaid for the wreck in the first place.

 

If you plan to keep the car a long time (5yrs+), Cat D's can be a good investment because for those 5 yrs, you have a lot less cash tied up in the car, plus the depreciation will be lower relatively speaking - just so long as your up front calculations were right.

 

The galling thing about Cat D's is that there is always someone prepared to pay over the odds for the wreck, so you get the feeling you missed an opportunity. I nearly bought a Cat D Elise a couple of years ago but the guy was asking £15K when it should have been £13.5K. The stumbling block was that he was looking at his own cost recovery of wreck + repairs, not the prevailing market rate. And yes, he'd overpaid for the wreck.

 

Graeme

[tazbaz69]

how much would u expect to get then for a Cat D S2 51 reg in gunmetal grey with 13 k on clock??

[Kris H]

Barry

 

Personally I think that's too much as others have said, it will be a bitch to sell. Someone on the BCBBS was offered about £12k trade in for an S2 racetech in good nick, so that for a cat D one seems a bit daft. When I damaged mine (and to be honest it really didn't look like much damage) the repair bill was about £2.5k. The crash box goes usually in even the most minor incidents (which is what it's there for). You got to ask really if the car is worth about £15k to you, which I don't think that it is. I reckon if you were patient you could probably get one private for not much more than that without the write off history. My views anyway.

 

Kristian