UKC

After trawling google there seem to be two opinions, some think it's no big deal, no problem getting insured and the only down side is the value of the car is less. Camp b wont touch them with a barge pole. I guess none of the latter camp have ever owned one and quite a lot of the former seem to speak from personal experience of having owned them which makes me think it's not as big of an issue as a cat c. So I wondered what the wisdom of the ukc car world thought?

As background I've been looking at getting a new (to me) defender and come across a few that have probably been 2/3 of the price but cat d. In the £7-10k range

Would you consider it? Insist on photos of the damage, engineers report etc?

In reply to Sharp:
I would but before purchase would check with the insurers. A defender, which has a chassis rather than monocoque, you would think would be ideal. Some cat D are only panel damage, stolen recovered or vandalised. It will always be worth less and you must list it as cat D when you sell it.

In reply to Sharp:

As Ben says, check the insurance implications but a Defender is a tractor with road tyres, a crash and rebuild probably straightened it out

My main worry would be buying a write-off that has been bought back or auctioned unrepaired then bodged on the cheap: poor paint and missing/crumpled safety kit being the main concern. If it drives straight the alignment/geometry is probably good enough for my commuting needs. Obviously this goes for all crashed and repaired cars which is most at the age/price I buy, not just those with a big insurance claim on record. My mate had a nice TypeR civic, cost him buttons but all the airbags had blown and not been replaced when the interior trim was, he knew and was open about it when he sold it but it wasn't obvious. MoT should pick some of these things up in the UK but it's only annual and not beyond being fiddled.
jk

In reply to Sharp:

Yes I would, and yes to the second sentiment too. Possibly the AA would be able to look into it really closely to check integrity, or a decent garage would be able to?

Defenders aren't towards the top of the list in crash safety, which could be something to keep in mind more generally...

In reply to Sharp:


*shudder*

In reply to Sharp:

I would buy a rebuilt Defender but I would take along somebody who knows Defenders and I would test drive it. If the chassis has been replaced and the car built up with a mixture of parts you'd be getting nothing different from many older Defenders or 90/110s, which will have been rebuilt and repaired all through their lives. We had a 1986 ex-RAF 90 and a pal of mine who drove for the RAF pulled the service record, which ran to 27 pages of complex notes on many many refurbs, re-purposes and crash repairs it had had in its 10 year life, courtesy of the taxpayer.

As for crash safety - a Defender doesn't have airbags (they don't work in Defenders as they displace the bulkhead when they deploy) and it rather relies on just mashing through other vehicles, using them as its crumple zone. It is, as somebody else wrote, a high-speed tractor. Be prepared for high maintenance bills though if you want to keep it running nicely.

In reply to Sharp:

I bought a Clio V6 phase 2 as a cat D after getting someone to give it a thorough once over. One or 2 easily sorted niggles aside it's been great and from offers ive had for it hasn't lost much if anything in value.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

There's not the same kind of safety-shell around Defender occupants too - no way of transferring the forces around them. Depending the nature of the crash, the chassis can make it's way into other vehicles, or parts of/the other vehicles make short work of the body of the defender - leading to squashed Defender occupants. There's not the same kind of structural 'cocoon'.

In reply to Sharp:

Didn't we have this thread a few weeks ago?
I've bought a couple of repaired write-off motorbikes. Had no problems with insurance. I even wrote one of them off for the second time (properly written off this time), and the insurance company paid out full market value.

In reply to Sharp:

My cousin got hit by a taxi and it lightly scraped the back of his Saab. Because there was panel damage (apparently £1500 worth?!?) it's now categorised as cat D. I'm driving it now and 5000 miles later it's got no problems at all. Didn't bother to fix the bumped in panel.

Some cat D cars shouldn't be written off, some probably should. Depends how much you trust the seller!

In reply to Sharp:
I bought a Cat D car in 2006 and it had been written off because of a scratch on the door! What a bl00dy carry on for a scratch on the door!

It was brilliant: until a cow walk out in front of it. That one wouldn't polish out!

In reply to Jim Fraser:

Tsk! Didn't you sound your horn?

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Leave my horn out of this!