Vehicle History for car originally imported from the UK

lizzyd66

I was interested in buying a car privately . It is a 2004 Peugout 204 SW S Automatic (Estate style with 7 seats). It has 33,000 miles on the clock. The guy selling it imported it from NI earlier this year. He bought it privately and paid the VRT and registered it here at the beginning of May. He is now selling it as is emigrating.

It was advertised for sale on car zone for €12K, then locally for €11.5K but when I went to see it he said we could have it for €10k. He showed us some repaired damage to the front passenger side wing. Looks like it has been repaired well. The car is very clean and cosmetically in very good condition.

My dad saw it with me and we both thought it was good value for the money. But as they say if something is too good to be true ...

I ran both a cartell check and a RAC check on the car.

The cartell check came back fine - showed had been imported and had no finance, wasn't written off etc etc. BUT

The RAC check threw up a few things:

Condition Alert - REcorded as a a total loss by an insurance company Recorded damaged but repairable - the insurer decided not to repair. Date 11/9/06

Insurance Theft - 14/02/2005 - HPI will contact the insurer to determine whether it is owned by them. We recommend you do not buy the vehicle before you have received the result of this investigation which may take up to 5 working days.

Now my initial reaction was to run away from the deal but...

if I can resolve the insurance theft issue satisfactorily, I would like some views on going ahead with the purchase of a Cat D car.

I would pay the AA to inspect the car to make sure the repair was satisfactory (I think from the web site this would cost between €225 and €300). We would probably keep the car for a very long time and only look to change when the car was uneconomical to repair.

I spoke to the seller who seems genuine and wasn't aware of the problems apart from the obvious damage to the car and is open to me getting the vehicle inspected/hanging on while I check everything out.

My questions really would be :

1. would the AA inspection pick up all the problems associated with the Cat D status?

2. How would I value a car with this status?

3. Given that the cartell feedback came back fine and the vehicle has been registered in republic of Ireland will the history of the car in the UK be relevant?

If anyone has any knowledge of the above I would be very interested to hear your views.

Thanks

liz

Henry Ford III

Buy something else.

More proof that Cartell are not good enough. HPI is fine.

The history of the car is the history of the car. it didn't begin all over again with a clean slate when it was imported.

I'd get a valauation of the revenue site, and offer 30% less if you are mad keen.

Alun

I'd personally be suspicious of some who goes to all the bother of importing and VRT'ing a car in May only to decide to 'emigrate' in June. Sounds a bit like someone concocting a 'genuine reason for sale' to me.

vengeance52

Id stay away from it myself. Even if it looks like you might get a good deal, there could be other issues with the car further down the line.

lizzyd66

Thanks for the advice - it does confirm my gut feel. I'm going to ring the guy today and tell him I'm not going ahead. It may be that it is now mechanically safe but with two small kids I don't want to take the risk.

It does show though the importance of doing your home work - at least the cartell report had the english reg so I could trace the history. Thank God I did. And thanks again for your advice.

I'll keep looking for an automatic car to suit a family (2 ad ,2 kids) in the €10-€14K bracket!

vengeance52

well keep lookin, try the usual. www.carzone.ie www.cbg.ie www.autotrader.ie http://www.adverts.ie/showcat.php?cat=2 www.funkymotors.ie

Best of luck

jimmycrackcorm

I say get an AA inspection. Just because a car has been repaired doesn't make it unroadworthy.

rebel.ranter

A friend of mine in the trade has a very good saying in relation to cars:

"There's always another one"

Peugeot are not in the business of making one-offs. Why take the chance or go to the expense of checking this one further when a bit more searching/waiting will turn up something better with no dodgy history.

Chef1976

I would run a mile from this! If you still want to go ahead these guys over an inspection from 99 euro
http://www.carsireland.ie/car-status.html

lizzyd66

Just to give you an update ... the RAC people got back to me regarding the query that the car had been reported stolen in 2005. They said it had been recovered but shd have been entered on the system as at category D write off as well. So in fact it had been an insurance write off twice. So that was the best €80 I spent. I contacted cartell to ask given the volume of UK/NI imports could they add the UK element to their checks . Thanks everyone for your help.

michaelanthony

I bought a cat d write off. Stolen but recovered after the insurance company had paid up. It needed a new door but is the best car I ever had and was the best value too.