Cheers,
Rob

For all interested parties – I’ve purchased the car and will get it next weekend.

AP – now where can order some o’ them “truck nuts”?

Looks like mostly cosmetic damage to me. Echo the previous posters, have a look at the structural members. If they are OK, then the car is probably fine. Also check that the front end is aligned and tracks true.

If this was your car pre-crash, you would have it fixed and keep it, right?

Firtsly, there’s the term ‘write-off’. What does that actually mean? Usually, it means that the damage has exceeded the car’s worth. In this case, that’s not true: the damage was far less than half the car’s worth. It’s common for unusual/Euro cars to be ‘written off’ with very minor damage, simply because of the waiting times for parts. In many cases, freight times of up to 3 months from Saab Sweden to Oz make repair uneconomic and time-consuming….. and what’s the owner supposed to drive in the meantime? Hire car costs aren’t cheap, and insurance companies hate paying for them.

Then there’s the term ‘ex-salvage’. That’s a misnoma. In Victoria, EVERY vehicle not chosen to be repaired is deemed ‘salvage’. This car was termed ‘repairable salvage’, meaning that it could be repaired to pre-accident condition. I always laugh at people who say ‘that’s an ex-salvage car!”, usually not realising that their own car’s probably once suffered similar damage and been repaired – often using copious quantities of filler.

If a vehicle such as this has been fixed using new parts, where’s the problem? Where’
s all the filler? What has actually been repaired? In reality, probably nothing. How can new parts be classified as ‘suspect’, and such repairs frowned upon? From experience, it’s the most minor repairs that are repaired the worst. Often, one or two badly repaired panels spoil a whole car.

Why are panel repairers so frowned upon? The technology the industry uses is enormously complex and expensive. Utilising such equipment, it’s perfectly possible for even badly damaged cars to be returned to pre-accident condition. A 900 I once repaired using a laser alignment jig had actually been made 2mm ‘out’ on the LHS from the factory, proving that even OE standards aren’t too flash.

The there’s the owner. I’ll bet that if the vehicle hadn’t been identified as being repaired, nobody would have ever known that it had. How many of us could say that accident damage on our car has been repaired using new parts? In this case, we have visual evidence of what’s occurred. But how many of us keep photos of the time we backed into the gatepost or smashed a front guard in? Would we know exactly how it had been fixed, and by whom? Would we show the photos to a potential buyer, or think nothing of it, not really knwoing what had actually been repaired anyway? Most of the used cars I see have minor damage here and there, which is often just as costly to repair.

At the end of the day, if your car was involved in a light accident, what would you all prefer – lightly damaged panels that required straightening and filling or brand new replacement parts? I know which I’d prefer.

Swade, buy the car. It’s a steal!

Drew

Actually, there is a black one for sale on carpoint. $30,000 for 100,000+ kms.