Thanks Craig for the very kind offer - may have to take you up on that at some point!

Anyone have any opinions on cat c repaired cars? I've seen one with decent mileage (in my opinion!) and all the features I was after (read vogue with cream leather seats!) for around 35% off the "private market value". Only has a small dent which I'd get sorted out and a couple of letters missing off the boot which should be fairly cheap to sort, but is it a big risk? I'm thinking mostly of resale value, even though I'd expect it to sell cheaper as I bought it cheaper, are many people deterred from seeing a cat c marker even though it's been repaired, making it difficult to sell when the time comes?

It depends. To me it wouldn't worry me as long as I as able to check on the work that was done or see a report of what made it a CAT vehicle.

Then the choices are,

Run it to death and enjoy a lesser hit of depreciation
Or
Enjoy it for a while knowing that it will be a little bit harder to sell should you need to but the cheaper price than the rest should make up for it.

Some people have found they can get a CAT vehicle, repair and run for a few years without any depreciation. Fair enough they have done a lot of work themselves. FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

Also just remember it affects your insurance costs Howard
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2002 4.4 V8 LPG Tartarini
Have RSW AllComms in Cheshire J17 M6 - happy to help.
*Gone: Classic Vogue SE Auto V8 3.9

Very little if at all in my experience. It generally means that anything else happens to it it becomes a cat a/b when another accident happens. FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
Mantec Sump Guard, Rigid Load liner, MY10 BT upgrade.

It doesn't appear to affect my premium by much when doing a quote although the comparison I did was a HSE vs a vogue with cat c recorded so I don't know how much of the extra premium was due to it being a higher spec and how much was caused by the history...

I got my Td6 for 8k. For that price, after a lot of research, I knew I should budget about 1k to repair all the little glitches to get her right.

I wasn't disappointed. All predictable stuff - airbag, susp compressor, rear calipers. So it's cost me about 9.5k to get a nice FF. Most of it I did myself, I did need quite big tools though. I've got some ATF in the garage waiting for me to get brave enough to do a gearbox oil change...

Do I regret it? No. I absolutely love driving it. It's the only car I've ever driven 200 miles in and felt better than when I started!
Yes, it only does just over 25mpg but I'm not paying £350 a month on finance for some boring ford or similar so I reckon it all pans out if you use bloke maths.

I do think a FF for 6.5k will need a bit spending on it to get it right though. Sorry.

What made the car a catC? If it's had frame damage or other significant damage, I'd run the other way pretty fast. No flood cars, ever! However, remembering that a front facelift is about £5K, a slight front knock that damages the grill, lights bumper and bonnet could cause an expensive write off on a car that only needs a few bits replaced to be back to as good as new.
So, WHAT got repaired, and HOW it got repaired is the question.

If you can get a good, solid car for less $, GREAT! Then you either drive it for the next 30 years, or pass on the savings when you sell it. The older a car is, the more any potential buyer should be buying on condition and not on paperwork.

Just remember sir, when repairing FF's the frame/bodyshell is steel and most of the parts/panels are aluminium! This makes these cars REALLY tricky to assess (as aluminium distorts)

For example, my AMG SL was written off last year (oncoming lorry forced me off the road & through a hedge) car looked ok...ish... A little dented here & there, a little scratched here and there... BUT as its all aluminium again it hid its damage very well and was infact twisted by over 60mm corner to corner!

So, as Will said above, look to see what evidence the owner has as to why the car was written off...