Damage
Selling a car with damage to it
Repairing damage to improve a sale price almost never works out. The bodyshop bill is nearly always larger than the amount the repair adds. Send photographs, tell us what happened, and the damage is already inside the figure we give you. In Dutch this is a schadeauto.
The offer
What this does to the price
Damage is priced against what putting it right would cost somebody. This is the one category where photographs are not optional, because a dent described in a sentence can be twice as bad or half as bad as the words suggest. Be generous with them. The reward is a figure that does not change when we arrive.
What's covered here
If your car looks like one of these, you are on the right page. None of it has to match exactly.
Dents, scrapes and missing trim
A car park dent, a bumper dragged along a bollard, a mirror cap taken off by a passing van on a narrow street. This is the damage almost every Dutch city car collects eventually, and it is the easiest kind for us to price from photographs.
Hail and storm damage
A roof and bonnet dimpled by a summer hailstorm drives exactly as it did before. Whether you claimed on the insurance or decided it was not worth the loss of your claim free years, the car is still worth a figure and we still want to see it.
Collision damage
Front, side or rear, and in any state of repair. Two details change the picture more than the dents do: whether the airbags went off, and whether the car has moved under its own power since. Tell us both without being asked.
Total loss and WOK
Dutch insurers separate economisch total loss, where repairing it costs more than the car is worth, from technisch total loss, where it should not be repaired at all. The RDW can also put a WOK notation on the registration. Whichever applies to yours, the car still has value and the sale still goes through the register in the normal way.
Before you ask
Two things worth settling first
The fuller the picture now, the firmer the number stays once we see the car at the handover.
When selling makes sense
- The repair estimate has landed near, or above, what the car was worth before the accident.
- Your insurer has declared it a total loss and the car is still sitting on your drive taking up space.
- Mechanically it is fine, and the state of the paint is scaring off every private buyer.
- You are leaving the country and there is no time to get it through a bodyshop first.
- The claim free years you would lose are worth more to you than the repair.
Tell us this upfront
- What happened, roughly when, and whether the police or insurer were involved
- Whether it still drives, and whether you consider that safe
- Whether the airbags deployed
- Any total loss declaration, and any WOK notation on the registration
- Photographs from a few steps back as well as close up, in daylight
Common questions
What does a WOK status actually mean for me?
WOK stands for Wachten Op Keuring, waiting for inspection. The RDW attaches it to a registration after serious damage, and while it is there the car may not be used on a public road until it has been repaired and inspected. Selling it is unaffected. We collect it on a transporter and never drive it.
The insurer has already written it off. Can I still sell it to you?
Yes, as long as the car is still registered to you and the insurer has not taken ownership of it as part of the settlement. Tell us whether it was economisch or technisch total loss, whether there is a WOK notation, and send photographs of the whole car and not only the damaged corner.
Should I get the bumper sprayed before I ask?
No. A bodyshop charges you the full cost of the repair, and the car gains a fraction of it. We would far rather see the car as it is and price it honestly.
It will not start. Do I say that now or on the day?
Say so in the request. It changes what the car is worth and not whether we want it. We then arrange a collection in which the car never has to move under its own power, which is an ordinary day for us.
Other cars we buy
Ready to sell your car?
Your number plate is all we need to start.