Written off 2021 Civic — worth buying back and repairing myself?
My 2021 Honda Civic 1.0T (48k miles) has been written off by my insurance after rear driver-side damage. Based in the UK. The main reason it’s likely been written off is because of rear axle damage and deployment of all the curtain airbags and front seat airbags deployed. Pictures attached.
The car is on PCP finance. The original agreement was for £12,500 but I only owe £9,600 now. Similar cars on AutoTrader seem to be selling for around £13–14k.
My thought process is that if the insurer values the car at around £14k, they would first pay off the £9.6k finance and I’d receive the remaining amount (£4.4k), which I could then use to pay the retention fee for the car (maybe around £2k?) and then use whatever is left over towards repairing it.
Is my understanding correct or am I missing something?
The insurer also mentioned they will send pictures to Copart to help determine the valuation and write-off category (hopefully Cat N rather than Cat S).
Would it be worth retaining the car and attempting to repair it myself? I’m not a mechanic, but I’ve previously replaced a steering wheel airbag and a wishbone on another car.
Main concerns are:
- Whether the repair costs will spiral because of airbags/modules
- The likelihood of it being Cat S vs Cat N
- Whether the salvage retention cost usually makes this uneconomical
Interested to hear what people with write-off/repair experience would do.