Hi all. I'm new here and hope to get some good advice and tips and also be able to offer help to anyone else.
My question is would this dust extractor which I believe is for a wood shop be suitable for working on cars? I've attached a photo. Thanks.

For helping keep the shop clean when dry sanding, sure it will probably work. For anything else, no.

I've done consulting to install those types of system in wood shops for the last 30 year or so.... there's a good reason you see them "just" in wood shops. We usually install them at one end of a building (on a dock for maintenance and easy service) and hard plumb them to work stations at the other end of a building. Those work stations are where woodworking tools are making, chips, dust, etc. A few drop boxes are put here and there for just general dust removal. Wood finishing operations are usually NOT in the same building with these units.... why?... it's a problem with finish booths and micro-dust that is in the air. Those units have a big fabric bag that inflates. That bag is not supposed to let that dust back in the air, however the reality is.... you get micro dust floating around. Turn on a booth fan, yes, even one that seals and has separate make up air, and you'll still pull that crap in somewhere.

What we've been doing with wood shops that have limited floor space is put those vacuums "outside" in a separate small shed/building and hard plumb them back inside. This allowed us to still have a finish booth in the building and not pull that dust back into the booth. When the booth was running we would close "gates" at all the openings on the dust system.

I could see it being handy in an auto application but you'd definitely have to figure out where air flow/ dust would be going. Nothing much worse than pulling bondo dust into a fresh clear coat......
If you want to trace air patterns within the shop you can do it with a smoker similar to what they use for automotive leak detection.

Thanks for the info. I've been offered the use of a small workshop to do some private jobs. Because of my limited funds I can't get the extraction system I would like at the moment and saw this advertised for a very good price. I thought this might work in the short term for sanding.
I could put it outside of where I'd be working and run the hoses inside. Or sell this one and put the extra money towards something better. I could make a small profit if I resell this dust extractor.
Anyway, thanks for your replies.

Yeah, you could go either way on that. Just remember, experimentation is the key to making any dust removal system work. Well, that and keeping that dust away from your coatings....