OT - another car buying question

Yes. Take what you have to spend and subtract £2,500 from it, and buy the best that you can find at that price.

The spend the £2500 on sorting out the reasons why it was being sold in the first place.

Older expensive cars depreciate fast, but may not have that much mileage . E.g. uyopu can pick up a 60,000 mile XJ8 for peanuts, thats been well looked after by an old gent who kept it in his garage mostly.

If the car is new enough get an extended warranty on it.

General dealer margin will be around 30%, and its worth looking at cars they cant shift easily that they would like to get shot of. And just ask them what the price is, and subtract 30%, and go from there.,

I'd never buy from a dealer - unless buying new.

NT

The thing is there's lots of 'private sellers' that are in fact dealers. They buy random junk from the auctions, mark it up a bit and flog it on Gumtree, failing to mention the faults that were in the auction catalogue. You don't get any comeback and they don't have any reputation to protect. The only advantage over the auction is you get to test drive it first. But you do have to ask why somebody sold it at auction in the first place.

Thus far the best trick I've found is to google the phone number, and a red flag is if their number turns up on other car sale listings (there's some websites that handily archive gumtree so you can see previously deleted listings).

Hmm, I wonder if it's possible to scrape the auction listings to check if the vehicle went through recently...?

Theo

Oh a lot of not too old cars get traded by dealers with warranties. A lot depends. Its easier to chase a dealer up than a bloke down the pub..

Thanks - useful stuff.

They've had the vehicle for at least a month, so selling it will help their cash flow (but not mine).

Cheers

Dave R

I am paying the full £32000 for my 2017 ALFA Giulia as there is zero w riggle room.

Quite. Although buying an ex lease or whatever car at auction - where it has simply reached the age and mileage where a main dealer won't want it as used stock - can be a good deal. But you need to get it at auction price rather than from a bomb site dealer who has given it a valet and doubled the price.

Some colours are unpopular/unfashionable too. They can be cheaper.

Haggle a bit & then head for the door. This works wonders.

Another old method is to phone up and just ask if "the car" is still for sale, and see if they say "which one?".

I bought my car at auction. 3 years old and 30k miles. It had just come off lease. I bought it for almost exactly 30% of list price. The only flaw with the car was that some bastard had taken one of the keys, and flogged it on ebay for £20. Getting a new one cost £200.

My big tip is to buy in the last one or two auctions before Christmas. The dealers aren't bidding much, because they know the stock will just sit around for two or three weeks before they can even start selling it.

Of course - much like private sellers.

NT

You get no comeback on private sales in most cases. If you want to chase a seller then you didn't do your homework before buying.

NT

They really have seen you coming, haven't they

tim

I did their job for them. I walked in, told them the spec I wanted, paid the £5000 deposit and w ent home. The quickest sale he's ever made.

Should have gone to driver the deal etc.

It is not a Ford Fiesta churned out of a sausage factory sitting in a wet f ield in Lincolnshire, but an Italian masterpiece built to order.

Cars bought from DtD are build to order, with all the same options available as per the manufacturer's own configuration tool

Yep, though it depends where on the price spectrum you're on. The fees for a private buyer at BCA (for instance) are pretty steep and you don't get to examine the car much before purchase. So the dealer allowing you to walk away is a useful feature. I found one that looked pristine, FSH, MOT record was perfect. Price a bit low, but maybe there was no demand locally. Ran well, everything looked fine. Plugged into the OBD port and read the codes

- the dealer hadn't mentioned the >>GBP1000 repair that was imminent which was almost certainly why the owner had traded it in. I might have knackered it even more just driving it home.

It's worth fishing around forums, because sometimes you can find the dealer software to do this is available - and then all you need to do is buy that used key from ebay for £20.

Thanks, I'll remember that.

Theo