On Wednesday, 7 December 2016 16:35:58 UTC, David WE Roberts (Google) wrot e:
That is why I buy ALFA - plummets like a stone due to 1970's reputation so you can get a £24000 car for £12000 after 3 years.
Mine had 10 (ten) on it. - mind you it was a Landrover Defender in Birmingham. Never been out the showroom. About ?4k of list price
I thought the price still plummeted because they were still s**te.
I was told the price you pay for it in these circumstances is what the deal er paid. ie, his profit margin is the difference.
Its quite simple..
the dealer has a target set by the manufacturer, if he meets that target the dealer gets a discount on *all* the cars he has sold that period. So if the dealer is just short of his target he has three options..
Do nothing and lose the extra discount on *all* the cars he has sold.
Pre register some cars and pretend they have been sold as required.
Give a buyer a good discount (maybe even less than cost) to ensure the sale.
It's not hard to avoid them:
Don't buy near London Don't buy anything >200K miles Look at the MOT history: lots of miles in a year or six-monthly tests is a taxi The London PCO cutoff is cars 5 years old, but older already-registered cars are grandfathered: avoid anything with a PCO ticket Other cities' Uber cutoff is ~2007 (I haven't checked what their local PCO requirements are) - buy something that isn't eligible When viewing, holes for taxi plates or lots of boot scrapes are giveaways Don't buy from a dodgy backstreet 'garage' You can plug in the OBD tool and run the dealer 'health check' to see if the car thinks it's unhappy about anything.
Basically go for low mileage one-owner examples, just like any other vehicle. Plus you save 200-300 quid a year road tax. There is of course a running costs/mileage v tax v upfront cost tradeoff to be made, as with any car. They're a bit pricier than a Focus, but then so are a lot of cars.
From what I read, it's actually pretty bomb-proof: there's much less stress mechanically than a regular car, which is why they can go for >400K miles as taxis (highest one on ebay recently was 368K). A traction battery replacement is about the cost of a couple of cambelt changes, which you'd have to do on a >120K car anyway. Generally the things that go wrong are the usual service items - suspension, brakes (since there's regenerative braking the discs don't get used much - they need a regular bit of heavy braking to keep them polished). And there's *lots* of info on the electrical systems out there - very DIYable.
(though obviously won't keep the Clarksonistas happy)
Theo
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