Where do you look when buying a car?

piggeh

I've been without a car for a week now after my last car's timing belt snapped. Been looking around on ebay and autotrader, but have not been able to find anything of interest, or that is not overpriced. For example, Fabia 1.9 TDI should be £4500 but cheapest I've seen one is £5500, at a dealer! Where does everyone else look when buying a car? Is there another decent site apart from ebay & autotrader? I'm sure there must be some good places on the net which I just don'tknow about!

Big_O

Haggle! Haggle, haggle, haggle! Ask to see if they'll sell it to you for lower. If the going rate is a lower price, show them the proof and see if they'll knock off the difference! They should want to sell - after all they want your money.

vansboy

Would you consider auction - http://www.honestjohn.co.uk, clik the menu to the left there AuctionView.

This IS a payfor service, once you register - it gives search facility of the entire country stocks of cars in British Car Auctions centres. Saves a lot of fone calls/journeys looking for cars!

But I've just looked & only 3 diesel Fabia available!!

VB

piggeh

Are any in the SE?

The auction view says it's £5/10 for 40 searches (forgotten the exact amount, but was looking the other day). Does that mean you have to search for a certain make of car, or does it mean 40 listings worth ie.40 auctions?

I don't mind auctions, it depends on who's remarketing their vehicles. I know some of the BCA auction cars come with warranty, which would be nice.

piggeh

Where is 'Everywhere' though? I look at local dealers, autotrader, exchange & mart, local paper, etc, but still cant find much of interest!

lily_the_pink

piggeh wrote:

Where is 'Everywhere' though? I look at local dealers, autotrader, exchange & mart, local paper, etc, but still cant find much of interest!

maybe you are restricting your search too much. If you are being overly specific then it will mean there are only a few such cars of this type on offer at anyone particular time - and then the dealer has you where he wants you and will get full mark up price for the car. Decide on size of car, max age, what you need it for and how much you are willing to pay.

if you want something very specific, then be prepared to wait or prepared to pay more.

nb: on Autotrader, you can play with the search radius - I think it defaults to 15 miles or something like that. If you widen the search radius (to say 60 miles) you might find more cars (unless you live in the highlands or Norfolk ).

Tight_Git_3

I've just done the car hunt game, having spent the past 3-4 weeks trawling the web and local rag.
I used the following sites:

autotrader.co.uk - register and you can be more specfic, which is Godsend.
fish4cars.co.uk
exchageandmart.co.uk
skype.net

I did a google search on car supermarkets in my area (Derby), which brough up namely availablecar.com, motorpoint.co.uk, iscars.co.uk, hiltongarage.co.uk, directcars.co.uk, carcraft.co.uk

Also try puting in the model and year of car you want then 'buy' or 'sale' as a google or yahoo search. It's a bit hit and miss. but can lead you to other sites.

I found that the stock changed frequently, and you almost have to check daily, with the exception of autotrader which I think is updated on a Tuesday.

All these allowed me to print off details of the car I wanted. As a result I was able to get £500 off the screen price of the car, and got a £1000 worth of upgrades from the main dealer, by simply stating that I would travel 10 miles down the road to get the same car for (in my case £800 less). Being able to wave a piece of paper with the deal on helps. They don't really like it but I don't care.

piggeh

Thanks.

I've actually widened my search to other models, etc, but still nothing. Will look at fish4 and skype.net though, as havent tried those yet.

shinkyshonky

Try https://www.gumtree.com........

glammakid

Don't go to Craft Craft if you want to avoid paying for parts just a week or two later. Their crappy free warranty policy doesn't cover the timing belt and they'll tell you that it won't need replacing at the current mileage blah blah good for another 40k miles. They when you call them they'll say that the belt could have gone anytime - funny how it goes when you've handed over the money isn't it!!!

peterg1965

Try Fords of Winford, great place, good customer service and range of cars available. Won WhatCar car supermarket of the year a few times too. https://www.fow.co.uk