Anyone Ever Bought An Ex Hire/courtesy Car?

bigjl

Another thing to remember is that the "gangster youth" have a habit of using hire cars to get round ANPR cameras for the transport of drugs and they have a habit of hiring them in company names and not handing them back, if you want a recent used car, the safest bet is ex demo from a maindealer, they are normally used by sales staff as a free company car and are kept in tidy nick as they are a sales tool, my brother in law is tight as the proverbial and always buys ex demo, he has rarely had any problems and they are cheaper than new, another good idea is to by pre registered with zero miles, these really are new cars.

My personal view, due to mainly being having less money than my BinL is to buy three years old, from one owner, full main dealer history, above average miles, my current car, as mentioned in other ramblin.....posts is a Mondeo LX 130bhp TDCi, silver hatch, bought with around 80k miles, FSH, one owner, just over three years old £2450, when new, the best part of £17500. Kerching.........still worth more two years later.

As an aside, don't buy any car that is ex NHS(specifically Ambulance response cars), or ex MetPol, stick to ex traffic cars, as these blokes tend to be a bit more mechanically sympathetic and the cars driven on dual carriageways and motorways, ex Scottish police forces, away from Glasgow are also good buys.

And yes I do work for the NHS, you should hear the noise that a Vauxhall Zafira makes when it hits a speed bump at 70mph...............

BillTrac

Bought my second Focus in June. Ex-courtesy car again.

Bought from Evans Halshaw again. Didn't really want to change but needed to because of my car allowance restrictions.

Registered August 09, 12500 on the clock. I got it Ford Direct so two years unlimited mileage etc. Bought my first one for £8000, did 60000 in two years and got £4800 part exchange. No hassle, and paid £8900 for the 09 plate.

Nothing to lose.

smjxm09

I bought an ex-hire Mondeo 2 litre petrol automatic registered January 2005 in November of that year with around 6,500 miles on the clock from a main dealer for £9995. Next month it’s being sold with only 31,500 miles on the clock for around £3000. It is the most reliable car I have ever owned and with only £7000 deprecation in 5 years I think it was a good buy.

bigjl

smjxm09 wrote: »

I bought an ex-hire Mondeo 2 litre petrol automatic registered January 2005 in November of that year with around 6,500 miles on the clock from a main dealer for £9995. Next month it’s being sold with only 31,500 miles on the clock for around £3000. It is the most reliable car I have ever owned and with only £7000 deprecation in 5 years I think it was a good buy.

You should PM the bloke looking for a good family car for £3000, as yours sounds almost perfect for him.

A relative had an Automatic Mondeo and he had no problems with it atall.

Zoetoes

Just noticed the thread revival!

We bought the Focus, £8500 Feb 07 (a year old), he left in Feb 09 taking it with him and I had to scrape together some money to get my own car, managed £1500 for a little Ka bought privately.

The Focus gave him a few problems after he left, power steering fluid leaking and car kept breaking down, think it needed work on the clutch etc too, ended up being one thing after another.

He sold it in the end in about January this year for £3000.

My little Ka was, so far, a better buy.