Buying a car off a private dealer, advice!

Strider590

Alux wrote: »

Car is £600. Its a private seller. I can afford the insurance, reason im buying it is because its cheap to insure compared to other cars. Financially its great.
Golf's are always known to be pretty reliable, so thats something.

That's an urban legend (one that really needs to die), 20 years ago they were good, but I wouldn't expect a 20yr old car to live up to it. Though it'd probably be more reliable than the awful stuff they produced from the mid 1990's onwards... :rotfl:

Alux wrote: »

Owner says they've owned it for 5 years, and it passed the last MOT fine (next one needed 30th september). They say there have been no issues and have replaced a few things lately: ambelt, alternator, battery and exhaust.
I will ask to see the paperwork to verify that, but assuming that's all fine...

No issues? Then why change all those parts?
Some salt required for dealing with that seller.....

Don't bother too much with the service history. 20 years is a long time for numerous mechanics to get lazy, not change stuff, etc and if the cars been owned by anyone with any technical ability, it'll have been home serviced at some point.

Finally, I have to say that of all cars that age, my choice would probably also be a Golf.


You want to check for excessive engine noise, make sure it changes gear smoothly, check for leaks, take the oil cap off and check it's not FULL of yellow/white gunk, open the coolant expansion tank and check for signs of oil contamination, grab the road wheels and rock them to check for excess movement/knocking....

If your mum drives it, don't be too concerned if she says the brakes don't seem very good, she'll be used to modern cars which have extremely over sensitive brakes, they're like on/off switches (tricks people into thinking the brakes are great).
Even if the brakes aren't great, new discs/pads don't cost the earth.

jkpd

I sold a mk2 golf gti to a chap down the road 13 years ago, still going strong.If it is a good one that has been well cared for it will run for years,parts are peanuts are they were well made, their are loads still running around, they always make good money because of the vw scene. As for VW reliabilty, my experience over the last 20 years of having 8 gti's currently a mk5 gti dsg, all bought 3 years old with 70k+ is that they are extremely reliable build quliaty is always better than ford/VXs etc, never had any breakdowns never replaced any parts other than tyres discs and pads and thats it.My wifes mk5 gti has 90k on the clock never had any probs and drives like new.

forgotmyname

I agree for £600 you can do a LOT better.

Unless its got bills for lots of nice shiny new parts.

31 years of driving experience probably wont help her decide whats worn and whats not.