Is is ok to buy a used car user a year old? Why is it being sold??

HappySad

I am looking for a fairly new used car. I can see cars less thana year for sale. What are the general reasons for selling such a nearly new car? I am skeptical about purchasing such a car thinking there must be something wrong. Why sell a car which was bought under a year ago????


Also. Is it better to buy nearly new cars from dealer or private?

Thanks

gilbert_and_sullivan

Most of these cars will be ex renters or ex 'management' cars, which means that employees of the maker have had the car for a period of time for very low cost.

DUTR

HappySad wrote: »

I am looking for a fairly new used car. I can see cars less thana year for sale. What are the general reasons for selling such a nearly new car? I am skeptical about purchasing such a car thinking there must be something wrong. Why sell a car which was bought under a year ago????


Also. Is it better to buy nearly new cars from dealer or private?

Thanks

There are many reasons the car could be for sale, assuming it's a dealer, then the car could be an ex demonstrator, or it could be an ex rental, doesn't mean anythinn is wrong with the car, just because you cannot afford to change a car every year, does not mean others can't or don't.

suvla_2

get it from a dealer , sometimes just show cars that have been used as testers in my opinion you could really haggle the price down on one of those .
private who usually sell cars like that have usually bought somthing and realised they cannot afford it so they sell it on be sure to do a hpi check etc on one before commiting to a sale and if you have any mechanic friends might be worth taking them with you .as if it has been damaged and unrecorded a good mechanic will usually spot that as well . these days newer cars tend to be pretty good mechanically. i also find you can bang people down on price alot more if you have the cash infront of their face (my personal method) but i do definatly think it works .(i apologise if my grammar and english is terrible also)
hope this helps regards chris

agrinnall

Most likely to be ex-rental, garage demonstrator, or possibly ex-fleet. Only a few will have actually been run by the owner, some of those will be problem cars and some will have been owned by people who change either change every year or didn't get on with the car for some reason.

You are not likely to find a genuine private sale of a year old car, most people will realise that they'll have lost a vast amount already and it'll be better to keep the car for longer before selling, and those that do sell will usually trade it in.

HappySad

Thanks 4 advice. Is there much difference with driving a 1.2 petrol and 1.4 diesel Ford Fiesta?

forgotmyname

1.4 diesel will probably use less fuel, But repairs maybe more costly.

Depends how old it is and the mileage and how long you will keep it and even your journey type.
Diesels tend to be slower to warm up so short journeys are bad for them.

Add a diesel partical filter that needs long fairly high speed runs to regenerate. If you dont do this the car may need costly fixes by the dealer.

skivenov

Ex-hire (there's a huge amount of these, and main dealers buy them).
Ex-short term leasing.
Perks of the job cars for people who work for the manufacturer (they get them as cheap leases)
Motability mortalities
Repos
Firm who owned it went down the pan or downsized
Ex-demonstrators (normally advertised by the dealer as being such)
"Ex-demonstrators" (dealers used it for a courtesy car)
Someone with more money than sense bought it and didn't like it

ManAtHome

Last one I bought was a Ford Direct - had been a 1 year lease to a bank - 7k on the clock, around 2/3 of the 'new price' - good car (Mondeo).

Avoriaz

Every car sale is different and there can be many legitimate reasons for selling a nearly new car. Money trouble, separation or divorce, lost job, new job, new company car, moving abroad, just didn’t like the car etc.

I bought a used BMW 325i in 1994 that had two previous registered owners, was only 18 months old with only 6,000 miles on the clock.

There were legitimate reasons for the two owners. It was a cancelled order so BMW UK registered it and a director used it for a few months and then it was sold to a man from New Zealand who worked in London.

He got a transfer back to NZ so sold the car to me.

At least that was what I was told. Maybe it was all bull but the car looked good, drove well and checked out so I bought it, saving about £10,000 on the price when new 18 months earlier.

I drove it for 17 years and sold it two years ago for £450 with 120,000 + on the clock. Apart from normal servicing, tyres etc the only thing I recall spending money on was a failed water pump after about 14 years.

Just take all the normal precautions you would with any used car. You might be as lucky as I was with my Beemer.

steve-L

There are good reasons and bad ones (from a buyer perspective).
skivenov seems to have made a fairly comprehensive list but it's obviously almost endless.

One I personally see a lot of (from work) is people who work for big (huge) multinationals that are concerned about their environmental image and don't give company cars.... even to high flyers
Instead they get moved country and given a generous relocation allowance and have to buy a car.... its not unusual for these expatriations to last short periods and meanwhile they bought a car for the wife and one for themselves.

I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons....

Bad reasons might be car's that have some annoying issue.... My brother once got a Jag (on a very generous offer from Jag as he works in the trade and they like to see their car used as a demonstrator)....
The damn thing had some annoying rattle and no-one could fix it....eventually he sent it back and they gave him a different one... no idea what happened to his old one (6 months old but 4 months he wasn't driving it as Jag had it trying to fix it)....

Perhaps they stripped it and rebuilt it ... perhaps it ended up being resold to someone 'less fussy' ????