Why are some cars on Auto Trader so cheap?

fivetide

fred7777 wrote: »

Or its a bait and switch as above. I've seen this many times.

Especially given as it is a bit of an Arthur Daley type selling from his own driveway.

albionrovers

If in doubt walk away ... in 20 years time you'll be telling folk the same thing.
You posted here...you're in doubt....so walk away.

ptrichardson

There's also the "its on an army barracks and I am about to be sent to place X for the next year, so I have to sell it in the next week". scam.

Uses the same Google Motor Payments or such scam to get your money which they say is held until you accept the vehicle.

I_Love_Shoes

Ive just got an email from somebody in Portugal, we will deliver to your door as we moved abroad with an English car and the steering wheel is on the correct side blah blah blah so I replied in Portuguese and havent got a response!
Ha!

steve-L

albionrovers wrote: »

If in doubt walk away ... in 20 years time you'll be telling folk the same thing.
You posted here...you're in doubt....so walk away.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS....

Sometimes it's genuine ....
I bought my BMW private, book price for it milage and condition adjusted was 7,800 ... I paid 6,000.

Reason is quite long but the point is I was happy the reason was genuine.
Short story is guy was reluctantly selling it at the book price after getting a compulsory company car. Having left it on his Dad's drive for months (checked out on both street view and algae) ... having a few views that walked away due to it not having leather seats (If your buying the 330 you probably want leather and not everyone wants a stage-1 remap) his Dad finally put his foot down and told him to get it off his drive.... so he could put the boat on the drive at the end of summer! (checked out, boat in garden)

HPI check, met guy and his parents....

Spent a while on eBay and 3 months later got a leather interior for £600 bringing my 'purchase price' up to £6,600 but now with book price of 8,000 plus ....

Moral, had the guy put in the leather interior (£600 + half a day's time) and lied about the remap he would probably have sold it for £7,800 ... as it was he was too busy to do the interior and honest enough to tell prospective buyers about the remap.

A while after he actually called me to say his company car policy had changed, did I want to sell it back? He was willing to make a loss and pay more than I paid even though I'd done an extra 5,000 miles....and when I told him I didn't want to sell because I'd done the interior he said he'd pay for that as well including an extra £500 for my time.

So moral.... he was quite happy to pay more than he sold it for ... completely genuine guy (and I met his parents). Everything checked out....etc. and I got a real good deal!

Had no problems at all with it..... so it looked quite good to be true but not TOO good to be true.

Dukesy

Sometimes its a scam, sometimes it's just that someone needs to shift a car from their drive quickly.

I bought my current car from a private seller on autotrader for considerably less than it was worth, I made sure I checked the thing out thoroughly - both structurally and paperwork, and it was a great buy. He just needed it gone as it was his daughters and she had bought a new car. Be very wary and you could get a bargain, but do bear in mind that if it sounds too good to be true, it often is.

jase1

Five grand for a 2-year-old Peugeot?

Still too expensive.