How to protect yourself buying a second hand car ?

property.advert

I am interested in a car offered for sale by a dealer a couple of hours from me (fairly rare car so not vast quantities about) but I am hesitant to buy, scared I guess of buying a lemon.

In reality, what can I do ?

As it is a 4x4, a RAC inspection is £305 (members) or £346 (non members) and I'd have to do it before travelling as it won't be available until the next working day. I'm not sure how much faith I have in these inspections in any case.

I can hardly put it through a MOT test or send it to a dealership to have the once over.

If I pay £101 on a credit card then I guess I'm covered to a certain degree but how far ? if stolen I guess (can do HPI remotely) but what about if something major mechanical goes wrong ?

Price is £10k or thereabouts, 3 1/2 years old, ex lease car with FSH.

Any advice or ideas most welcome.

Netwizard

property.advert wrote: »

Any advice or ideas most welcome.

My first thought is that £346 is a VERY small price to pay for piece of mind on a £10k car. I can't say as I have ever had an RAC / AA inspection carried out, but it would certainly be better than any inspection I could do myself whilst viewing the car.

Its obviously an expensive car being sold by a main dealer, so I would expect it to come with 12 months MOT as a condition of sale.

Finally, what car is it? I'm thinking something like a hemi Jeep?
Check owners clubs / car forums for any known issues or weak points of the car and make sure these are checked before you buy

/edit - google just found this site: http://www.mycarinspections.co.uk/

Price for a 5.2 litre Jeep Grand Cherokee as an example:

Pre Purchase - Gold: £255
217 Point Inspection
Hpi Check
Road Test
Written Online Report
Same Day Verbal Report
Fully comprehensive Pre Purchase Inspection carried out by qualified & insured inspector at the vehicles current location.

Might be worth a look.

property.advert

Car is not main dealer, that would raise the price to circa £13k. Car is Nissan Murano 3.5L

The price of the inspection is fine but worthless if you read about the horror stories relating to RAC / AA inspections which are often subcontracted out and when something goes wrong, they appear to give as much protection as a chocolate fireguard.

http://www.mycarinspections.co.uk/ doesn't fill me with any confidence. Nasty 0844 number, company is listed as "dormant" at Companies House, it uses a virtual office in London and the sole director has multiple failed companies behind him. I wouldn't bet on them being here tomorrow, nevermind next year. At least the AA and RAC have a public face to shame and sue.

Then again, we don't want to sue, we want to have a worthwhile examination which will do what the public expect it to and be backed by those who take money for compiling it. That doesn't appear to be the case.

forgotmyname

61 on the autotrader website so not that rare.

colino

Not that rare and your target age ones are probably up for sale because the autoboxes are costing so much to fix.

Strider590

I find the best approach is to learn about the vehicle, test the salesman, if he talks a load of crap, then walk.

property.advert

forgotmyname wrote: »

61 on the autotrader website so not that rare.

Sure 61 examples covering 2004 to 2011 compared to 1337 BMW X5s, 586 Lexus RXs, 1088 Mercedes M class models, etc.

In the variant I'm looking at there are 8 for sale on Autotrader.

Horizon81

Of course they're pretty rare. I thought they just stopped in 2008, didn't even know there was a new model, certainly havent ever seen one.

So, OP, you're looking at a 10 reg model for about £10k? That does seem cheaper than any of the ones on autotrader. To be honest, if you're that worried about buying a lemon, maybe get your heart set on a different car, that's not too far from you that you can take to your trusted mechanic to inspect. If you buy this Murano and it turns out to be a pup then you don't want to be travelling back and forth 2 hours for the supplying dealer to fix.

photome

rachels post looks like spam to me

Norman_Castle

Both of rachels posts look like spam to me.