Best place to buy a used car with confidence?

BeenThroughItAll

fridgeracer wrote: »

just don't buy a used car that has had more than 2 previous owners in it's lifetime. this means, so long as service history is in full, that it has been looked after and you probably will not have anything terrible fail on it as the 3rd owner shortly after buying it.

Where the hell do you get that bit of 'advice' from? Number of owners doesn't necessarily reflect problems or condition.


I've owned cars with over 20 previous keepers, none of which have been any worse than any of the one-keeper vehicles I've bought, because as already stated a million times, CONDiTION is way more important than any number like mileage, former keepers, registration plate etc.



A car could easily have only one owner who treats it like crap and invests nothing in it other than ditchfinder tyres and a service once a year at the main dealer, which in no way guarantees it'll be in A1 condition when they get rid of it just before the first MOT.

forgotmyname

The 1st owner could have treated the car like crap. Neglected servicing yet knows a mate who will get the book stamped.

Thrashed to death from cold every single day. Then trades it in for a new one.

Car gets a full valet and looks like new, A full service and buyer no 2 things he has a well kept car. They look after it and fit decent parts.

Unless you know the previous owner/driver then you never really know.

[Deleted User]

Honestly, I don't think there is anywhere you can buy a used car with total confidence. Believe me, I wish there was.


Warranties from dealers (independent and main) aren't always as good as they sound, although they are better than nothing (I've successfully claimed on them myself).


You could pay a mechanic to check over any car you're thinking of buying, I did that once, he detected a slight misfire but said it shouldn't be a problem - it turned out it was though and after buying I found I had to top up a litre of oil every month.


Really what you need is experience buying used cars, so I would start cheap, under £1000 with 6+ months MOT. If you get it wrong, it won't hurt you too much financially.

bery_451

What about part exchanges? Which places give the best price for your car?


Also are auctions the best place to buy company/lease cars? If so who is the best Car auction company at the moment?


If buying from a dealer how can you tell that the car was a company/lease car?

roonaldo

roonaldo wrote: »

I think you need to change your prospective. A good car is going to be one that has full service history, good condition and ideally lower mileage..

All I said in post 11 was this. It seems the old banger brigade took offense. Like for like and low mileage is going to be wear, less wear and tear and its going to be easier to sell. There is a reason high mileage cars cost less.

I'm not even singing the praises of low mileage cars. One of my earlier cars was a low mileage car and had massive problems as it had probably just been sat on someones driveway for 5 years, I had a stack of issues. A car needs to be driven.

roonaldo

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

I've owned cars with over 20 previous keepers,

and its probably something like a classic VW campervan or Beatle am I right? I would worry massively about buying a 5 year old Focus with 20 owners. I really dont think the OP wants a car with that many owners.

[Deleted User]

bery_451 wrote: »

What about part exchanges? Which places give the best price for your car?


Also are auctions the best place to buy company/lease cars? If so who is the best Car auction company at the moment?


If buying from a dealer how can you tell that the car was a company/lease car?

1. If PXing, forget about the 'price' they give you for your car, focus on how much extra on top of your car your paying. They may offer you a good PX, but the car they sell you may be overpriced. Any place that consistently gave the 'best' price for cars wouldn't stay in business that long - you'll just have to drive round different places and ask them what they'll offer.


2. Auctions are the highest risk place to buy cars, you don't usually get a test drive, nor any warranty.


3. Look at the V5 document, if it has a leasing company name as the owner, then it's a lease/company car.

BeenThroughItAll

roonaldo wrote: »

and its probably something like a classic VW campervan or Beatle am I right? I would worry massively about buying a 5 year old Focus with 20 owners. I really dont think the OP wants a car with that many owners.

Sorry, but no. I wouldn't drive either of those if you paid me.


I had a 7 year old Impreza STi IV Type R 2-door which had had 21 owners. I suspect that the majority of them had realised quite quickly that they couldn't afford to run it and sold it on.


I owned a 9 year old A8 4.2 Quattro which had 17 owners. Same rules apply again I suspect.


About three years ago, I had a Volvo V40 for about nine months. That had 97K on it when I bought it at just over 7 years old, and it had had 16 owners in that time.


My current 12 year old V70 D5 has 12 owners on the V5, most of which have been in the last four years. Apart from usual wear and tear (I've replaced a couple of suspension bushes and it needs a couple of tyres) the car is in excellent nick for its age and now 125K miles.


By comparison, my wife's current '1 owner' Saab 9-3 convertible had £2.5K worth of warranty work done within two weeks of ownership because I checked it over thoroughly. I knew before I handed over the money what it needed, and took full advantage of the warranty to get it done.


There are plenty of reasons why cars have lots of owners. Look at the number of Corsas which are passed around a family to learn to drive in and as a first car. They could easily have five or six owners on without even leaving the same address. Then there's DVLA cocking up name changes, fixing errors in address etc and adding another spurious owner record. Then there's plenty of people like me who get bored easily and change cars quickly.


I suspect a lot of 'normal' family eurobox hatches end up with loads of owners purely because people try to be sensible and buy them, then three months later realise they'd rather exfoliate with a cheese grater than continue to drive them, and get rid.


As I've said before - condition is way more important than any arbitrary number whether miles, number of main dealer stamps in the book, owners, etc.


Amuses me when I see 'one doctor owner from new' on adverts. I used to work with hundreds of doctors, and none of them gave a !!!! about their cars.

[Deleted User]

I agree there aren't many hard rules to go by when buying car. What would make some buyers walk away, others would not care about. A friend of mine recently sold a land rover and the buyer wasn't the least bit interested in the lack of service history, all he did was have a good look under the bonnet and take it for a test drive.


Personally I like to see evidence of regular oil changes, as the engine wear due to infrequent oil changes isn't possible to spot. This evidence doesn't have to be garage stamps in the book, it could be receipts for oil if the owner does it themselves. Also evidence of the cam belt change. I'd ask the seller about these on the phone before bothering to go and look at the car.


Other things like the condition of the exhaust, suspension, and brakes you can usually get a good idea of when inspecting the car. You can also get ODB11 code readers quite cheap and plug them to check for error codes (which could of course have been deleted by the seller).


I wonder if it's possible to get cheap smoke test kits to check emissions?

bery_451

Ok how do I check on how long the car has been advertised on autotrader?