Is this normal or dodgy?

DebbieR

My son is about to buy a 14 reg Vauxhall Astra Estate. He saw it on Evan's Halshaw site(ad is still on now), mileage is showing at 6575. They agreed to move it to our local dealership so he could test drive it. He noticed that the mileage was just under 9000. Apparently they've had it up for sale for a couple of months so I suppose it could have had a few test drives. I've looked on a car report site and it was last up for sale in April with a mileage of 3619 on the clock. The salesman said it's only had one owner so I'm a bit confused.

He went to complete the purchase of the car today but the spare key & log book were missing. He said he wasn't prepared to buy the car without sight of either. The salesman said it could take a couple of weeks for them to find the key/logbook and send them through from the original showroom and said it would be OK for my son to buy the car and get them forwarded on to him. He rang his dad who advised him to hold fire, which he did. He then got a call from the salesman saying they'd found the key and were going to get it and the logbook sent recorded delivery today.

It's all made me feel a bit wary. He's saved up for ages to buy this car-with a little help from us-and he's spending £10,000 on it. It's a lot of money if things go wrong. Is this a normal thing that happens? Are they just disorganised or should we be wary? Is there anything else we should be looking at buying from a dealership? We've never had any problems before.

ChumLee

Who is the previous keeper? It may have been owned by Vauxhall or the garage as a demonstrator/company car.

maninthestreet

How many test drives must it have had in the last 4 months to increase the mileage from just 3619 to 9000 miles??

bazster

People would normally be suspicious if the recorded mileage was lower than expected, not higher! I've never heard of a dodgy dealer winding the clock forwards!

Maybe someone at the garage borrowed it for a few weeks.

But if you/he are not happy, walk away. Plenty more cars out there.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Maybe they've been using it a a runner in the meantime, suspect the value isn't much affected.

Check the previous ownership, it might well have been a renter in which case 9k is more like it, if it was an employee car on the lease schemes the makers run for their staff then its entirely possible the 3k was correct when it came off fleet.
I've known renters to be defleeted only to be called back from compounds and put back on the road if they run short of cars.

Rental cars are not usually registered in the rental co's name, it might a holding group, and there's nothing inherently wrong with renters but Diesels do get misfuelled regularly especially at airport sites and it would be nice to know beforehand about previous ownership so you can make your own minds up.

If you're not happy walk away, there's thousands of Astras for sale.

Oh and never believe a word a car salesbod says, ever.

DebbieR

Thanks for the replies They're very helpful. Is there a way of checking the previous owner other than the log book? He doesn't mind the mileage being around 9K, the car is a year old, I was just confused as to how it jumped so much.

I know there are other Astras around but it's a white estate which he wants for work(he works for our family business & would rather have a car than a van & he really needs it to be white for the sign writing that's going on it) and this is the nicest one he's found. Sorry just realised that's a very long sentence!

EssexExile

I wouldn't worry who the previous owner was, I've bought year-old cars with previous owners Vauxhall Motors, Avis Rental & companies I'd never heard of. All have been fine. None of this tells you who drove the car or how they drove it.

colino

It is a walk away car. There are loads of them around, so why buy one that the group have been using as a workshop dog?

photome

I have bought dozens of cars over the years, the worst one with the most problems was bought from Evans Halshaw who were economical with the truth

Just saying