How to pay when buying from a garage?

vansboy · 29 January 2016 at 4:54PM

wazza2004 wrote: »

I am sorry but your last two paragraphs confused me. You are saying she should only buy from a franchised dealer because they can offer more benefits?

Sorry if I wasn't clear...

Buy a newish car from an independent dealer, it will still have some warranty and law dictates that as long as it is serviced correctly, warranty remains in place. Once warranty expires, you are on your own.

If you chose to buy, say your Ford from Ford garage, had it Ford serviced, then a year or two outside warranty, something went wrong which was expensive, then there is more often than not, a goodwill gesture from Ford/the branded dealer, to help cover the cost.

And, as many people are discovering, even on lower priced new cars, expensive problems can appear.

Also, regardless of peoples opinions of higher cost main dealer services, it still does look better when re-selling the car, to be able to say 'full main dealer service history'.

And another point, main dealers will ensure any updates to software on the car are applied, where sometimes this won't happen at a non-franchised service garage.

So while it's a newish, new car, do look at your options. you may be surprised at how much real value a main dealer could offer.

I'll even go as far to say, why is a newish car being sold outside of the main dealer network? Was it a finance reposession...this could indicate that if the owner couldn't afford repayments, they would probably have cut back on maintainence, already.

Has it had a number of owners, who sold the car due to problems?

If you give an idea of make, model, miles, price, everyone here will have an idea of if its a good deal, or offer alternatives.

VB