Anyone used Motorpoint?

Xeorix

My current lease through work is coming to an end, and rather than tie myself into the company for another 4 years, I've decided to look outside to see whats on offer.

I'm looking at either pre-reg or ex-demo cars as there can be some good deals on these, and the Golf GTD or GTI have taken my fancy.

If I were to buy these new from a dealer, i'd be looking at £26k+, or I could get a used one from a dealer for about £24k.

Browsing on Autotrader, I found a number of cars from Motorpoint, all Golf GTD and GTI's, but they're listed for £21k. It sounded a bit too good to be true so I gave them a call to ask for the registration number, and I was told:

This car is an EU import, and it is currently unregistered, so would be registered by Motorpoint and come with a '16 plate

Now this really does sound too good to be true. A brand new Golf GTD, for £21,000?

Has anyone had any experience with Motorpoint, something seems off here..

agrinnall

Given that they sold 40,000 cars in 2014 the answer to your headline question is clearly Yes.

http://www.am-online.com/news/2015/1/12/ford-tops-car-sales-at-motorpoint/37600/

Xeorix

OK, thanks for being clever

I was hoping for some real world experience

verityboo

No first hand experience but you would need to clarify what warranty the car had and the exact age/spec. Also may not be worth as much when you come to sell. Caution is needed

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=86&t=700671

Xeorix

Well that post alone is enough to put me right off!

What actually happens is e.g. in 2006 BMW Malaysia buy a batch of 525i's from the factory in China/ India, and keep them in stock. Come 2008, the cars have been sat in a field for 2 years unsold. To make matters worse they are now the old model, as the current 5-series has been facelifted. As they clearly arent going to sell and are now pre-facelift, they decide to accept a loss and sell them on cheaply to another RHD country. Motorpoint UK take them at a vastly discounted price. Now heres the clever bit, although the cars are 2+ years old, they never got officialy registered, so Motorpoint are able to stick them on a 58 numberplate, and sell them to Joe Public as a brand new motor. As its an outside of EU import theres not going to be a proper warrantty, and the specification, security and emission standards are completely different (uaully much lower) to UK.
A few years down the line you may find the car that was cheap at the time fails its MOT (this happened to a batch of Mercedes imported from India in 2003 as they did not meet UK emisssion standards).

You will also find when you come to sell the car on, most people won't touch it with a bargepole as it was originally a grey import. In this case BMW dealers were all sent a memo warning them to stay away from these particular cars.

Finally because these cars were sat in a field for ages, little things go wrong like there may be rust and corossion, and paintwork can get damaged.

Now this is only one example, but I know near enough the same happened to some Golf GTIs (2005 Dubai cars sold in UK 2007) and I've noticed some other very suspect looking cars recenty, including a batch of Mercedes B-Classes, some VW Jettas and these Imprezas.

bigadaj

Might be worth looking at alternatives like drive the deal or broad speed for comparison?

force_ten

Xeorix wrote: »

Browsing on Autotrader, I found a number of cars from Motorpoint, all Golf GTD and GTI's, but they're listed for £21k. It sounded a bit too good to be true so I gave them a call to ask for the registration number, and I was told:



Now this really does sound too good to be true. A brand new Golf GTD, for £21,000?

Has anyone had any experience with Motorpoint, something seems off here..

yes i bought a ford mondeo from them, I went to the site in derby and i was taken to a compound where they had 20 plus brand new mondeos and i chose a racing green one and went back to the office to do the paperwork and went back three days late to collect my car and as i drove off the motorpoint site in derby the car had three miles on it

it was a parallel import from europe and because of this it only had two years manufacturer warranty rather than the three years that you would get off ford UK

never had any issues in the three years i owned it and the purchase price was 4K cheaper than ford uk for a 2.0L petrol Zetec

force_ten

I see your post above about the BMW,s which i would take with a pinch of salt

the car i bought was 9 months old when it was registered and sold to me and i had my local ford dealer confirm the warranty that i was getting on the car and it was them that informed me about the two years on a european car

the reason i know the car was 11 months old was after owning the car for a month i found it had a small glove box on the drivers side and in the glove box was a long printout with a date and time and all the final inspection check data as the car came off the production line

motorguy

Xeorix wrote: »

Now this really does sound too good to be true. A brand new Golf GTD, for £21,000?

When you can buy a full UK one OTR through a broker for £23,000

https://broadspeed.com/CarView/Volkswagen/Golf/36237/TDI_BMT_2.0_184PS_Diesel_GTD_Manual_3_doors

I actually think the motorpoint one is expensive, bearing in mind

• It will have a different, lower, spec
• You have no idea of its provenance - it could have sat in the bleaching sun in Malta for a year
• It will have a 2 year warranty, not 3
• You wont be able to avail of any finance offers from VW UK (currently putting in £1250 contribution to PCP deals)
• You probably wont be able to take advantage of service pack offers that you can get with UK cars
• It will be worth less come resale time

motorguy

force_ten wrote: »

I see your post above about the BMW,s which i would take with a pinch of salt

the car i bought was 9 months old when it was registered and sold to me and i had my local ford dealer confirm the warranty that i was getting on the car and it was them that informed me about the two years on a european car

the reason i know the car was 11 months old was after owning the car for a month i found it had a small glove box on the drivers side and in the glove box was a long printout with a date and time and all the final inspection check data as the car came off the production line

I do remember those BMWs because i considered one. They were VERY cheap at the time.

bigjl

I would go with MotorGuys suggestion of brand new with a big discount.

DrivetheDeal do a GTD 5 door with a few options like reversing camera and park assist for £23475, you could save a bit of you went for a very basic GTD with no options.