2 questions re safety of buying car from dealer

agrinnall

CHAPS payments only take place on business days so what you have done previously is not relevant to what you want to do on a Sunday this time. They probably won't accept a Faster Payment (assuming your bank allows a transfer of £24K) as it can take to the end of the next business day to arrive - to be honest, even doing it on Friday is no guarantee the money will be there on Sunday.


If it were me I'd do it on the Sunday with a debit card, as long as your bank has customer service staff available on a Sunday should there be any problem to be resolved, but if the dealer won't accept that then I don't see that you have much choice other that to do what they have requested.

Car_54

I would suggest that, in buying an expensive unseen car from a dealer four hours away, this may turn out to be the least of your problems.

bazzyb

The finance on the car will likely be unit stocking, especially if a 4 month agreement. The HPI check will probably show if this is the case, if not you can ask Lombard. If it's unit stocking there's no issue, if it's anything different I would be expecting the dealer to provide evidence that the finance has been cleared before paying for the car.

You can't do a CHAPS payment on Sunday because it is not a working day, also there is likely no way that the dealer would be able to check if they had received the payment anyway as their admin staff will be working Monday to Frianyway

If you are planning to transfer the funds using online banking, HSBC have a cap of £10k per day (or at least they used to). I would therefore assume First Direct to be the same, so if you wait until Friday to transfer the funds you may find that you are £14k short.

If they accept card payments then I would personally be looking to pay the balance on my debit card when I go to collect.

Finally,

boots_babe wrote: »

We've been told the only way we can get the car is to collect in person, as they once got stung by someone who collected from elsewhere, as it was classed as a transaction under the Distance Selling Regs and got into a dispute over scratches that apparently weren't there when it left the dealership.

I find this particularly concerning that the dealer is going out of their way to reduce your rights as a consumer. If the cars they are selling are all sold as described then there should be no issues in them arranging delivery etc. As they don't want to allow you to have these rights then don't expect an easy ride if you turn up and the car isn't what you thought it was going to be.

What is so special about the car anyway? Can you not find one closer to home to avoid all this?

Herzlos

boots_babe wrote: »

The dealer is Nissan in Perth, part of the John Clark Motor Group.

I bought my last car from their Edinburgh branch, and it's been the most decent car sales experience of my life. Possibly the only car dealer I'd recommend.

If you're worried about paying by BACS before you see it, then can you arrange to go and pay by debit card / Faster Payment on the Friday? For the £24k you're spending it's definitely worth a day off work.

macman

Why are you paying £25K plus for a car you have never seen (In the flesh), or test driven, nor examined the documentation for? Surely that sort of investment merits another 8 hours spent to view and test drive it before purchasing?

loskie

I bought an MX5 from Murray Mazda, Edinburgh a few years ago for £15000. Picked up on a Saturday and paid on the day with a debit card. I bank with HBOS. There were no issues. Similarly with a new Volvo V50 from Parks in Ayr. I would not recommend Parks however.

stormCat99

k3lvc wrote: »

Is this a Nissan Cared4 car - a potentially extra level of safety ?

Alternatively if the financial bit worries you then renegotiate and offer to take their finance and whatever incentive they offer for that. You can then pay it off at your leisure within first few days at limited (or no) cost

If I had confidence in both the above I'd be asking them to deliver it to me rather than trying to do business on a Sunday and the risk of an 8hr drive for nothing

I'm not sure what a Nissan Cared4 car is, but I doubt it, the car we're buying from them is a Range Rover Evoque that someone has traded in with them, rather than an actual Nissan model.

Really don't want to take finance, we're paying cash and don't want to take finance we don't need - although I do understand why you've suggested it.

We did initially ask them to delivery, but they apparently got caught out on delivery previously. Recipient said there was damage on the car on arrival, which garage disputed. But because of not being collected in person it was covered under Distance Selling Regs and garage ended up having to pay up.

motorguy

bazzyb wrote: »

I find this particularly concerning that the dealer is going out of their way to reduce your rights as a consumer. If the cars they are selling are all sold as described then there should be no issues in them arranging delivery etc. As they don't want to allow you to have these rights then don't expect an easy ride if you turn up and the car isn't what you thought it was going to be.

I mean - seriously???

Distance selling regulations are not something a car dealer will want to extend into, therefore they are not going out of their way to reduce rights, they are merely not willing to extend them beyond their business model. That is not unreasonable.

Also, its not like you can stick a car in the post for £5.50 Special Delivery. It would require either transported down at around £200 by a third party who will dump it on the O/Ps driveway and !!!!!! off so not much in the way of "customer experience" OR would require them to pay a driver to take the car down and make their own way back up, so easily a days pay plus significant expenses.

Thats NOT something your average mass car dealer will want to get involved in full stop.

The car will still be under manufacturers warranty so the O/P can just go to their nearest Nissan dealer to have warranty work / servicing done.

Likewise if you DO want the car delivered its not hard to organise yourself. We bought a Renault Modus for my FIL from a Renault dealer in Bootle and had it picked up by a car transport firm here and shipped back to Northern Ireland. The car was an easy £2,000 cheaper than we could get one locally and we just transferred the money to the dealer and then had the transport company contact them RE: pickup.

I had no expectations though that the Renault dealer would organise and do all this for me (except, no doubt for a hefty charge)

stormCat99

macman wrote: »

Why are you paying £25K plus for a car you have never seen (In the flesh), or test driven, nor examined the documentation for? Surely that sort of investment merits another 8 hours spent to view and test drive it before purchasing?

I've just sold an identical car so in terms of the drive etc I know it's what I want. Re buying without seeing, we will be doing the test drive when we arrive at the garage. So it's not as though we'll be buying blind. We've already seen all the paperwork plus HPI check, plus a video of the exterior/interior, so I've done everything I can from a distance, to make sure we're not making the trip up for no reason.

On arrival we'll do the test drive and check all looks OK in person before completing paperwork etc.

motorguy

macman wrote: »

Why are you paying £25K plus for a car you have never seen (In the flesh), or test driven, nor examined the documentation for? Surely that sort of investment merits another 8 hours spent to view and test drive it before purchasing?

There would be merit in this. I'd consider going up one weekend, viewing and inspecting the car, then arranging picking it up the next weekend. As you say, £25,000 is perhaps worth doing that for if in doubt at all.

Having said that, if its a £25K from a Nissan dealer that suggests its a new / pre-reg or close to new car which should minimise risk

Likewise if the O/P is otherwise happy with what they're seen so far, then grand.