2 questions re safety of buying car from dealer

stormCat99

bazzyb wrote: »

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,



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?

Thanks for confirming re the finance, I had suspected this was probably normal.

No problem with funding limits, it's £49999 limit with my bank.

Fair point re the reduction in consumer rights, but then at the same time had I found something at a local dealer I'd have been collecting in person anyway so I was looking at it like that.

What's special about it? Nothing per se, except that it's the only one I've seen that meets my requirements (well, even then not all of them, I've had to lose some features that I had on my old one that I've just sold, simply because not many have them).

I've been searching for a few weeks and this is the first one I've seen that I'd be willing to compromise on, so for me it's worth it to travel to go and collect it.

stormCat99

motorguy wrote: »

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.

It's a 15 plate car with quite a few months left on the Landrover warranty so that is additional peace of mind for us.

stormCat99

motorguy wrote: »

+1

Pay a deposit by credit card.

We've already paid the deposit via credit card to ensure that extra bit of protection.

As I say I'm just naturally super cautious and wary, and want to minimise the chance of any issues.

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?

We've seen all the documentation. We've seen a video of the interior/exterior and given that there is nothing on there to worry us, I don't mind making the trip.

The worst that could happen is we see something in person on arrival which we couldn't in the video, or that an issue crops up during the test drive. In which case we wouldn't go ahead with purchasing, in which case we'd have wasted a day, but I can live with that.

Not sure why you think we'd spend 8 hours viewing and test driving it though? Most I've ever had is say a half hour test drive and then however long discussing with the dealer on top, they do tend to be slow but 8 hours is a bit much!

Am hoping it'll be no more than 4 hours max for us to be in and out.

MrsNubs

They don't mean you'll spend 8 hours test driving, they are saying it's worth another 8 hour round trip in order to test drive it

BeenThroughItAll

boots_babe wrote: »

We've seen all the documentation. We've seen a video of the interior/exterior and given that there is nothing on there to worry us, I don't mind making the trip.

The worst that could happen is we see something in person on arrival which we couldn't in the video, or that an issue crops up during the test drive. In which case we wouldn't go ahead with purchasing, in which case we'd have wasted a day, but I can live with that.

Not sure why you think we'd spend 8 hours viewing and test driving it though? Most I've ever had is say a half hour test drive and then however long discussing with the dealer on top, they do tend to be slow but 8 hours is a bit much!

Am hoping it'll be no more than 4 hours max for us to be in and out.

You said the dealer was 4hrs away. 4x2 =8 hours spent there and back to view.

stormCat99

Ah ok that makes far more sense :-)

motorguy

boots_babe wrote: »

We've already paid the deposit via credit card to ensure that extra bit of protection.

As I say I'm just naturally super cautious and wary, and want to minimise the chance of any issues.

And you're right to be cautious. As Ronald Reagan used to say "Trust - but verify".

Its good to see someone doing their due diligence and asking the right questions. There was someone on here a couple of weeks ago who'd paid a significant sum of money to an internet only scam company and he'd lost the lot, just by not doing due diligence before hand.

CardinalWolsey

Debit card is the way to go - you will have no problems with this: I bought a Disco on a card a while ago and yes, it bounced first try, but a call to the bank and through to their fraud team and ten minutes later went through cleanly.

Another reason for debit card is if, for whatever reason, you decide to walk away from the car and not purchase it, how long will it take the dealer to remit your money back to you? That's a lot of money to have to chase a garage over, and if in the meantime another RR comes up, you might not have the funds on hand to purchase it.

loskie

I wouldn't pay before I have seen and agreed to buy the car or remedy any blemishes and faults you spot. Otherwise the garage has the upper hand.
If it is Arnold Clark avoid at all cost.