About to buy car via distance selling

lopsyfa

Except you are a key worker, a car is not necessarily essential at the moment for most people. Mine has been parked up for 2 weeks and only used twice for about 2/3 miles for groceries shopping but I would have been happy to buy online and have them deliver if I don't have one currently.

The £9000 car will just sat in your drive depreciating until the lock-down is removed. Keep the money and call taxi for any essential journey you need to make. It is highly likely the dealer will take your money and they won't deliver the car - the delivery driver will need to go back and delivering the car and returning home is not an essential journey. Many companies will go bust before this pandemic is over and if you pay and the car is not delivered, you are at a risk of losing your money if the dealer/car supermarket go bust.

Even if the car is delivered, it will be very difficult to rectify any issue after delivery. What if the car break down after 1 week? If you need a car urgently, buy a very cheap one (< £1000) private near you.

spiro

Other than the points, 2 things:
1) How is the driver going to get back?
2) If you are sure you want to buy the car suggest to them that they drive the car to you to inspect it and if you want it you will do a bank tranfe there and then and if you don't you will pay them £x to cover cost of bringing it to you.

strawb_shortcake

My car died the day before lockdown, yes it's a bit of a nuisance but not the end of the world. I can walk to the local shop and buses are still running. I live in a rural location so buses are infrequent but workable. 
It's been suggested that after this, used car prices are going to drop, so your £9k car is likely to be worth even less than usual depreciation. 
I really don't understand why someone would entertain buying a car they haven't seen in test driven.
If you have £9k sat waiting would it not be better to hire a car (special deals for key workers) and buy a new car once everything is back up and running?

waamo

My crystal ball says the OP will ignore everyone saying not to do it and proceed with this idiocy. Their next post will be in about 10 days time asking how you reject a vehicle.

born_again

spiro said:

Other than the points, 2 things:
1) How is the driver going to get back?
2) If you are sure you want to buy the car suggest to them that they drive the car to you to inspect it and if you want it you will do a bank tranfe there and then and if you don't you will pay them £x to cover cost of bringing it to you.

Best guess car will be on a truck, so driver drives truck back.
Don't think they will want to transport a car (cost quite a bit) on the hope that someone buys it. 

photome

waamo said:

My crystal ball says the OP will ignore everyone saying not to do it and proceed with this idiocy. Their next post will be in about 10 days time asking how you reject a vehicle.

Which will most likely be impossible as the dealer could well be closed down by then for the foreseeable... 

gerkin

This is a well known scam! Google it

Mercdriver

gerkin said:

This is a well known scam! Google it

There are a few new companies advertising car sales online with doorstep deliveries, so it's not necessarily scam.  Heycar and Cazoo are advertising quite heavily at the moment.  I wouldn't buy this way from just anyone though, so I agree caution is the watchword

Scrapit

neilmcl said:

born_again said:

The car is yours once you hand over the cash and sign the receipt...
As we all know V5 is NOT proof of ownership.

But why are car dealerships still open. They are not included in the list of allowed to open
All retail with notable exceptions Car garages and MOT services
That is not car sales. 
This from kia..
>> In line with the latest government guidelines, all of our Dealer showrooms are now closed but some of our workshops up and down the country remain open to support essential requirements.<<

They shouldn't be and would also be breaking the law by delivering the car as it's not an essential journey.

Really? I heard bozza say you can go to work if you can't work from home. Not many car delivery drivers working from home currently.

Petriix

Regardless of the specific merits (or not) of this particular purchase, people need to stop repeating the misinformed opinion that 'all non essential businesses have to close'; that's simply not true and would be absolutely devastating for the already strained economy. Businesses are absolutely fine to run as normal with the exception of those specified. Distance selling has actually been encouraged.