Checks on second hand cars - be wary!

fimacdoodle

Having never liked dealers selling cars, I find my own. I used total car check before buying a mini (other check systems are out there for a fee), checking for outstanding finance - and it even picked up the car had been damaged/salvaged with pictures of the damage. impressive. The car was not shown as a cat N or anything. Instant service and well worth the small sum. you can use the mot gov.uk site for free ,  but that is limited to check mot fails and mileage. Whilst car shopping , I noticed many pics of the same cars on websites - different buyers and locations. The social media platforms were uninterested when I flagged them as scams. Be very nosey!

cymruchris

And never part with your money until you’ve seen the car - no matter how much of a bargain it is. 

tacpot12

Car Vertical is another service that will assemble all the paper evidence that is available online about your car, but ultimately a proper HPI check is necessary to ensure the car isn't stolen or written off. 

forgotmyname

They do not pickup many crashed and repaired cars though.

Many cars out there that will come up all clear and be structurally unsound.

WellKnownSid

forgotmyname said:

They do not pickup many crashed and repaired cars though.

Many cars out there that will come up all clear and be structurally unsound.

100%.  My son regularly checks out cars for his main dealer's approved scheme.

If it doesn't meet dealer standards, it may get sold through the 'connected' dealership on the same site as either an off-brand approved sale or non-approved.  Add to that cars from other brands also being sold on both forecourts - to a different set of standards - so you might have five or six different levels of preparation of cars all sold on the same site - confusing, huh?

For the on-brand cars, if it requires substantial work to bring it back to standard or has crash damage it'll end up as a 'low mileage pristine example' on one of the many forecourts around the city.  If the car ever ends up back at his workshop, none of the repairs will have been carried out.

It doesn't matter how big the brand, or which X-factor star does the advert - the majority of second hand dealers are just tarting up whatever they get hold of.

flashg67

I've reported countless facebook marketplace car adverts which clearly use 'stolen' photos from real ads, but seems they don't care.

motorguy

tacpot12 said:

Car Vertical is another service that will assemble all the paper evidence that is available online about your car, but ultimately a proper HPI check is necessary to ensure the car isn't stolen or written off. 

vcheck uk give you a full HPI check and also check salvage yard records.  They also check if its an ex taxi

Sometimes cars get written off but dont get registered on VCAR (therefore HPI wont pick up they've been written off).

fimacdoodle

flashg67 said:

I've reported countless facebook marketplace car adverts which clearly use 'stolen' photos from real ads, but seems they don't care.

me too - the same car used in various places in the uk - with different sellers. Autorader seems safer but very few private ads.

fimacdoodle

I used total car check - for my last cheapie car - worked really well and even had photos of the unreported damage - so you can make a decision based on physical repair rather than vague speculation.......

sheslookinhot

fimacdoodle said:

flashg67 said:

I've reported countless facebook marketplace car adverts which clearly use 'stolen' photos from real ads, but seems they don't care.

me too - the same car used in various places in the uk - with different sellers. Autorader seems safer but very few private ads.

Over 60,000 private ads for cars on Autotrader this morning.

Herzlos

sheslookinhot said:

fimacdoodle said:

flashg67 said:

I've reported countless facebook marketplace car adverts which clearly use 'stolen' photos from real ads, but seems they don't care.

me too - the same car used in various places in the uk - with different sellers. Autorader seems safer but very few private ads.

Over 60,000 private ads for cars on Autotrader this morning.

Out of 452,549 cars. So 13% are private, which is higher than I was expecting. 

Plus I wonder how many of the private ads are actually private sellers and not either scams or driveway dealers.