Buying a car - Husband selling it

facade

WellKnownSid said:

Yeah.  My daughter sold a car on AutoTrader recently - very honest advert, £400 spares or repairs as it wouldn't pass an MoT with the very large hole that had developed around the strut top.  She had a call from a guy 100 miles away asking if the car was still available and saying he was only 30 minutes away.  He duly turned up and eventually the deal was done at £360 ("it needs so much work, brakes, engine, oil leak, coil springs, drop links, it's going to be a project car but we're on a really tight budget").

Six hours later the car was polished up and pictured outside somewhere which looked like a stately home, put on Gumtree for £1,000 ("selling my beloved car, genuine reason for sale as got a company car, beautiful condition, no issues...") and clearly sold that day (for the second time)...

Ignoring the obvious untruths, both in the bargaining and the selling advert (standard driveway trader patter), assuming that they welded the strut top and got an MOT, where's the problem in a £640 markup?

DD could have got it welded and put £640 on the value herself, or run it for another couple of years.

A lot of driveway traders buy "fixer-uppers" for close to scrap value and punt them on after a quick repair that costs them pennies in outlay, and a bit of time.

WellKnownSid

facade said:
assuming that they welded the strut top and got an MOT, where's the problem in a £640 markup?

Except they didn't put an MoT on it - sold it on with the couple of months remaining as-is...  Presumably the 'pretending you're not really a trader' bit also makes it harder for consumer rights to be enforced.

To be fair, with that repair done it would have been a good car for someone - probably for at least another couple of years until the tin worm became terminal.  Unfortunately not ULEZ compliant so it had already become unusable for DD's commuting.

Herzlos

Do you think the dealer managed to get it welded and tidied up in 6 hours, including the 2+ hours driving time?

It's clearly been given a quick wash and relisted with no knowledge of the impending MOT failure.

Otherwise I'd agree with you; it's perfectly reasonable to buy cars that need a bit of work, tidy them up and sell them on. Assuming you actually fix the issues and not just remove warning lights.