Buying a second hand Car - Advice needed!

TCG_2

Hi, hope I'm posting in correct section.

I am trying to buy my first car and am after a second hand, cheap to insure little runaround ideal for a new driver. I have been looking on Gumtree but a friend warned me against it and said that Car Auctions are better at finding cars that have very few miles on the clock but need a little work.

Can anyone advise me on whether this is a smart move? :rolleyes:

mummytofour

Car auctions are where all teh dealers send cars they dont want connection with IE they are often rubbish!
Getting a car from gumtree is fine as is auto trader, you do need to be carefull tho and have some limits.

eoinjohn

Hi Anyone

Not used to such forums.

Sorry for replying with a question, however just purchsed a new car that wa advertised as having 2600 miles on the clock and one previous owner from a garage. I was told it was an ex demonstrator. One week later i picked it up and it had 6200 miles on the clock. Now i recieved the log book and it shows another owner and the built in sat nav shows the HOME address as the previous one on the log book. Where do I stand for any recompense in this situation. ??? Any advice welcome. Thanks

Evie82

We bought a 2nd hand car yesterday, saw it on ebay, went for a look and paid cash there and then.

I would start with local paper rather than websites. Alot of supposed "private" cars area actually traders.

As for cheap and economical, we borrowed a friends Nissan Micra 1.0 and £20 filled the tank and lasted us 1 week, which as we travel alot, was brilliant. Its a great little car, comfy, handles well and cheap on insurance. From borrowing that car, we decided to stick with Nissan and just go a little bigger, we bought a Nissan Sunny 1.4, N Reg, only done 60k and full service/mot/tax. We paid £400 for it and insurance for a year is £120.

Stick to something as small as you can, engine and size wise to save the pennys.
Oh and ALWAYS haggle, we got lots of the price.

hilstep2000

The AA and RAC will always do a check for you. It costs, but it's worth it.

saintscouple

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Keith

mummytofour wrote: »

Car auctions are where all teh dealers send cars they dont want connection with IE they are often rubbish!
Getting a car from gumtree is fine as is auto trader, you do need to be carefull tho and have some limits.

No, you are wrong. Dealers send to auction car's which they do not market, such as 3 year old cars when they are a main dealer with Pre Reg to 2 years old cars on the forecourt.

Then a back street garage will buy these cars and then sell them on the forecourt at a markup and your average joe buys them.

First car, buy a cheap 1k car from ebay and drive it for 2 years. Good luck

Lord_Lardington

Keith wrote: »

No, you are wrong. Dealers send to auction car's which they do not market

Absolutely right. If you trade in a perfectly honest and good £500 or £1000 car at a place dealing pretty much exclusively in £7000-£15000 cars then they just can't give it forecourt space.

Of course, it doesn't mean that there aren't lemons at auctions...

AdrianHi

I did some work on BCA's IT systems recently so got to know a bit about their business.
They shift a huge number of cars per day:eek:
The stock at auction (including electronic auctions to dealers only before they get to physical auction centres) come from car leasing companies / finance houses, car rental firms and even the car companies themselves who all have leasing divisions to their companies.
Car dealers, including franchised dealers, buy some of their forecourt stock from auctions. The quality of cars at auction will be just as good / bad as anywhere else.