Buying secondhand

[Bren]

Somebody once said on here either brand new or sub grand for a car - nothing in between.

 

Having looked at four cars to replace our focus, I can only summise people don't really care for their cars anymore.

 

Mismatched cheapo tyres, tyres with little tread and chunks missing out of them, non working air con (" may only need a re gas"), other non working items, kerbed alloys, dented bodywork, missing service history or no history, short MOT, I could go on.

 

You expect this on cheapo cars - not cars in the £2000 - £2500 bracket. My first decent car cost me £2k in 1992 - an eight year old cavalier SRI in black with 76k on the clock. You would struggle to get an eight year old car now with that mileage.

 

For now, we will stick with the focus......

[Kiltox]

There's a lot of shit out there that's for sure.

 

Sold a 2008/08 Clio last week for that kind of money - 1 owner from new, full service history backed up with receipts, cambelt change with proof, 47k miles

 

Couple of people who viewed it said that they'd seen some utter fucking dogs at other dealers

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

Agree with the grand or new, done both with no major problems. 

[Jim Bell]

I used to love buying cars at £400. Its hard to go wrong at the bottom end of the market.

I fucking hate buying cars at around a grand though, and nearly everything Ive paid more than a grand for has ended in disaster. Theres so fucking many terrible, uncared for, incorrectly described, hanging shit out there. And so many fuckers that beleive theyre doing you a favour by showing you an absolute shed. Id hate to have to go and spend £2000 on one car. My ulcer would most probably burst with stress and rage.

 

Best of luck!

[mrbenn]

Agree with the above.

 

I was looking for a new car recently. Was considering a Panda 100hp (which I ended up buying but quickly sold), mk2 Focus or Volvo S40. The Volvos were, by and large pretty well looked after. Being a more premium car, owners perhaps consider them being worthy of spending on. Most had full service history and decent tyres.

 

The Pandas were a bit of a mixture. Most seemed to have a few stamps in the book, maybe some receipts and a full history was rare, but not unheard of.

 

As for the Focus' I looked at..... bloody hell. People just treated them as white goods. Use it until it breaks then throw it away, or fix it in the cheapest possible way.

 

Made me realise what a well sorted, cared for car my own Focus is.

[dollywobbler]

Yup. There's a LOT of dross below a grand too, but it's the dregs of the stuff that was £2000 and seriously uncared for, that someone has then bought and cared for even less. I've spent much of the last week sifting through the crap trying to find the jewels I know are there. Dull Toyotas seem a good bet, because they're often driven by gentle people who keep them in garages and barely drive them, yet will always adhere to maintenance. 

[Jim Bell]

Yup. There's a LOT of dross below a grand too, but it's the dregs of the stuff that was £2000 and seriously uncared for, that someone has then bought and cared for even less. I've spent much of the last week sifting through the crap trying to find the jewels I know are there. Dull Toyotas seem a good bet, because they're often driven by gentle people who keep them in garages and barely drive them, yet will always adhere to maintenance.

Depends on the model a great deal. Yaris's seem to be pinacle white goods cars. Drive it, never service it, never open the bonnet cars. Ive looked at a lot and only found one good one. I mean the bad ones are still pretty good as theyre exeptionally hardy, but nobody seems to take care of them because theres no "need" to.

[sierraman]

You can get some decent cars for £6-800. Below that it's rarely worth the bother. I wouldn't pay more than a thousand quid though. It just depends what your expectations are. On a £700 car don't expect a new set of Pirellis or a recent Service at the dealer. Expect legal tyres, plenty of MOT and possible evidence of a service in the last few years. Should start stop and run as it should as well. Anything over and above that's a bonus.

[Cavcraft]

You can get some utterly brilliant cars for less than £600, less than £200 if you shop around. There's some proper old crap about at all kinds of prices (trust me on that one) so I just decided years ago to treat all (unknown to me) sellers as lying, cheating conmen out to rip me off.

Oddly enough I was talking about this to the lad who bought my Polo today, and the exception in my eyes is when it's someone you know and/or trust: The 406 I got for example was one a mate said he was selling, I asked how much, agreed to his price and he drove it down here. I didn't even open the door, let alone start it, open the bonnet or drive it. It's been a brilliant car.

[SiC]

My £500 Laguna II v6 has been my surprise in cheap and reliability stake.

 

When I bought my Civic, it took 2 weeks of near daily looking to find one that wasn't shabby, stunk of fags or had issues. The one I grabbed was literally had just come straight in. Best bit of that was I got to look at it before the grubby dealer "valet" it (aka spray horrible shiney silicone shite over the insides). That was a search for a 4-5yr old 5dr family hatch with a ~6.5k budget.

[SiC]

I reckon a good 90% of second hand cars are crap. I agree on it depends on the model too - with some far less looked after than others. Ranges from the worst - family MPV to the best - big engined, big cars.

[Laseraligningfoofooflanges]

Anything over 600 is brave pills for me now , Its just unease for me at that end of the market.

 

Sub £400 its hard to lose even if you do have to weigh the little serpent in. Just bought something silver vm diesel'ed and rather long at £260 its got a full recaro interior decent exide battery and even if it shat its self tonight id hopefully get 60-70 for the seats 10 for the battery weigh in the fucking huge intercooler and take a load of other bits off.

So whats the stakes fuck all really.

 

Everytime i spend decent money it goes awry so nah.. not again

[RoadworkUK]

Buying a two-grand car, unless it's an actual two-grand car, can be a minefield.

 

A 56-plate Focus has none of the advantages of actually being new- because it isn't. It's been around for long enough for serious question marks to be asked about the way it's been looked after, and to cap it all, it's still depreciating!

 

Bottom of the depreciation curve is The Only Way.

[RoadworkUK]

.... Just bought something silver vm diesel'ed and rather long ...... full recaro interior)

Ooh, 825SD with Vitesse interior?

[Kiltox]

My £500 Laguna II v6 has been my surprise in cheap and reliability stake.

 

When I bought my Civic, it took 2 weeks of near daily looking to find one that wasn't shabby, stunk of fags or had issues. The one I grabbed was literally had just come straight in. Best bit of that was I got to look at it before the grubby dealer "valet" it (aka spray horrible shiney silicone shite over the insides). That was a search for a 4-5yr old 5dr family hatch with a ~6.5k budget.

My £200 Scenic was undoubtedly the most ridiculously good second hand car ever and it's still powering on under its new owner

[Tamworthbay]

I always run seriously old cars, the 2001 beemer is my most modern in the last decade and most are 30-40 years old as I can work on them easier. For my wife though we always go with 3-4 year old unpopular cars around 40,000 miles and £4-5k. Touch wood but I have never bought a bad one. I am particularly picky though and tend to stick to stuff like her Mazda 3 but the last one was a Passat estate with the boring 1.8 pez engine and weird set of options. That is still going with her father and it's heading towards twenty years old now. Generally we keep them 8-10 years so they cost £4-500 a year in depreciation. More than mine cost but still cheap.

[cort16]

I spent 3 grand on a 5 series with fsh 2 years ago and it was a heap of dog shit. It put me off that idea for ever.

[stephen01]

​been thinking about changing the Honda, its nearly 10 with 169k, Full history, 11 services at Honda then diy by myself with all receipts kept. recent clutch also. My budget (theoretically)is 6.5k just looking on ebay etc I think sometimes it's better to keep the one you know.

 

Still some cracking Jags xf at the 7k mark...

[stephen01]

 sorry for the dodgy fonts I have none preset?

[purplebargeken]

I fish at the shallow end of the car pool and have yet to be really disappointed. 

 

Most of the stuff I buy and sell here and for around the 300 to 400 quid mark you can't go wrong.

 

Spending a grand on a car would be just weird. Unless Triumph. 

[Laseraligningfoofooflanges]

Ooh, 825SD with Vitesse interior?

Currently dumped round the corner been unannounced to the old dears for 3 weeks now

 

Crouching tiger hidden partridge rover.

 

Collection fred this weekend , Cast iron gaurantee *hopefully*

[beko1987]

My Puma was £1k, and it was the worse car I;ve had (always needy, loads went wrong with it (that admittidly I didn't know how to fix)) and it rusted like fuck. Nearly failed to get me to work every monday cos the alternator was fucked and didn't charge the fucked battery well, so needed a jump ever monday, and sometimes tuesdays and thursdays...

 

£350 ZX 1.4 - Fine, I just neglected it. Think it failed to get me to work once

£600 XM - Fine-ish, certainly nothing went wrong in a scary way, never failed to get me to work

£300 ZX 1.9td - Fine, never failed to get me to work ever

£250 Xantia - Fine so far, very nearly faield to get me to work once so far, but I blagged the morning off to fix it and it then got me to work...

 

Verdict - Buy cheap, and from a shiter!

 

When we looked at Meriva's we had this issue, all utterly abused, missing stuff, one at a car supermarket had oil to the top of the dipstick and no coolant @ £3.5k etc. In the end we settled for the cheapest one with an MOT and some tax we could fine (the one we have now) with no service history, just the handbook and last MOT cert. Gambled on everything being ok, and apart from having to replace pretty much every suspension component, new matching tyres all round, new exhaust, a fair bit of engine work here and there it's been fine! That was £2k (£1995 iirc), we paid £900 with a fucked corsa C in part exchange, which can no longer be found on the mot checker.

[rantingYoof]

I've said before, the £1,500 to £4k bracket is a minefield of fuckery, mainly because the cars are likely being PXed to 'Kwality Motorz' style dealerships just prior to a major bill or because there's a susicious noise or simply because they've got fed up of not maintaining it and want something new to neglect.

 

The key is finding the few genuinely decent dealers out there who like cars and make sure they don't sell stuff they wouldn't own themselves, and then obviously buying on condition/history/receipts etc.

[danthecapriman]

The same thought crossed my mind recently.

 

Me and my dad have been looking for a car for my mum. She's using an 08 reg Focus 1.8, which after a bit of sorting just after purchase has been faultless, it's only done 54k from new too! However she drives a lot for her job and the company she works for recently changed their terms paying mileage. Basically they won't pay for distance from home (she's home based) to the college she's working for. Only miles from the college to destination and back to college are covered now. The distance from home to college is a fair bit so she's decided to downsize the car to get better mpg now she's getting less mileage money.

 

Anyway,

We looked at a 13 reg Fiesta 1.25 zetec with 28k on the clock. Paintwork was rough, curbed wheels, generally scruffy inside even the carpets had gone 'fluffy' where feet had been scuffing up carpets. Not for us.

Next,

14 reg Fiesta 1.25 zetec with about 30k, interior was dirty, scratches to paintwork, rear plastic in boot was scratched and scored deeply. Shit heap, not for us.

 

This went on and on. Wtf do people do with cars these days? Is there no pride in ownership anymore?! I haven't done or seen damage like that in my 30+ year old cars FFS! And it can't be newer stuff being less durable surely as my work van (60 reg Sprinter) is pretty good and has no damage like those cars did and that's a working vehicle. It's people treating things badly for some bizarre reason, why you'd do this to something that costs as much as a car I've no idea but they do.

 

In the end we went to a local Ford dealer and spotted a 16 reg Fiesta 1.25 zetec, in metallic black (colour mum wanted!) which had been a dealer display car. It's done 1200 miles and it's immaculate, plus we got a load of extra stuff thrown in from the dealer to shift it on now the new 66 reg plates are out. The cost? It was just under £2k more than the shitty 14 reg one mentioned above!

I'm no fan at all of moderns or new stuff but this makes it clear to me why people do just buy new now instead of used.

[bramz7]

Before I bought my second ZX, I was going to purchase my mums 55 plate C3. I got a chance to test drive it a week or so earlier and was kind of put off by the vague feeling that came across. And the fact it's been pummelled by a loose stone road for over a year, day in, day out.

She's the only owner its ever had but the service history hasn't exactly been riddled with replacement parts, I am certain it's on cam belt number 1 still! 

Never had an FTP though, despite. Blew a few fuses and had the exhaust strap rot off (standard C3 apparently), but nothing else. Modern Citroen in bulletproof shocker? Or just pure luck?

Anyway, apparently I might be tasked to sell it come October/November. I will make the advert as non BS as possible. I think a lot of adverts for used cars aren't forthcoming enough with faults, if you are honest you may find you don't get as much, but surely that's better than people constantly viewing it and walking away?! I wouldn't be happy with someone coming round and calling me a liar for not talking about crap tyres and damaged trim.

[Doctormop]

I always seem to find decent fairly priced cars when I'm not looking for one, this weekends local rag has an advert for a 1996 Merc E230, one owner since 1997, now giving up driving, always garaged, MOT to next June, FSH etc, ok there are cheaper ones but surely at 995 it can't be expensive as a long term prospect, the same paper had an 02 reg Hyundai Accent, full MOT, 56k for £350; there are times in my life when I've needed a cheap hack or fancied a well looked after executive type motor sub 1k and found bugger all, as with most things it's being in the right place at the right time, a knack I have never mastered.

[dome]

Ooh, 825SD with Vitesse interior?

I'm hoping for a fish faced Scorpio he'll sell to me...

[Laseraligningfoofooflanges]

I'm hoping for a fish faced Scorpio he'll sell to me...

Its grimmer than that!

[EssDeeWon]

My best cars have been the cheapies.

 

£150 MK2 Golf Auto

£500 Vauxhall Carlton  

£350 Rover 75 with years ticket

£400 Rover 75 with very little ticket

 

All were, and are brilliant cars!

[fordperv]

what you need to do is buy a car from a shiter