There is a car site that is a pseudo auction they are all ex-fleet cars of large Cos and leasing cos - you bid through E-Bay .
Cars usually under 3 yrs old and fairly high mileage
However a 3 yr old CLK convertible is for sale and the service book is pristine but has no stamps in 3 yrs! 8,000mls and no oil change!
I have heard of long life servicing but can a car go 3 yrs without a service and still be a good buy? The are wanting approx £18,000 for this CLK 240 cabriolet
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No stamps doesn't necessarily mean no oil changes!
It wouldn't put me off personally (only the fact I'm into bangernomics so wouldnt pay 18k for a car anyway!)
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A lot would depend on how the 8,000 was done.
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My inlaws bought a Focus 1.6 auto two years ago when it was just over two years old and had only 1900 miles on the clock, it had no recorded service before the dealer service at 1900 miles in August 2004. I realised recently that they had not had it serviced since, it is now on 18,000 miles so over two years and 16,000 miles since the last service. The oil is not too dirty and the auto trans fluid is spotless. I am going to do an oil and filter change plus air filter for them. I would not advocate this approach though who knows if it has suffered, it has been totally reliable and drives perfectly.
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My experience is one missed service is of no matter. It's frequently missed/poor servicing that kills cars (neglect).
Check ALL exposed metal parts - especially underside - for corrosion. ESPECIALLY rear (and front) disks. Pitting is likely. If bad = new pads and disks. Exhaust should be OK: but check. If dry stored then OK.
Look for mice under bonnet (seriously). Chewed wiring can give BIG problems...
madf
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I believe so many services paid for are never done, at least it's being honest!
I know of so many people who have taken cars in to main dealers and then looked and seen old spark plugs that they were charged for, oil filters still with a marker pen X on them that were there when they took them in...no wonder there are so many cheap genuine filters etc... on ebay!
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It might be worth trying to contact the supplying dealership. A friend of mine bought a 4 year old very low mileage vehicle which upon inspection had never had the book stamped. After he talked to the delaership that had infact performed an annual service but had never seen the service book.
They promptly stamped the book and he was most pleased.
Carse.
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....be worth trying to contact the supplying dealership..
the description says:
..... Cabriolet 240 Elegance 2dr is offered to you directly from the Bank of Scotland who are the original owners from new. .....SRS Restraint System warning light is on as reported by the RAC and the car is due to have an A service although the car has only covered a very low 8628 miles. .."
the warning light says "restraint system defective. visit workshop."
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Merc. dealerships won't give information about previous servicing without the previous owners consent, and Bank of Scotland won't give it. At least they didn't respond to my polite letter trying to establish the service history of a ... CLK 240 cab Elegance I bought that had previously been one of their lease cars.
If you are sure the car has not been clocked, it's a good price, and I doubt much damage will have been done by failing to service it in 8,628 miles/3 years. Many owners only service cars every 12,000 miles, regardless of time elapsed.
They are nice cars, those CLK240 cabs, by the way.
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Sorry, I should have made it clearer that my CLK has a fully stamped service book, all from one dealer. It's just that I was trying to establish what had (or rather hadn't) been done at the services. Lease companies are notorious for having cars serviced to the bare minimum of what the manufacturers recommend.
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What's the address of the site?
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Mercs use a variable servicing system called ASSYST. If the car has very little use then at some point it should change over from miles to service to days to service.
No-one ever seems sure about the exact interval, but my understanding is that ASSYST won't let it go more than 2 yrs without servicing, at which point it needs a fairly major service, plus a brake fluid change.
Maybe the car has been usused for some time and just left to run to the end of its lease (my old company used to do that - we often had cars lying around for a year or so) or perhaps it had so little use that the service warning didn't bother the driver.
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Sorry: usused should be unused.
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MAkes you wonder whether the dipstick ever came out....
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MAkes you wonder whether the dipstick ever came out....
It probably hasn't got one - mine hasn't. Although I think MB have started refitting them again.
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Will probably be OK, but that's an £18k car and if you decide to sell it in a year's time you may find buyers are suspicious and it will be more difficult to sell. In three years time that will be much less of an issue of course. Certainly a Merc dealer probably wouldn't take it unless there was data on their system to confirm that it HAD been serviced.
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.. but that's an £18k car
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i think the buy-it now price is actually just under £25,000.
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