Last year, I went looking at old Ford Fiesta Mk5s to buy my first car. First I went to see was a Y reg Fiesta Flight 1.3 in White, around 10,000 miles on the clock, supposed to be 1 previous owner, an old guy.
The salesman started the engine with the bonnet open, let me have a quick look at the car. Then I test drove it. It drove like new, as a car with only 10,000 miles on it should do. But the interior appeared to be in poor condition. Glovebox wouldn't shut properly. Seats were quite worn. Overall the car seemed decent.
The problem was the paperwork - only had 2 or 3 MOTs out of 5 it should have had, if I recall correctly. Logbook was missing. Owner's handbook was missing. No original invoice from when the old guy bought the car new. There were some "receipts", just scribbles on scrappy bits of paper. The trader claimed these were from the previous owner. Now, keeping all this in mind...this car was actually advertised as having a "full service history"!
I did do an AA data check on this car, cost me £30 or something silly, it checked out OK. Being as foolish as I was, not having a clue what I was doing, I paid the seller a £50 deposit. I was so excited about finally getting a car, that I just I didn't put much thought into the lack of paperwork until later. Yes, I know, very dumb. After a week of arguing with the seller, he refunded the deposit, but only after I threatened him with the police!
So why did I threaten him with the police? Well here comes the 'dodgy' bit, in my opinion. This seller has a forecourt with probably something like 20 cars at any one time. All of them are quite old, but all low miles - in the region of 10,000-20,000 miles. And this guy is snip - given your nickname not so hard to identify from the detail! Now, when on the phone disputing the lack of paperwork, I actually questioned the mileage on the car. This is when he got very aggressive with me, seemed to be very much insulted that I suggested he was winding back the odometers on his cars!
So, that was that. So then I went to visit another trader. This time a 2003 Ford Fiesta Zetec 1.25. This car was mint inside and out. The paperwork was all there - logbook, manual, all expected documents. But the problem this time was the salesman. He couldn't stop repeating that it had "original mats" - he mentioned it like 5 times. When I opened the bonnet to check the oil level/condition, he got all funny - "what are you doing, is that cloth clean?". He also tried on the "I've been selling cars for 20 years...blah blah blah..." crap.
So, he left us with the car (me and my mother). You would think he left us with it because he wanted us to check it out. But no, he locked it, and then walked off back to the office. So, we went inside, and I asked for a test drive.
He continued with his hesitant attitude, saying "Well, we get quite a few time wasters sometimes, so we require a deposit before a test drive.". At this point, my mum just said "Forget it, lets go." So we walked out. The salesman followed us, saying "You are missing out on a great deal here!!". We kept walking, and then after 1-2 minutes on another road, the salesman pulls up in a car! He winds down the window, saying "You can test drive it! You can test drive it if you want!". We were both absolutely astonished, and obviously kept on walking.
So after that mess, we decided to goto a main Ford dealer. Eventually bought a new '08 reg Ford Ka! Yes, quite a change from what I was looking at before. Never intended to buy brand new, but thats the way it worked out in the end. The buying experience was completed with no problems. Aftersales service is something else, but I won't go off-topic and this thread is already lengthly enough as it is. I don't regret what I ended up doing.
Anyone else had similar experiences?
Edited by Pugugly on 23/12/2009 at 22:23
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