There are always diferences with prices on cars, but to say that because a car has come in from abroad and been imported by anyone other than an official importer is worth less at any age is wrong.All of the big super markets have unofficial cars for sale and find little difficulty finding homes for them with end users,and when they have finished with them they will often find their way into franchised dealers stocks or auction halls and very few people either know or care.There are people that might have some resistance to an Opel Zafira over the Vauxhall badged equivilant,but judging by what i have seen at a large Vauxhall dealer locally the customers were paying the same price for six month old Opels as Vauxhalls.People in the trade may try and knock them back but the retail customer sees the car as the same.I could bore you with many other examples my favorite being the Mitsubishi Shogun/Pajero where the word says the the Shogun is worth far more than the Pajero,real life sugests something rather different.

I took my BMW316i Tourer to Whitehouse BMW Ruxley Corner this morning. The fault was diagnosed as faulty resister and was replaced within fifteen minutes under the extended warranty. Coffee and tea were provided and the service was most courteous. What more could one want?

John Lee

Just found this excellent site. Had all sorts of problems getting Ford to acknowledge and fix the revving problem on my Focus 2.0

They finally told me about the Mondeo mainfold problem and have had the new kit fitted for the past 4 days. No problems yet, but as you say it was intermittent. I swear though that the revs are still not dying correctly and that there is a slight 'over rev' when changing between the lower gears - this makes smooth changes difficult, especially when cold. If this doesn't improve it will go back again (6th time!) - does yours do this?

I'm now concerned with the amount of induction noise when accelerating, as it seems far too loud.

Quality generally has been shocking with blown fuses, wind noise, misting up fog lights, remote key sender etc problems.

Must say though that the handling and roadholding are exceptional, whcih makes the car great fun to drive. The ESP is great fun in the wet.

I'd do everything you've suggested:

How much is your preferred car from Motorpoint and Trade-Sales, say? Add on the cost of an extra warranty and breakdown cover. Then see how close the dealer will get to this price.

How much is your car worth? Try www.glass.co.uk, www.parkers.co.uk. Will the dealer offer you the going rate?

Work out the cost to change.

If you get a good deal then go with a dealer. If not then try the car supermarkets and try a private sale (or an auction?).

If anyone has any experience selling privately at auction then I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on whether you got a good deal or if the fees outweighed a dealer's trade-in offer.

Hope this is useful.

Neil.

There's no point arguing against the ugliness of the Multipla - even with alloys and body-coloured bumpers the car still has an air of monstrosity. The wealth of design talent that must have been available within the Fiat group before the loss of da Silva to SEAT must surely have been able to recognise that something somewhere was out of balance with the Multipla. In Engineering, form typically follows function. In the Multipla we have an exception: functionally brilliant but stylistically challenged.

What Car (www.whatcar.co.uk) had a recent comfort test that may shed some light on non-MPV alternatives.