April 2019
Which petrol is better for my car, branded namely Shell or supermarket namely Sainsbury's? Read more
I don’t know if any posters have ever used this outfit, but having dabbled with them in the past for indicative valuations, we used them for real at the weekend and I thought others might be interested in our experience.
For background, when my wife bought her new car 18 months ago we kept her old car for our sons to use. They don’t often visit, but when they do it’s useful to be able to offer them a car to run around in. They all live abroad, so when they visit it’s never just for a day and our Ibiza saves them having to hire a car. However, with our last son having just relocated abroad (was it something about our parenting?!) it was time to face reality and move the Ibiza on while it still had some value.
The Ibiza was a 61 plate and had covered 16,500 miles. It was in very good condition. I got some indicative values from WBAC around the time my wife bought her new car and it was then valued at something like mid to higher £3000s. Imagine my surprise then when more recently they were offering higher £4000s. I have also found with WBAC that if you don’t react to their initial valuation they come back a week or so later with a higher figure. Sure enough they followed up with £5150 and then a week later £5195.
Now I know their approach is to lure you in with an attractive figure and then on the day find all sorts of reasons to reduce the headline figure, having examined the car in the metal. Our guy ran the flat of his hand over every body panel looking for indications of repairs and the best he could could come up with were a few minor stone chips and some minor kerbing of the alloys. He couldn’t believe the condition of the interior and was struggling to knock the valuation figure back. Anyway, by arguing that the stone chips would require smart repairs, he arrived at a final offer of just under £5000, which after their admin fee left a net figure of £4921. I was pretty impressed with that and my wife agreed to sell. Looking at the HJ valuation, it says for a private sale anywhere between £4450 and £5600 and to expect £4950 so I think we did pretty well.
Although the WBAC examination concentrated on the bodywork, they failed to comment on the fact that the instruments were indicating that the car was due for a service. They also didn’t ask if the cam belt had ever been changed - which it hadn’t - and that would have been one of my major mechanical concerns.
As for the treatment we received, from looking at the WBAC video on their website I expected a charm offensive, which is exactly what happened. Nothing wrong with politeness of course, but referring to us as Mr Senexdriver and his lovely lady wife had me wondering if we’d stepped back into the 1950s! And then when our guy didn’t agree with the computer’s valuation after he had fed in the niggles he found with the car, making a phone call to his manager for permission to increase the valuation rather reminded me of the old double glazing salesman’s trick. However, we put up with all that bs in view of the final figure we arrived at.
So, all in all, a positive experience and something I would certainly consider doing again when trading in or selling privately. Read more
I sold my six year old 130,000 mile VW TakeUp to WBAC. My original idea was to just drive over and prove their offer was pants. In fact they offered £100 below the minimum I would want from a private sale, so I said the offer was too low by £100, so they increased their offer and I accepted. Not a brilliant price by any means, but equally it was not bad either, and I was glad to avoid paying to advertise it, and dealing with visitors including time wasters. Could I have done better privately? Possibly. But I'd probably take pity on some young woman looking for her first car, and with not quite enough money to match my minimum ...
I did though spend many hours valeting the car until it looked rather shiny. I discovered in the process that the interior plastic looks amazing when polished with special polish, but the sheen fades after a few days! It's astonishing how nice a mucky car can look when cleaned up.
Are Shell really allowed to charge £1.44 a litre for petrol like they are at the Cobham services? (and £1.54 for diesel)? As of April 11th 2019 - that's what they are charging. How can this be legal? Read more
M1 Wednesday somewhere near Toddington SWMBO cries out- Good gracious, or words to that effect, BP want £154 for diesel. Didn't see it myself but her eyesight, like her hearing is akin to Geronimo!! Good job I filled up in North Yorkshire for £130.9. Still expensive but now seems a bargain.
Cheers Concrete
Hi all,
Can anyone recommend someone to look at my C5 Tourer that has sat down - looks to be almost on its bump stops, like the suspension motor/pump isn't working.... Read more
Citroëns are cheap - but they get you at the parts department.
The rear box on my 3 litre C5 rotted though at just three years old, they wanted £1000 to replace it. Luckily Sebring made an after-market one which cost me ~£300 if I remember rightly, beautifully made, double skinned - I suspect it saw the car out.
interesting article in the local Gazette. apparently a Land Rover Freelander was £16k or so ten years ago. The equivalent present offering is over £30k from the same manufacturers while in the ten years the average wage has risen by 37%...assuming the writer has his facts right that's a lot of extra cash to find!. Read more
The pound was in decline against the euro before the referendum was called If anything Britain economy has done better than a lot of so called experts predictedTotal cobblers, and I can't be bothered to explain, (but I do keep accurate records of the daily €/£ exchange rate and have done so for the last 15 years as I import from Germany).
See here: ...
Hi
Ever since my daughter had a new clutch on her Clio there has been a strange knocking noise from the accelerator.... Read more
Replacing the clutch on these needs some of the suspension removed . It’s possible that something has not been tightened adequately, or perhaps the driveshaft is not located fully home.
Ford spending all that money, and the solution was already starting them in the face: go back to the previous generation tech with blippers and standard keys - why very few of that generation of cars get broken into/stolen.
They only changed over because someone though keyless entry would be a sales boon to lazy people who can't be bothered to take the key out of their pocket to get in the car... Read more
Buying/owning cars is not just about 'engineering' logic. (Some) People have a sense of aesthetics and novelty factor too. Life would be very boring if everything was prosaic and 'sensible'.
If you think having you car stolen through novelty electronics makes for a interesting life fair play. I personaly prefer my 25 yr old imobilised Rover, to steal it you would need a trailer lol.
Ford Focus Zetec S 2010 plate (Duratec HS 1.8 engine)
83k Miles/ Part service and so far no replacement parts in the logbook.... Read more
Quite strange symptoms you have. I would doubt it was a clutch problem, but the clump noise could be possibly wear in a cv joint or a knock from an exhaust pipe.
The noise when turning could be a worn cv joint , but both would need to be worn out to give you noise when turning in both directions. Can’ t really help other than that and even then I might be well wide of the mark.
I noticed on a recently redundant spammy-type post that the possible new term for your common-or-garden sat-nav or gps is "Dashboard Companion"
"Sat-nav is so last year darling" - etc... Read more
The first time I read the headline, I automatically thought of this little chap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3tVedKugrI
(He first appeared in 2001 in European car adverts for Audi's Multitronic transmission and had to be prodded manuallyby thedriver or passenger to dance, since the stepless transmission failed to provide the customary in-car vibrations of a conventional automatic!)
Hi All,
Looking for some advice. Back in December last year I bought the above vehicle on HP. Shortly after the battery turned out to be faulty, messaged the dealer about it, no response. Just after Christmas the waterpump needed replacing as it was leaking coolant rather quickly. Just recently the front discs and pads also needed replacing as they were close to the legal limit. And just the other day the Check Engine light has illuminated.... Read more
I sympathise, but you have to remember that the law (including consumer protection law) exists to uphold that which is reasonable.
The condition you'd expect to find of a 7-8-year-old car isn't the same as for a nearly-new car. The items you've lsted, as Bromptonaut says, are down to natural wear and tear (I'd include the water pump in that given the age of the car) - and also it doesn't sound as if the problems were noticeably present at the time you bought the car....
Browse
Do less than 10K miles per annum I've recently switch to a petrol automatic. thanks for your info.