I recently advertised my car for sale on Autotrader. It is a 67 plate with 54000 miles and in excellent condition. Having included 48 photos and a wordy description of the love and care bestowed on my car I expected it to sell reasonably quickly being a popular model and with an asking price of £12500 on a par with other models on the site. After posting the ad I noticed that whilst almost all similar ads were labelled as “Great Price”, “Good Price, “Fair Price”, mine did not. The ad ran its full term with one enquiry and no offers. All the cars ‘recommended’ by Autotrader were sold. I took this up with Autotrader who told me that only trade sales get price approval. This discriminates against private sellers, potentially forcing them into the arms of the car buying sites at prices much below what the dealers will sell the cars for. I took the registration number from one of the dealer ads and asked Autotrader to value it. They valued it at £2000 less than it was being sold for on their site; suggesting that Autotrader are discriminating against private sellers. Does anyone else have a similar experience? Read more

I was insured with Darwin Car Insurance until just over a week ago when I could not find their renewal notice so switched to another provider as I was about to go on holiday and short of time.

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I spotted our local taxi driver with an MG Zs EV as his latest taxi.

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Hello everyone,

Just had a £300 bill and I’m hoping it wasn’t all wasted !

On our way to Devon on Monday ( a 250 mile trip) for a family break. In the wife’s car , a 2015 Vauxhall Astra Estate. Car was brought 6 months ago and came with a Spoticar 12 month warranty.

Driving along the dual carriageway at 6am and suddenly the yellow engine management warning light comes on , along with the traction light and the ESP service light. My wife who was driving said it stated losing its top speed,

Brilliant ,that’s all we need ! Especially with two young kids in the car. We know there’s a retail park just a few miles up the road , a safer and more convenient place to wait for assistance.

We call the AA and after two hours the guy turns up. He puts on the diagnostic machine but no codes come up, just says misfire apparently. The technician says probably the spark plugs and maybe the coil pack too but changed the spark plugs to see if that’s the problem. He didn’t want to initially change parts that don’t need changing. He took the car off and went to collect the spark plugs , he came back about 20 mins later. No warnings light and the car drove fine.

After changing the park plugs , he told us to drive around the car park whilst he kept his diagnostic machine in and his laptop. Car seems fine and we’re about to go after paying him £50 for the spark plugs when all of a sudden the ESP light comes on again. He then has another look, changed the coil pack which cost us another £240 quid ! Car seems fine and we make it to Devon with no further problems. So spent just under £300.

I call Spoticar warranty phone line , to ask if these parts were covered. However, the kicker is , and I didnt realise this, was that under the warranty, we also got break down assistance and were supposed to call that number in the event of breakdown. And because I went straight through to the AA using my own policy, they won’t cover any works done by them.

My fault entirely I guess but you don’t always remember these things at 6am on a dark car journey with limited internet access and stress!

My question is , does anyone think the coil pack and spark plugs would have been covered by the warranty or is it likely they wouldn’t have been? An expensive lesson learned! Read more

We need to know the details of the other vehicle which your part ex-ing the Corsa for.

The salesperson might have adjusted the figures on the vehicle your buying to try & get the sale which in turn will affect the value offered for your Corsa. ... Read more