How will any amount of searching obviate some unscrupulous private individual with a dodgy car passing it on through the small ads.

Pay a little extra for a car from a dealer, the price margins are somewhat blurred with the internet levelling prices and expectations, and have some protection from the Sale of Goods Act. What recourse do you have buying from a respectable looking gent in tweed, cavalry twill and brogues when it all goes wrong?

It takes about 10 minutes on the phone with another individual to know if they, as against the car, are worth bothering with, followed up by a visit, examination, negotiation and agreement.

When i sold my Hilux a trader contacted me, we struck up a conversation for about 15 minutes about a variety of mainly motoring related subjects, by which time we had established a mutual trust.

Indeed without any examination of the vehicle we agreed a cash price that was what i expected from a private sale, sure enough he transferred the money via bank transfer and sent one of his chaps to collect the vehicle by train the following day...he didn't examine it either.

We spoke later, he and i were both very happy with the outcome, i asked him why he was so trusting, he, like me, relied on gut feeling, quack waddle duck style.

In fact he bought one of the best maintained, and professional rustproofed Hilux's in the country.

There are still thousands of thoroughly decent people out there, its just a case of finding them, you can learn much about the seller by the way an ad is written...or rather by what isn't said.

I bought the Outback i now have for a song via ebay, again mutual trust was soon established via phone calls, and the train journey to collect the car proved the car to be every bit what was advertised...i paid under 1/2 the price being advertised by traders for similar cars.

I'd far rather deal with someone who i have a gut feeling about than some paid sales bod trying to earn large cups of tea from a vehicle he knows absolutely nothing about and who's sole purpose in business is, naturally, profit.

Each to their own, some people don't have the knowledge, through life or mechanical work to do things this way.

Edited by gordonbennet on 06/07/2014 at 15:11