This thread is triggered by PST's post in the Subaru WRX thread. He stated:-
"The one I signed with even rolled out a brand new WRX from the showroom (2 miles on the clock and involved shuffling 5 other cars) to give me the test drive."
I have witnessed this before and, judging by the number of new cars with up to 100 miles on the clock, no doubt the practice is fairly widespread.
Well I for one would be unhappy if other people had tried out my new car before it was sold to me as new. I would be even less impressed if it were a sports model and the prospective customer was checking out its performance. I appreciate that PST kept revs below 4000 but others might not be so sympathetic.
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I read a few years ago that VW dealers could take 50 miles off the clock by using a special feature. But they could only do this 3 times, if this is the case many cars could have been used for test drives without the mileage being recorded.
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Ive just ordered a New Mitsubishi Carisma and on the order form the dealer wrote "delivery mileage". He said they had several in store at their depot in Bristol, but when I first walked into the dealership to see the model they had a new zero miles one outside that the dealer had driven in from another dealership in the same group, and i took it for a 24 miles test drive, so god only knows how much mileage the "new" car i will get has on it.
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I did ask if the showroom car was now going to become a demonstrator (they also left it out after me as they had another test drive booked the following day) and the answer was no!
So maybe it gets a good clean and gets sold to someone (me?) as new. The few new cars I've had in the past have always had 50 ish miles on them - the last, an E-Class Merc had 170 miles. It could explain it.
I did try and keep out of puddles and pot holes though :)
Paul
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I drove demo's for a few years, more often than not they are used as company cars for salesmen/managers, as service loan vehicles, the lunchtime run round the corner to the supermarket, giving lifts to customers etc etc. They were not generally looked after (apart from a regular dip in the valeting bay) and the salesmen I have worked with tended to thrash them. On the other hand, when a demo is approaching the time it has to go, quite often no later than six months old, you can get a very good deal and it will have the balance of it's (usually three year) warranty to fall back on just in case......
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I should have added that 20/30 miles on a new car is reasonable and takes into account loading on the transporter at the factory/docks/dealership, moving around the dealership when delivered and into the workshop for PDI, plus it's roadtest after PDI. (However a PDI is only usually carried out on a New car when it is sold). I would have thought 100 miles was a touch excessive and would involve an awful lot of 'shunting around'. Ask the dealership how the car is being sold, there are five types of sale; New, Used, Ex Demo, Fleet and Motability, this can usually be confirmed on the sales invoice.
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Quite a few years ago when I was involved with the car trade we used to disconnect the speedo cable. I once went to London and back (about 200 miles) at about 90mph in a 'zero miles' new car!
Can't do that with electronic speedo's though, can you? ;-)
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Carl,
Most new cars are now delivered with no more than a couple of miles on the clock.
What I am questioning is the practice of using new cars that are in stock, possibly just waiting for their owners to collect, as demonstrators for a few customers and then selling them as brand new.
The implication that some dealers can 'clock' the speedo to hide the demonstration miles is even more worrying.
C
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Don't know about other makes, but all the 206s off the Ryton line go for a spin round the site before being parked for delivery.
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Sorry, I seem to have got the wrong idea, 'New or Demonstrator' only means one thing to me !
I can't, or don't want to believe that this practice is widespread. I have worked at three dealerships; MG Rover, VW and Audi and I have never come across this problem. We always had enough demonstrators to cover our day to day needs, in fact, for most of the day, demo's are just stood in the carpark. Manufacturers usually state a minimum number of demo's a dealer should have and this is reviewed each year. However, I do recall a conversation with a VW technician who told me that they could turn back digital displays if required but that he had never known this to happen. What happened to their own private cars I cannot imagine !
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Two weeks ago I was on a train which provides a wonderful view over the rear yard of a Mercedes dealer. I saw one unreg brand new C class being used to tow another unreg brand new C class! What the customer doesn\'t see...!
{dealers location removed from post. DD}
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Answer's simple: buy a Porsche or a Merc and use their buyer collection option. Go to factory and drive your car off the line.
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Good idea in principle. Willing to share some cash with me?:) Are there any other makes that allow you to do this - preferable a touch on the cheaper side?
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OP, wish I had the cash myself! Hasn't VW turned one of its factories into a kind of theme park, complete with the "VW Experience"? May be able to do something similar there.
At the non-porker prices, I'll stick to Alfas.
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There were some threads about clocking that were real eye-openers, and following that I did a google search on the subject and found a whole number of devices that could do the job. No need for a man with a lap top. As mentioned, the old mech types could have the cable disconnected, and I knew someone who regularly did this and halved his annual mileage.
In the 90?s I bought a new Pug 309 that had 14 miles on the mechanical clock and I think that was gen.
Our Focus (Trade Sales) had 3 miles on it. It was spotless underneath, I went looking for signs of previous use. Ironically you could be better off with an import because they have only two weeks to register them once they hit our shores and if you make ensure it is very near the registration date then the amount of miles can be limited.
Not guaranteed of course, you don?t know what went on before delivery.
Given the sheer numbers of cars sold I doubt they have all been used or had any miles on them. You may just be unlucky in some cases. Ultimately, never trust the mileometer, electronic or mechanical.
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I will definately be checking the mileage on my new Mitsubishi, , as ive said the dealer wrote "delivery mileage" on the paperwork, to whit I will accept a few miles, but certainly not over 10. If anything is said about delivery from Bristol to Chesterfield using the car then I will be perterbed because having worked in the car industry and in the back office of the motor trade I full well know that all vehicles are delivered to the dealership on the back of a transporter and ive never known a car to be driven 200 miles. Our Toyotas usually had 4 or 5 miles and the same goes for the VW's and Fords ive dealt with.
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Er not quite true.
A Mercedes-Benz built in South Africa or Austria is made available at a German M-B collection point. It is not where the car was made. So collecting a C-Class sallon from Bremen, Germany, involves getting the car from East London factory, South Africa, then to the port, then to eurpoe and finally to the collection point.
If you read the Mercedes-Benz collection blurb they even say it is straight from the factory (though not the one where it was built). But by the time you find out they have got the money anyway.
"Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery". --Max Ehrmann, 1927--
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Two weeks ago I was on a train which provides a wonderful view over the rear yard of a Mercedes dealer. I saw one unreg brand new C class being used to tow another unreg >> brand new C class! What the customer doesn\'t see...!
I think it\'s great they way they do things like that there - and park the cars about four feet from the railway line so all that lovely brown train brake dust, from 12-coach trains to London braking for the adjacent station, gets all over them - and the way they use somebody\'s new A-class as a four-wheeled gate for the yard!
Couldn\'t help but notice that this same dealer appears to have lost its Porsche franchise. Could this cavalier behaviour be why?
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An unusual spec. or colour will tend to get you a *new* car. However it might (or might not) be harder to sell.
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Having an optional extra or two should get you a car with a genuine "delivery mileage only".
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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same name rivervale but different company porsche have now moved to burgess hill under the name of mid-sussex porsche going the same way as mb 1 company owns all of them in a certain area can't remember the name of the company.
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Clocking......in 1979 my dad bought a Peugeot 504 estate from our local dealer and due to a lenghty commute and the fact that both front wings went rusty,.sold it back to them after one year with 39,000 miles on the clock. One year later I saw the same car on the same dealers forecourt with "genuine one owner and 36,000 miles on its clock..........and a pair of new front wings.
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