new car

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Fri 13 May 2005 17:50
new car - tomandjerry56
going to look at a second hand car at a garage was wondering when they buy the cars do they get it hpi checked or should i get it hpi before i buy

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Fri 13 May 2005 18:08
new car - DavidHM
1. Yes, the garage will HPI all cars as a matter of course, nearly all of the time. With a trade account an HPI check is very cheap.

2. Of course, the question is whether you should take the seller's word for it. You wouldn't trust a seller's surveyor if buying a house, but a house is obviously a much more expensive purchase than a car and it's a question of risk/reward.

With that in mind, if it's a banger, it's probably not worth spending £40 to find out that the £400 Cavalier was written off by insurers in 1996 if it drives okay now. However I wouldn't dream of spending £10k on a three year old 3 Series, for example, without checking the car's history on HPI.
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