I am coming to the conclusion not, following on my Corsa HG thread.
I have always bought cars privately in the past for this reason, I just can't see any good cars that traders are selling.
The problem is either find are a car thats in good machanical condition but well well too over priced, I find a good car in a bad garage or I find a bad car in a bad garage.
So I am now looking at private sellers, I know its more risky but this seems to be where the best cars are.
What do you think? I just get put off as after buying my last car privately it over heated a day later although this was just the thermostat.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 16/10/2008 at 01:23
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I would think anyone with a showroom (therefore costs of a showroom) would not want to sell sub £1k cars. And the comeback due to various regulations on them would make it uneconomic.
Most places taking cheap trade ins will offload them via a back street garage they know or auction.
But privately a £1000 car could be quite good. My first car in 1995 was around that figure and pretty poor ;-)
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PS Sorry about the poor spelling in the thread title :(. If a mod could change it that would be nice. {there you go}
I suppose it makes a lot of sense, anybody selling a £700 car and trying to make money from it can't offer much of a come back. I think I will just avoid traders all together.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 16/10/2008 at 01:23
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Dealers need to make a profit. The only way a sub-£1000 car can be viable is if it is significantly overpriced -- so a car worth £300 on ebay suddenly sells for £900 on a forecourt.
This is why, for the average punter, buying a car for £2000 and running it until it stops is usually preferable to true bangernomics. That way the profit made by the dealer makes less of an impact on the VFM.
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I guess the question has to be asked - why do you want to buy a £999 car from a dealer? At that price there ought to be enough quality cars offered for sale privately, and the risk is not much greater.
In my world you either spend £500 on a car with a year's MoT from a private seller, or you step up to £5,000 when you buy from a dealer. Spending £2,000 either privately or with the trade is a horrible amount - too much risk in a private sale, and too much margin in a dealer sale. The dealer needs the huge margin to cover his significant overheads, and the risk of warranting the car.
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I went through the same thing when I was looking at cars in the range £1000-£1500 a few years back. Just about everything I saw at dealers was a real shed, overpriced and usually with an obvious fault that scared the hell out of me.
Then you start looking at cars privately at this price and there is all kinds of decent, well cared for motors that the owner just doesn't want any more and yet still have lots of life left in them. Take your mechanic along and you won't go too far wrong.
Remember, a car at a dealers for £1500 may well have been taken in as a trade-in (or from auction) for £500 or less. You too could pay what the dealer pays (or close to) simply by reading the small ads yourself.
I'd never buy from a dealer for anything less than £2-3k, below that I'm happy to risk fixing a couple of things myself and saving £1000+ on the purchase price, instead of paying for the dealers trip to Tenerife next summer (simplification, but still..). After that, it's a matter of personal opinion on which is best. I guess for most people £5-6k is the limit on buying privately before you start to cherish the legal come back from buying from a dealer.
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If your intent on spending so little but have little knowledge about what your buying, budget in a professional inspection so you can get a good idea of what your looking at. A genuine buyer wont mind at all and can be a good barginning tool if there are some little issues.
I would never buy from a dealer at this price unless you know the dealer personally - I know a local garage owner who I know to be honest and have bought some lovely cars from him, but few are like that.
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My machanic said he would check over any car I wanted to buy for free (though I would give him some money). He is a very honest bloke and dosn't sell cars for that reason.
I do usually know what I am checking with cars, I got caught out with this one, but the steam/warning light was enough to make me pull away. I am also just going to stick with Fords as I know how their engines behave and will be able to spot anything a mile off, I know if somebody tried to tell me a lot of steam from a Fiesta was just condensation is talking bull.
Private sales is what I am going to do, there is nothing at all on Autotrader atm which seems worth looking at though.There is a 99 Punto mk1 for £900 with FSH, 2 owners, 52k but I would be happier with a Fiesta at this price point.
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There's very little money in a sub £1,000 car for a dealer and lots of potential hassle.
Supposing he had allowed £500 for part ex for the car, he would have to valet it, touch in any minor paint marks, make sure it is road-worthy, perhaps change the oil and filter or stick on a new tyre.
He will have to offer some sort of warranty, although it is a bit of a grey are under the sale of goods act just what a customer can reasonably expect but everybody has seen watchdog and thinks the dealer should treat them like a new-car buyer even if they have only bought a banger.
After that he will have to pay 17.5% VAT on the difference between what he allowed and what he gets. He might therefore only clear a hundred or so quid and have let himself in for a whole heap of hassle.
So, most dealers won't bother with anything under a grand. Stick to the classifieds or go to the auction.
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I seem to recall an article by umm Ian Royce (?) in the 'Buying Cars' magazine c.1994 stating how this £2k (ish) level is problematic for both buyers and dealers. I think the article was entitled "A Car That's Not Too Grand" and he laid out the issues, basically the ones listed above (and no doubt mentioned below).
Whilst I am sure the examples of cars mentioned in the article are no longer relevant, the sentiments haven't changed.
But yes, at a dealer you get a £500/750/800 car for £1500/2000
I wonder what happened to him (Ian Royce, assuming I've got his name right)
cheers
Stu
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