One key - bits missing,
typical of ex company / lease / hire cars bought at auction, doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad car, but they are asking top price for an indy dealer (really), so i would expect a price reduction of at least £800 (but see next comment) or all the issues corrected, and even then it wouldn't be a "bargain", just the right price.
Don't know for sure, but i suspect it should have had one service, or one is due,
the wheel nut may be more of a problem than you think (otherwise the light-fingered would be having a field day), and check the price of the CD - it might make your eyes water.
Easier perhaps to look for another ?, as others have said, there must be more out there.
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As I said earlier, he said the wheel nut will be supplied, so I'm going to price one up from Vauxhall and go armed with that for a discount if it is not there when I come to collect. I definitely want the warranty to be good or I will walk away. I'm prepared to accept the other bits as missing and source them separately (most are available at not too much on eBay - I might even get the original stolen ones back, who knows?).
I think the car is a good price for an Elite spec model. There are zillions of 08 plate SRi and Design spec vehicles about at around the same price, but the Elite is harder to find.
Darren.
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OP, you said the number plates have the details of the supplying dealer on them. I just bought a car from a similar supermarket, where they also said the car had no service history. A quick telephone call to the supplying dealer confirmed they had a full and correct service history on thier computers. Maybe you could try the same. Once I've collected my car, I'll ask the original dealer to send me a print out.
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Darren
you put a post on here asking for advice. The majority of the advice is "this one is going to be hastle and there are plenty of others out there that are not" yet you are trying to convince yourself to buy it.
why? you had your doubts thats why you posted on here. listen to your doubts.
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So long as the manufacturer's warranty is in place, I still think it is a good deal, even with the missing bits (and to be fair, they may yet come up with some of them before collection is due on Friday). As I said, there are no end of lower spec Vectras about at the moment, but the top of the line Elite is much rarer, especially at this price.
At a worse case I'm going to be missing (with price to source on eBay in brackets):
User and audio manual set (£10)
Rear load cover (£50)
SatNav CD-ROM (£50)
spare key (£??? from Vauxhall)
So even if the key is £100, that's just over £200 to get it all sorted out. They actually knocked £200 off the original price of this car for me so it will come in at around £8400 with the extras bought.
Darren.
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User and audio manual set (£10) SatNav CD-ROM (£50) spare key (£??? from Vauxhall)
User manual is free from Vauxhalls website:
tinyurl.com/c43kra
And here's a free user manual for the satnav. English pages start from page 68.
www.put-schelper.de/images/CD70Navi1_anleitung.pdf
Shop around and be patient on ebay for the nav CD. I paid £33 for mine. Be aware that there are many illegal copies on ebay though. Genuine ones from Navtec cost something like £105.
A replacement key will cost you anything from £60 to £100. I don't know whay the price varies so much from dealer to dealer.
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As I said earlier he said the wheel nut will be supplied so I'm going to price one up from Vauxhall and go armed with that
£26.91 for a complete kit.
tinyurl.com/asrre2 (links to Vauxhall's website)
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..............Scroll down to read the customer reviews of the Vauxhall Locking Wheel Bolts!
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Never had a problem with them myself. I suspect some of it is down to heavy handed abuse at tyre garages. They're only meant to be used in conjunction with hand wheel braces. If a windy gun is used it can knock the hell out of them and cause damage.
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Many thanks for that info Dave. I've just got off the phone to my local (Lincoln) Vauxhall dealer about the key actually and he quoted £80-£100 depending on whether I have the key number or not.
Darren.
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A friend of mine bought a brand new Vectra 1.9 petrol with plenty of toys (sorry, don't know exact model), paid extra for paintwork & interior protection + parking sensors for £9,500 OTR
Save yourself the hastle
MVP
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During my brief car selling career in the 1980s, I'm sure it was illegal to supply a car without a handbook.
Think this applied to both new and used.
If so, the dealer should at least download and print the free one for the customer.
Edited by ifithelps on 16/02/2009 at 11:38
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MVP - there are lots of brand new 1.9 turbo diesel Vectras around in Exclusive trim for about £10K at the moment. Exclusiv has plenty of nice bits of kit on it, but I really fancy the leather seats and the built in SatNav on the Elite.
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Well so long as they can assure me of the manufacturer's warranty being in place, I'm going to go for it I think.
I'll post back on Friday after I collect it with details of which of the missing parts they managed to come up with.
Darren.
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So you have decided to ignore advice on the car. Your choice.
You could get a new un-registered Vectra C for a little more but choose to go for one more than one a year old. So get less than 2 years warranty vs 3. Again your choice.
You have the car you want in mind so good luck with the new car.
Edited by rtj70 on 16/02/2009 at 20:17
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Clue is in the fisrt post. The question asked by the OP was:
"so do you think I would be better off insisting that all the missing parts are provided first, or just accept I'm getting the car at a good price and live without them?"
People who have made up their mind about a car/house/stuff usually are not looking for negative comments about their choice, and will rightly ignore such comments. They may however take on board any reinforcing general comments that give them a warm feeling about their choice even though the question asked was a specific one.
plamet78: hope your deal goes OK on the day, and I wish you many thousands of enjoyable miles in your nearly-new Elite.
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So the thread was pretty pointless. He could get an 58 plate (soon 09 plate) for a little more but not an Elite.
If he wanted re-assurance then was a motoring forum the right place to post? Some suggested not using Trade Sales etc but still ignored. Lets us hope the car is fine and he doesn't need to wheel nut key before he gets to the VX garage :-)
Rob
Edited by rtj70 on 17/02/2009 at 00:22
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I did a quick Autotrader search last night , Vectra Elite 2.2 < 2years old <20K; there were about 12 cars nationwide, starting from about 8.5K; so not a lot of choice, and the OP's price seems reasonable. I know that wasn't the question, just answering those saying " there's plenty more fish in the sea"
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A few estate autos on at about £8,700 - they'd proably take a few hundred less than that.
The OP's car was on at £8,200 and I think he's bartered them down a bit.
So, for all its 'faults', his car looks spot on the money bordering on cheap at under £8,000.
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It was actually on at £8399 and they came down to £8199. Not a big drop, but I wasn't expecting to get anything. So even if I do have to buy this missing bits at about £200, I'm still well under £8500. The cheapest others, same age and mileage, I could find were at Motorpoint at £8999.
Darren.
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Darren, looking at what's on Autotrader and given what you're missing, I think you've got a fair deal. Don't let the cynics get you down...
Enjoy your Vectra! :)
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And don't be disappointed in the silly light and indicator stalks on the Vectra C. Takes a little bit of time to get used to them.
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I actually miss the Veccy indicators. They're good once you get used to them! :-)
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I'm still not sure. I still alternate my usage of my Mondeo Ghia X diesel estate and my Signum Design 2.2 petrol. Can't love the VX indicators I'm afraid.
I would quite like my Mondeo but fitted with the 2.2 direct petrol engine from my Vauxhall but that's just being greedy I suppose.
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Hmmm - I think I preferred the 3.2 Vectra engine (& semi-auto gearbox) to the 2.5 Mondeo and 6 speed manual, but I'm gradually getting used to it. Onn paper they have similar performance, but the Vectra felt a lot quicker. I think the Ford does it in a more refined way.
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Hired a fairly basic Fiesta and you could set how many flashes the 'lane change' function gave.
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Just a quick update on this in case anyone was following it.
I went to collect the car today and it was a bit of a mixed bag.
Plus points: the follow parts that I was worried about were all present: spare key, locking wheel nut key, user manual, audio manual, service book.
The rear compartment cover was missing, but after I asked they pulled one out of another Vectra Estate and gave me it. The SatNav CD was still missing and they said they didn't have one. I've since sourced one on eBay for £50.
The car's former owner turns out to have been Hertz, so it was a daily rental.
Finally, the biggie - it was over a year before the first service was done, so I thought we were in trouble with the warranty. The service manager at Trade Sales said it wasn't an issue as Vauxhall are very flexible on this. That sounded a bit fishy to me so I rang Vauxhall customer care and asked them, and I was very surprised when they confirmed it, in almost the exact same words and said the balance of the warranty (another 18 months) would still be good.
Darren.
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Darren looks like a result to me. Not sure I'd worry too much about it being an ex-Hire car. The price probably reflected that (they will have known) and it's under warranty still.
I would get the late service being okay in writing. I assume you called on your mobile to Vauxhall to check service being late. But get it in writing just in case.
Surprise it was a hire car for that long though.
Enjoy.
Edited by rtj70 on 20/02/2009 at 21:47
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Good result there, well done, it was probably only used for 3 to 6 months and then sat at the vx compound till sold to trade sales.
Vauxhall sell thousands of their cars to rental companies and fleets where they may well sit for months after a brief use, if vx played funny on the time lapse of first services, they'd soon have no customers as their used values would plummet.
Methinks you have a bargain there.
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The dealer came up with all the missing bits except the SatNav disc, not ideal but acceptable for a 'cash and carry' operation.
Don't think this spec Vectra could have been obtained any cheaper elsewhere, so I agree the OP has got a good result.
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Nice to hear those confirmations guys. So far I've only driven it back from Slough to Lincoln but I'm very pleased with it. It even had a quarter tank of fuel in it and they had given it a full valet when I collected it.
Regarding the comment about it being sat with Vx for a while after limited daily rental use, that could well be the case. I had previously checked the car on the DVLA website and that indicated that it had not been taxed since August lat year.
Darren.
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Looks like a good overall result for you, planet. I hope you enjoy the car. Perhaps an early service at Vx would be a good idea and should identify any warranty or recall issues (as the car may not have been used for a while).
I can't help but wonder if the bits they 'found' would have been present on collection if you hadn't made a fuss beforehand! I dread to think how some of these places operate.
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Sounds like you did OK in the end. It's a very nice spec, the Elite. Enjoy your new car.
Is the car on "ecoflex" servicing? If so, that may explain the time gap on the servicing. On my 53 plate Vectra it is :
Petrol :
20k or
2 years or
service light
Diesel :
30k or
2 years or
service light
Whichever comes first. ecoflex servicing was a USP on the Vectra C when it was launched (presumably to attract the fleets). I have a sneaking suspicion Vauxhall phased it out though - not sure when.
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Is the car on "ecoflex" servicing? I have a sneaking suspicion Vauxhall phased it out though - not sure when.
Yes, I'm pretty sure its been phased out. My July 06 registered Vectra Elite isn't on the ecoflex service interval. My previous Jan 04 registered Vectra was on the ecoflex, but I got the garage to change it over to fixed term intervals.
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Yes, from the service book it looks like ecoflex is no more. It's pretty much an interim service after 1 year or 20,000 miles (whichever comes first) and then a major service after either another year or another 20,000 and so on.
Good idea about getting a pukka service done by Vx in the near future I think.
Darren.
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Ex daily rentals are often left in compounds for months before sale so the battery is often the first thing to pack up. I got an ex rental Astra 12 years ago and that happened. No serious costs since after 140,000 miles!
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The battery had certainly been either disconnected or flat at some stage. The built in SatNav had reset and reverted to its default German language. I didn't have the Language disk with me to change it, so I had a stern German female voice guiding/ordering me home from Slough last Friday.
The SatNav knows about traffic queues somehow and when it warns you in German I swear it shouts "Achtung!"
Darren.
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"stern German female voice guiding/ordering me "
Maybe it used to be Max Moseley's car...
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....German voice ordering me home from Slough....
Even the Germans want out of the place - Betjeman might have been amused.
Slight thread drift, but I was sat in a Ford Kuga yesterday equipped with Ford Voice control.
I tried to teach her to swear, but she was having none of it.
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