Hi again Japdriver, the last para made me smile (& I don't mean laugh at you) as only last night my dad who has a 5 year old car with FSH informed me that yesterday he had "had a clear out" of some old papers including car stuff. I asked him if this included service invoices & the last two year's MOT certificates? He said "Yes, as they are of no use to me now". I said they will be of use when you come to sell it; so I suggested he retrieve them from his wheely bin! :)

As regard to prices, all goods are worth whatever someone will pay for it. So just like all goods, dealers ask a price that they believe will attract a potential buyer to enquire about it & sell with as little discount as possible. Price too high & they get no calls, price too low & they wil sell very quickly but not realise the true potential profit in that car. So if all the cars are priced too high in relation to What Car & no-one bought the cars do you think the dealers would a/ happily go bust or b/ reduce the prices to what the market will pay? Or do you think that c/ the dealer prices are reflective of the price the market will pay given the low supply of clean used cars?

How do you buy a car if our price guides are either miles out, or dealer prices too high?

You decide if you want to pay the dealer prices or not bother buying a new car. It's your money, after all. You're correctly doing what every used car buyer is doing: researching the prices of cars in so called official publications then discovering that the true asking prices are different. I've just been doing the same trying to find a small car, £3,500 to £4,000 for a relative; there are few around so the dealers can ask a premium for them.

Don't forget that the asking prices will include an element of "over-allowance" for any PX wihich you can get knocked off if you have no PX; but as I have found out, at present this OA / discount is very small (typically £250 on this price of car)

Good luck with your search

I would advise you to look at some higher mileage vehicles with the proviso that they come with good and checkable service histories. At your budget, I'd be looking for a one or two owner car which has done a lot of miles fairly quickly but which has been well maintained. Some extra clues as to the previous owner's attitude to the vehicle would include the quailty of the tyres, are they a known brand or some obscure budget model for example. Have the services been carried out in accordance with the schedule at a garage where you can check the validity of the stamps ?

My view, in this sector of the market is not to pay a premium for a low odometer reading but to concentrate on the potential long term usefulness of the vehicle to you, the condition it is in and the way it has been maintained.

Many relatively young but high mileage cars belong to businesses or individuals to whom their safe and reliable operation is very important. There are some really well maintained cars out there which just happen to have a lot of numbers on the dash board !

Most dealers are overpriced on the forecourt - they are in the business to make money.

However, some are more overpriced than others - Subaru dealers wanting 60% of list price for a 3 year old car - the original list price is HIGH in comparison to other makes. So much so that the stock sits on the forecourt for months.

I am looking to buy a "new car" well new to me. 2 months ago the advertised prices for a 2/3 year old / 20/30K are in the £15-£18K range - trying to negotiate I started much lower but the dealer said that it was competitive with the 12 or so similar age / mileage cars advertised and would not move at all - yes and on 2 months only 1 out of 12 has been sold to my knowledge.

In the last week he has reduced the price by £750 but it is still in the pack of prices of other dealers. He has my phone number so you never know, the clocks go back this weekend. In the deep dark days of Nov / Dec he might want to negotiate.

The cars will have taken root and with winter coming may sit there for 5/6 months until the spring weather brightens up the country.

Hello Falkirk I dont understand these dealers why not take a lesser profit margin and sell.Or are they to thick to take this in? To me bussiness is about selling and turn over.I like to see a dealer come on this forum and explain there reasons.

Because there is such a thing as liability and consumer law. A private seller can see any old car go off down the road and that's it. If it blows up 100yds out the driveway or turns out to be a write off, clocked or whatever there is no comeback.

For a dealer, there becomes a point that the margin is too small to offset the liability of a car they have to stand behind to a certain extent once it goes out the door. Once it gets to that point most dealers would prefer to shift a car out through the trade for no profit or even a loss than sell it at zero or small profit and then have the customer coming back demanding a new gearbox.

Business is not about selling or turnover. Any old idiot can build a business with a huge turnover, it is building one with a profit and selling things at a profit is the hard bit.

Once upon a time dealers used to happily shift various px's out to consumers on a "px to clear - no warranty basis" usually for little or no profit but it got then cleared and the buyer a cheap car. Nowdays they all go to auction or to other traders because they cannot legally sell them on those terms to consumers.

Looking on Autotrader , there'a large price disparity betwenn 10 miles (Stoke ) and 30 miles (Manchester). Manchester is cheaper - as you would expect.

Supply and demand.

And it varies by model : so depends on the number of cars of each available locally...

Makes buying a car very satisfyiing...