Due to death of berlingo (see classifieds) and recent events on home front (brother’s car crash) I need a new family car.

I haven’t got a lot of disposable income, and hate spending money on cars, so I’ve got a budget of £3K.

My local garage, which is a very small local operation run by a guy who I have used for years and has always seemed decent, has a colleague who sources cars from auction and sells them on, for a fee that is apparently roughly the size of the indemnity that I’d have to pay if I bought from auction myself. He can, in theory, find a car for my needs (size, shape, service history, not obviously about to explode). I spoke to him on the phone and he says he’ll let me know what is coming up over the next couple of weeks.

At my budget I guess I’m more at the “dealer trade in” than “straight from fleet” level of auction, although I’m not 100% sure about that. I’m not after anything flashy/unusual – most likely an avensis or some other solid repmobile.

Given that I know little, really, about cars, is it worth paying for someone else’s ‘expertise’ in this way? Or should I revert to dealers (perhaps looking to shift on their own trade ins, e.g. this sort of avensis? Or even private sale (possibly plus inspection)?

I suspect this comes down to how much I trust the guy. Any thoughts/advice?

Try gumtree or autotrader. go for private ads with a car with history from someone who has owned it for a few years. The last 2 cars I have bought for my son have been this way and they were good cars for the cash. The only thing is check regularly because as soon as summit decent comes up it will not hang about. If I had a car I wanted rid of with no comeback it would be straight in the auction.

If you buy from anyone other than a dealer get a hpi check done on it.

I buy cars and vans from auction for my own work – and yes – dealers pay WAY less commission / fees at auction than you and I ever will.

So if you trust the guy, and he’s at least going to be a second pair of eyes, then it might be a good idea.

But – as you mention- your budget wont get you any one owner ex fleet choices. And there’s a lot of real crap out there that just goes straight to auction.

At your budget MY money would be on doing a search for a one owner, japanese, petrol in a private sale. Boring, but tend to be cheapish.

It’s a shame you haven’t a little more money as my favourite way of buying is ex lease 3 year old cars which will have been serviced reasonably and won’t be being sold due to someone getting fed up of its issues, which is why I’m sure most cars are at auction.

I bought my wife’s last Laguna like this, cost £6k for a three year old diesel estate, one owner and full service history.

I had a vehicle check done on one I sold by a potential buyer – the stuff done on an AA check was pretty laughable and nothing anyone couldn’t do themselves with a checklist to follow or that wouldn’t be picked up by an mot.

It really depends. I’ve bought cars at auction, privately and from dealers. Best car we ever had was from a dealer, but I’d got to the point where I was ringing up and going “Is it straight, is it rusty, does it go and stop right?”. It’s amazing what some traders will try and flog around the bottom end of the market.

The top and the bottom of it is you need to have a bit of an idea of what you’re looking at. Buying from a certain channel isn’t going to guarantee a good car. That said dealers are obliged to offer some after sales service.

Another thing is that you need to flexible to get decent cars. If you can check autotrader / eBay more than once a day and have a Boss who’ll give you a pass to go and look at a motor. Good cars at good prices do not hang around.

My uncle owned a garage in Bristol for 20+ years and always serviced ARVAL lease cars. He says that they never quibbled about anything and kept their cars in top condition.

Now he only ever buys Ex ARVAL cars from auction, pays around 3K and usually gets Mondeos that are 3/4 years old. Not sure if he has any traders concessions still.

Eskay, if your uncle can get me a 4 year old mondeo for £3K that hasn’t been to the moon and back and goes roughly in the direction it points in, I’d bite his hand off… and expect a few others would too!

The last one he bought had about 150k on the clock was a bit dog eared and he paid around 3K for it. Like I said, I am not sure if he gets them through a trade account or not.

He did offer to go down with me last time I changed my car but I bottled it and bought one through a garage instead!

PePPer – how does one go about buying ex lease cars? Auction only?

Earl – Either at auction or from a dealer who will have bought it from an auction.
If your company has lease cars it’s normally possible to buy one going back before it leaves. The lease company will offer you a fixed price for it. You’d basically take the vehicle from whoever at your place had it. It can be good as you can talk to the person who’s had it about any problems etc.

I’ve been to the auctions a few times, my ex-BIL bought a few cars there. A very large portion of the cars you see at a used-car dealership have been bought at auction. If you have the time take a day off and go along, its pretty fast paced and you have to know what you are doing. In my experience decent cars go for reasonably good money, ie above “dealer trade-in price” in the various guides.

@Earl – some lease companies have relationships with specific car dealerships/organisations. The best start is to call the leasing company and ask what they do. I’ve bought a couple of cars that way although these where from personal contacts, ie I bought my mates/colleagues ex lease-car. Had to miss out in Dec last year when mates immaculate A3 2TDI sold for £10.5k, probably £3k below open market

That 900S was bought by local Saab garage to me Ian, from an auction I think, given a new clutch, exhaust as well I think, and sold on.. So yes, if you have an experienced middleman to give them the once over, go for it.

Email in profile if you want to chat further mate. Can your budget go ‘a bit’ further?

I have bought 3 cars from auctions over the years.

1 was £6k, the over 2 were only about £2k.

All have turned out to be very good value for money.

I don’t know a lot about cars, just used a bit of common sense. Get there before the auction starts and check whats already there, you can then ask for the keys and documents for any car that interests you and check it out further. You can’t drive it but you can start is up.

Also, if you are looking for the cheaper end of the market, you may be better off going to a smaller local auction place, rather than the bigger BCA type places.

Just buy from a private sale, from people you get a good feeling about.

Much safer and easier than going to a few auctions to get the idea of how they work, before going to one to buy for real.

Remember, the trade also send the crap they can’t sell or don’t want to fix back into auctions.

It feels to me like you think you’ll get a ‘newer’, ‘safer’ car cheap at auction as opposed to buying private. You could get lucky, just don’t get blinded into thinking you’ll get a better car at auction. My guess is you won’t and plenty of private sales will allow a bit of bartering to similar price points as the auction (remember to add the auctions fees on to the purchase price)