As per the above, My car is on it’s last legs and I have been perusing Auto Trader etc to see what’s available.

It seems that most of the cars I’m looking at are generally over 100 miles away.

So, how far is too far when going to buy a car?

(this will only be my second car so I have no idea)

I’d maybe travel to Italy when I pick up my brand new Lamborghini.

After my fictional lottery win, of course.

A 1.6 litre Focus? 20 miles. A £200k super car? As far as was necessary.

Depends on the colour.

Aberdeen. I’m in Bath. I’ve done this.

Around 200 miles for the last vehicle I bought. I had very specific requirements and I’d been looking for months.

It depends if it’s run of the mill or something with a specific spec that hardly ever is available for sale.
If it’s the former then not far, there will be others.
If it’s the latter, then as far as necessary.

Depends how badly you want the spec I suppose.

went 120 miles (by train, collected at station) for last car (edit: from a dealer)
Was def. the one for us, and worth travelling (but not too far).

An hour so by car, so wherever that gets you – but I tend to buy cars from garages where you have a warrenty and some kind of comeback down the line if there are issues. If I was going for a private sale then not so far.

I flew from London to Edinburgh for a 307SW and saved £1000.00. Trained from London to Newton Abbot for a T4. Drove from London to Bournmouth for a T25.

IdleJon: surely it’d be more fun to sail the yacht over and drive the Lambo back? the crew can take the yacht home for you.

Thanks all, I would prefer to not have to travel too far but if the options are further away then travel it is.

For me, buying, furthest was Berkshire to the top end of Norfolk.

Selling, I’ve twice had people come down from Aberdeen to buy cars, and another guy came over from SW Ireland. Only one was a vaguely interesting car, the other two were very ordinary, £2k-ish IIRC.

I’d go much further if it was a private sale.
With a dealer you’ve paid for a warranty, and if it’s too far away what’s it really worth?
With a private sale you’re on your own, so no need to go back to the vendor.

APF

Aberdeen to Derby, flew down drove back.

I once drove to Grimsby and while doing so, twice, encountered what is quite possibly the loudest road surface, EVER!

Apparently the surface is directional, but when it was laid, it was laid in the wrong direction.

British Engineering, eh?
😆

Many years ago I traveled from Ironbrige all the way to Hereford on the train to collect a Renault 4.. It was ace and I drove it home, my Gran wasn’t too impressed as I wheel spun off her driveway though. 😆

Depends on the car. I travelled from Swansea to Huddersfield to by a Merc ML. It was older than the usual stock kept by main dealers so I figured it was worth travelling for. It was.
Went to Sheffield for our other car as it was an unusual colour and had all the options I wanted.
Having free train travel helps.

This is definitely allaying any fears I had for feeling like I had to limit how far I should go.

Solo, I’d like to think there’s a group of engineers / contractors having a little chuckle to themselves every time they think of that road “but it was an honest mistake Guv…”

4130s0ul – Member
IdleJon: surely it’d be more fun to sail the yacht over and drive the Lambo back? the crew can take the yacht home for you.

Are you joking? Have you seen the Bristol Channel lately? The oysters and champagne would get everywhere…

It really depends on how specific the car is, really. If, as I was recently, I was looking for any generic estate to replace my broken one, I wouldn’t consider going very far at all.

But on two occasions when I was buying a specific T4, I went from Cardiff to Kent.

I travelled from London to Ireland to buy a rare M3 15 years ago. Was a risk but I spoke to the guy at length on the phone, he sent close ups of all panels and wheels etc and I spoke to the local dealer who looked after it. Made a weekend of it and had an amazing drive back through Wales.

If the cars right, a few hours travelling is no biggy.

Bought a ’77 Citroen CX from Glasgow when I was living in Brighton,

Got the Megabus sleeper up from London which gives you a proper bed so I arrived in Glasgow refreshed and with the whole day to get back.

I love a car collection trip, that long drive home with the new toy is always good fun.

IdleJon: yup, see it everyday, Oysters and Champagne? are you sure you don’t mean Thatchers and crabs?

Hugh Jay: that was kind of the attitude I was leaning towards should I have to travel a long way, make a trip of it.

Aberdeen to Sheffield, S/H cars were really expensive up here compared to down south at the time

Worksop.

Connect2: it seems times have changed and it’s the opposite now. all the cheaper cars have been way up north (that I’ve seen)

IdleJon – Member

Are you joking?

Nope, there really is a stretch of road heading to Grimsby which is crazy loud. I mentioned it to the sales man who then relayed the story to me. about the road I was describing.

Dread to think what it does to the tyres.

I flew to Glasgow from Birmingham to buy new Mazda from a dealer in Ayr, because even with the cost of tickets and fuel back, it was still several thousand cheaper than the local Mazda dealer.

My Jag was from a dealer in Leeds because it was the spec I wanted.

Everything else has been within a few miles because they’ve all been fairly ordinary secondhand cars.

I’d would, and have, gone all over the UK to get stuff I really wanted. You only have to do it once.

Friends went from Brighton to Inverness to get a Saab

Subaru one: 15miles
Subaru two: 150miles each way
Subaru three: 200miles each way

Citroen Xsara Picasso – main dealer disposal – train from Manchester to Ayr.

I saved £1200 for 6hours ‘work’

I live in Hampshire and always travel north to buy second hand cars, I bought a Civic from Chester and an Espace from Leighton-Buzzard and saved over £1k on each over local offerings.
Tend to buy a new Vauxhall Vivaro van every year , (we run 3 on a 3 year / 100k cycle) and nowhere around here can get close to buying from Burnley.
Travel isn’t really a problem as we work all over the country so it’s easy enough to get dropped off and drive back, but saving a grand, I’d go pretty much anywhere, even if I did have to pay for transport.
I guess the ground rent and showrooms are so expensive, they need more overheads down here.

I’ve been all over the country for cars from Scotland to Devon from Sheffield. If the price is right and there’s a decent saving (say 500-1000 or more) then can see no reason not to!

290 miles last week to buy a second hand honda crv .

Surrey to Lancashire to buy my current car. It was a spec I wanted and I saved thousands on my local main dealer prices.

Do people commit to buy them before travelling? I’d be happy to travel 200 miles to buy the car wanted, but the fear is you get there and it’s a complete dog.

Traveled to Essex from Warwick for the last car viewed it in the Saturday paid a deposit and collected in the next day paying the rest of the cash. If you go with the view it may not be right and that you’d collect it another day then you don’t feel the pressure of “having” to buy the car. As others have said depends on how rare the car is as to how far I’d travel.

Do people commit to buy them before travelling? I’d be happy to travel 200 miles to buy the car wanted, but the fear is you get there and it’s a complete dog.

I tend to get enough info for me to be happy to pretty much commit to it, but you can always go bck the way you came.

I did once buy a Monza that I knew was an utter shed simply because I couldn’t get a train back to Brighton without an overnight stay so it worked out cheaper to offload it at a loss,

Overall I’m very much up.

600 mile round trip*, to buy a skoda unseen**

* Car was close to inlaws so could coincide with a visit
** Nearly new car, from a dealer who promised to refund deposit if it wasn’t what we hoped for. And it was the only s/h one in the country that was even close to the spec that we were after, with a 4 month wait for new ones.

ETA – I think what I’m saying is that is down to context/circumstance: some people go to Italy to order a Ferrari.

Flew from glasgow to bristol to buy a mini then drive it back. Minis bristol minis were the best place to get one and all the scottish ones were rust…