Afternoon all, this is more of a vent/rant than a question really.

The wife’s pretty much decided she’d rather drive my car than hers (I’m quite happy with that as I’d like a new one).. but I’ve been left with her civic cdti which I’m not a fan of (bit too low for a car that’s not a sports car and there is more abc pillar of than window to see out of).

So with eager anticipation of a new car I’ve spent this weekend looking for a used motor.

… It’s become very apparent that Nottingham is awash with forecourts full of motors that have clearly just been bought at auction, cleaned and then stuck on a forecourt with an extra 2-3k on them.
EVERYTHING seems to be battered, wheels peeling interior rips or keyed and buffed out so you can still see it etc etc

Are there any reputable car traders about anymore or has the market got so awash with cowboy quick buck buy and sellers that anyone who was dealing with decent condition cars has been edged/priced out?

There used to be plenty or private sellers on autotrader a decade ago and now anyone selling private seems to far and few between… What’s going on? Is it just a bad coincidence that of the 20 or so motors I’ve seen this weekend are all utter tripe or am I getting picky in my old age?

Nope – just as you said and the same down here.
It took me almost 6 months to find the Maxi Life when I was looking.

theyva all taken advice from this chap

… It’s become very apparent that Nottingham is awash with forecourts full of motors that have clearly just been bought at auction, cleaned and then stuck on a forecourt with an extra 2-3k on them.
EVERYTHING seems to be battered, wheels peeling interior rips or keyed and buffed out so you can still see it etc etc

Isn’t this a cash flow thing? What’s the point of paying up front for repairs that are going to sit on the forecourt for months on end? Chances are that they sub out all this work rather than paying staff. Or are you talking to the dealers and they’re refusing to tart up the motors for you.

To be honest I hadn’t asked anyone to do any work as what I’ve seen has been such a bad starting point that I’m not interested.

What’s your budget?
Have you tried one of the large supermarket type places?

To be honest I hadn’t asked anyone to do any work as what I’ve seen has been such a bad starting point that I’m not interested.

I think I’d rather start from a position where I can see the condition of the car, and cosmetic stuff is pretty easy to rectify, rather than look at shiny stuff where I have no idea of how it may have been mistreated. At the end of the day it’s only a car and the most imprtant bit is how it works and not how it looks.
EDIT: Go and have a chat with them, if they refuse to do the work you can then come back and call them @#$%!!!, and I’d be likely to agree with you.

At the end of the day it’s only a car and the most imprtant bit is how it works and not how it looks.

It’s not impossible to have both.

A lot of people manage it because that’s what they want.

I’ve bought two cars in the last 1.5 years and I was pretty picky what a I wanted. The sub £5k market is the worst and I ended up travelling far and wide to view good private cars. The stock in the dealers servicing that end of the market, were clearly vehicles from people who view them as white goods and treat them very badly.

I’ve only bought one car from a dealer and I’m not sure I want to repeat that. I’d rather save the 20-50% mark up and keep that as my ‘f***’ fund/warranty 🙂

If they are that bad and mark up is 2-3k as you say why dont you go to the auction spend the same amount you were going to spend on the forecourt and get a newer car with less miles!

I can recommend Adam Bede in Wirksworth. Bit of a trip from Nottingham though.

http://www.adambede.co.uk/

On other hand my 15YO Golf has reached the “line in the sand” and I needed a new car. Found two identical cars, except the colour, at the same dealer 25 miles away. Went and had a look and bought one. It was a hard bargain, but he did all of the work that needed doing, which was not a lot, I was just being very picky.

The straightest, most honest car I’ve seen for a while. I will agree that upto £5K the market is awash with tatty crap, or ex-PCP small cars that have been abused.

It’s not impossible to have both.

I didn’t say it was.

Well ok. If we are playing that game….

I never claimed you did say it.

Well ok. If we are playing that game….

I never claimed you did say it.

OP be prepared to travel upto 100miles and ask ALOT of questions before you set off. Any vagueness or evasion on a certain area, move on. Of course a seller can fib but if there are lots of detailed pics..

No secondhand car is in amazing or not a fault condition so the seller should admit to certain things. My last three cars came from: Ayr, Dorset and Nottingham (Im in the NWest).

It’s been like that for a while now IMO.

Changed my car back in February last year and had a budget of £5k cash so went looking for something. Wasn’t too fussy on what make or model, just wanted something tidy, economical and with A/C. Everywhere had tatty cars with obvious signs of abuse or neglect and all the dealers were very hesitant to do any remedial work. The semi-tidy cars were few and far between and had a £2-3k price hike above guide price! Ended up buying an end-of-line Fabia with a small amount on credit for £8.5k just to avoid a duffer.

Same story with my sister this year, growing family meant a second car was required so went looking for a Meriva. All the ones we saw were knackered and scratched to hell. The one she bought was the best of a very bad bunch cosmetically (still had loads of chips and scratches inside and out) and has been nothing but trouble with binding brakes, coolant and oil loss (no obvious leaks) and now clunks randomly despite passing an RAC inspection (work being done under warranty) and having a FSH. Obviously been driven hard when cold by the previous owner! She’s currently on the lookout for a replacement but there’s seemingly nothing out there, even one of her recently-discovered work contacts that sources cars for dealers says it’s all mostly crap out there. All ex-rental stock or knackered ex-lease vehicles.

His tip was to keep an eye on which friends or family were selling their cars as at least then you can get a good idea of how it’s been treated. All these people with flash cars on Lease/HP don’t care for them as they’ll get another in 3 years.

I had the same experience as milky1980: it’s all crap under £6000. The salesmen have no idea about the cars and just say “well, if you see anything that needs doing, we can do it”. That’s no good for me. I ended up buying one from a guy who gets all the local Skoda dealer’s castoffs- but even then the first one he showed me had a lot of emulsification around the oil cap!

I. Dont mind buying scratched /dented cars and i have done ,,,

How ever if they think. They are getting close to market value – they have no chance, and i dont care if they are going to tart it up on the cheap to try and appease me.

You need to take a different approach. For £5k, you’re only going to get something shit and boring anyway, so why not just spend £1k instead, for something as equally as shit and boring, but at least you won’t mind if it’s scratched.

Our local main dealer does decent used stuff from four and a half grand.

Richard Cort in Bury, if you fancy a FIAT.
They usually have a couple of immaculate Puntos with low miles.

Consider ex Motability cars – you’d be amazed at what you can get for £5000.
Our low milage, 2 year old Doblo wasn’t much more than that.
Not all short journey chuffers, either. 🙂

It’s cut throat and full of chancers at the cheaper end and always has been! (everyone’s after the same thing) especially if you want anything at all mainstream fashionable.

If you go for unusual cars/variants/colours/models a rung or two below top of the range and or big engined exec monsters, you can get some mint bargains for peanuts, with obvious downsides of course!

If you want something specific be prepared to move fast and travel far and wide.

Peeps accept a third of a cars value and/or pay over the odds for a newer car just to avoid the hassle, that should tell you something. If it was so easy there would be a tiny trade-in market!

I went to a few used car courts when looking for my first car last year
I seemed to know more than the salesman about the cars I was looking at, and knew what problems needed addressing
He blatantly lied about several issues, even after we paid a deposit and had written agree to things would be sorted
fortunately managed to get the deposit back

Went and found a little Ford Hatchback from a private seller the day it went onto the Friday ad, car had one scratch down the door and was otherwise very very good condition. Full history, and an absolute bargain considering it costs barely anything to run, and the only thing I’ve had to replace is a battery
Funny thing was they lived opposite one of the uses car courts I looked at, selling the same car for £1000 more and worse condition!
Only paid £1250 for mine and certainly very lucky to find such a decent little car

That said it took about 3 months solid searching and deciding what I wanted

I’m dreading when I can afford the next car, because finding it will be even harder now I’ll be more specific with my needs

Its not just small garages doing this. When I went to a local Ford main dealer to look for a car, the whole forecourt was basically full of ‘bangers’. Which when I was looking for nearly new, the number plates showed they were agewise in my price range, but they all looked shocking. Dents, scratches, bald tyres, bumpers and panel fit poor, lights damaged, the list goes on. To me, it shows an owner who doesn’t give two hoots with the car, which would probably show in servicing and care and attention. More than likely ex fleet/ avis rentals. The sales men like this, because they say they will fix things before the sale to get the sale and a happy customer. When the salesman came out, I walked off.

Jon kirkham is deffo worth looking at. He’s a good guy, knows his cars and a keen mtb’r to boot. West Midlands…

At that price point ALWAYS, ALWAYS buy private sale, that way you can assess the owner as well as the car.

When I bought my last few second hand cars the best condition ones by far were the private sales. All the dealer stuff I saw was shabby and overpriced (basically just auction tat that’s come mostly from main dealer trade ins). There’s often a reason why these cars were traded in by their previous owners and not sold privately.

Ha. I used to have a company car and thrashed the life out of it! Put it through some poor woman’s front wall (it got repaired. Car and wall ) scratches here and there and messed the interior up with a dog and bikes. Cheaply fixed stuff before it went back. Feel sorry for whoever got it eventuality.

Sounds like I’m not alone in my lack of respect.?

I’ll be wary when i need to be buying my own again.

I’ve had three fleet cars, they were all faultless…

Private sellers are now on eBay and Pistonheads, not Autotrader.

Jeesh – is a £5k car is a ‘banger’ nowadays?!

DrP

You can find gems hidden in the dross. As someone else said, look for ex motability and/or less obvious models. Just above your budget, we just had choice of three, one owner ex motability or lease cars in immaculate condition (OK, the one we bought had a stone chip in), and main dealer (gasp) we bought off did full service, new brakes and two new tyres as well as two services an MOT and two year warranty. On a £6.2k /3yr/35k car.

Just but from the auction and cut out the middle-man. It’s not rocket surgery.

chilled76

… It’s become very apparent that Nottingham is awash with forecourts full of motors that have clearly just been bought at auction, cleaned and then stuck on a forecourt with an extra 2-3k on them.
EVERYTHING seems to be battered, wheels peeling interior rips or keyed and buffed out so you can still see it etc etc

OP, try car shopping in Northern Ireland. Everything for sale here has been bought at auction in England and shipped over here, thus meriting a price hike of about £1000 – £2000 over the prices you are seeing.

awash with forecourts full of motors that have clearly just been bought at auction, cleaned and then stuck on a forecourt with an extra 2-3k on them.
EVERYTHING seems to be battered, wheels peeling interior rips or keyed and buffed out so you can still see it etc etc

+1

Eh..?

I just cannot relate to anything of the experiences you lot seem to be having.

I’ve been buying cars between £1k and £5k for years, both for my own use and to help out other people who find it all a bit bewildering and I’ve never found it a problem. A really great car can easily be found from a dealer for that price, but you may have to spend a few weeks and a few hundred miles driving to find it.

I really pushed the boat out with my last dealer purchase – a £2.3k Mini Cooper with 100k on the clock. Really tidy inside and out and it’s run fantastically for the last year.

Where in gods name are you guys going for these heaps?

Surely a car can only command the price it is worth, which a shed can’t..

:confusedface:

The thing that annoyed me was, I walk in and say “I’m looking for a big estate or people carrier, up to £5000, mondeo-ish or galaxy-ish” and they show me an octavia saloon for £10000. Genuinely never once had the first car be anything like what I asked about.

I had the same experience as milky1980: it’s all crap under £6000

Diesel Car Company in Southampton really go the extra mile here – their cars over 6K are bobbins too. Avoid.

I helped my sister in law buy a car for sub £2k recently.

I’m pleased to say she loved it and it’s lasted her longer than any other recent car, however the first car we looked at was potentially quite dodgy, with very dirty oil right at the bottom of the dipstick and low coolant levels…

The one she got was bought privately (and was by no means perfect cosmetically, and was going to need a new tyre or two shortly after she bought it, but was generally sound), the other was at a dealer.

Prior to that I was looking at spending similar money on something a bit more interesting. There was a lot of tat on the market, particularly from larger dealers – and I’m not just talking cosmetic faults. It did amuse me to test drive a car that ran like a bag of spanners and had rust patches but had still been polished to “seal the sale” (Would’ve bought it with rust patches if it had run/driven well as it was worth sorting out to me.)

Consider ex Motability cars – you’d be amazed at what you can get for £5000

I’d second this, having picked up a good condition ex-motability car for around the £5K mark.