Went for a test drive tonight with a friend, a year old mini clubman. 1st problem rear door handle broken. Fair enough can be mended. The car drove well and got back to the garage, suggested that she tried reversing into parking space due to limited rear view visibility. When doing this it went into limp mode. I took a look round the car and found the front two tyres to have gouges around them and a bit of bumper trim missing. The car was supposed to have had a PSI check done. Seems a bit poor on a 16k car? Any thoughts? Cheers 1 shed.

Keep looking, it’s not a rare car so not difficult to find a better one ?

Only 1 thought – walk away from car and that garage

Not even with your barge pole…

Try another garage

Can’t say it has installed confidence in the garage. The tyres had what felt more like a grease over them, to make them shine or to hide the significant damage? They are ringing back tomorrow with a price and when it will be fixed by. If I hadn’t been there she would have bought it at full price!!

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3ZskbLa_Io[/video]

Personally, I’d skip it.
If it’s a garage, it should be ready for sale. Viewed cars before that have needed extra work to get them up to forecourt standard and the salesman goes we can fix that and we can fix that. Why not do it before advertising it then? Should be a trade sale and cheaper otherwise.

Found what we wanted on an owners forum in the end. Better and cheaper and without the BS.

Before I got my current shed (which I love dearly) I went and saw a similiar mondeo at a dealership. Low end dealership to be fair, but still. Phoned up in advance, said something along the lines of “I have to cycle 45 minutes to get to you, I like the looks of the car based on the ad but tell me straight, am I going to turn up and find it’s too good to be true?” “No worries mate, it’s a great car”. Turn up, go for drive, stall it twice on the lot because it has no power, drive off in a cloud of smoke and mad juddering and lurching from the engine. Take it back “It just needs a service mate, we’ll do that before you collect”. Could have bloody murdered the guy, I missed the dh world cup for that. ****.

(the justification was, they were a lower end shop and didn’t want to invest money in their stock in case they ended up clearing it via auctions. Which I suppose would make sense to a dealership that doesn’t bother to make their cars saleable, they’re more likely to end up discarding them through auctions and go “phew, glad we didn’t spend £50 on that one!”)

Also went and saw a vectra- yes, I know- and it looked good in the photos, turned up and one entire side had been painted with a brush 😆 But at least that was funny.

Offer them a grand. Or by it just so you can be ‘2 sheds’.

Do not buy it!

There are thousands of those minis sold.

Go and buy a tidy one.

We just had similar, went to look at a car for Mrs P, we found a low mileage example rang them before going to ask about its condition, turned up to a bag of crap, which hadn’t even been valeted properly.

Told them to stuff found another near ish by for less money but more miles and better spec.

Which had been prepared for sale properly and was well looked after.

Go and find a better example. If it’s been curbed like you say, then I’d be suspicious of everything else.

I wouldnt buy a car that fails a test drive , thats what a test drive is for.
The limp home mode is a potential parts cannon , armed and waiting to be fired, could be a dozen things and the garage wont be wanting to spend hundreds and thousands of pounds finding and fixing the actual fault.
Mini is a girls car , so probably been smashed into kerbs repeatedly, hence the tyre damage. Been valeted and dressed to make the tyres look newer than they really are. Alloys are probably out of round too.

The tyres had what felt more like a grease over them, to make them shine or to hide the significant damage?

This in itself is not in the slightest bit unusual (have you bought a car from a dealer before?). Tyres are ‘polished’ to give showroom appeal. Given the state of the rest of the car, it might just have been very badly applied. Walk away from this car, and the dealer!

Mini is a girls car , so probably been smashed into kerbs repeatedly, hence the tyre damage.

20 minutes, and no one has been offended by this yet? Standards are slipping :D.

Thanks for the unanimous feedback.

Mini is a girls car , so probably been smashed into kerbs repeatedly, hence the tyre damage.
20 minutes, and no one has been offended by this yet? Standards are slipping :D.

Oh, go on then:

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.”
? Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

PS:Angeldust, assuming you are female, can I have your phone number?

suggested that she tried reversing into parking space due to limited rear view visibility. When doing this it went into limp mode

Ah, the old dodgy boat race reverse in technique. But it still wouldn’t fly. Don’t feel bad about you performance – it happens to the best of us.

Thanks Convert 😀

A year old car? If you’re financing or using PCP/lease via the dealer then it’s probably cheaper to buy a brand new one.

Mini is a girls car , so probably been smashed into kerbs repeatedly, hence the tyre damage.

I’ve driven three Minis in the last couple of weeks, two had female owners, and all were two to three years old, all three were in excellent condition, and any issues with kerbed alloys was entirely down to very low-profile runflat tyres with side-walls that have no overlap on the rims, so there’s little or no protection given to the wheels.
The alloys on all three only showed light scraping on the nearside, contrast with the BMW’s I’ve driven, also with low-profile runflats, and the wheels have been scraped to heck, and all were male drivers.
In fact, the worst damage is usually on ex-Motability cars, but that’s another issue.
The Minis were also tremendous fun to drive, the Cooper S I drove on Friday was very quick, and I had a Cooper S cabriolet the other week, female owner, replaced with another one, was like driving a Kart, but the noise from the tyres and the soft-top was more than I’d want to live with.
And I really hate the dash layout, it bugs the hell out of me, another reason I wouldn’t have one, but that’s just me.

we’ve had a test drive a few years ago where the rep insisted on coming with us.

He in quite useful when it ran out of petrol within 5 miles 🙄

PePPeR – Member

Do not buy it!

There are thousands of those minis sold.

Go and buy a tidy one.

^^^ This. 🙂

PS:Angeldust, assuming you are female, can I have your phone number?

Sorry, I’m a heterosexual male. Still, I’m flattered that you asked :D.

As above, don’t touch this car irrespective of what fixes the garage suggest and what price reduction they offer.

Has your friend looked on CarWow to see what price she could buy a new one ?

PS:Angeldust, assuming you are female, can I have your phone number?
Sorry, I’m a heterosexual male. Still, I’m flattered that you asked :D.

Bah! Was hoping to pick up points on grounds of tokenistic pro-feminist statements. Quoting Simone de Beauvoir has always impressed the totty women in the past.

Though I see CountZero has done a much better job of it on this occasion with his evidence-based empirical approach.