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Sometime in the near future I'm going to have to replace my old faithful focus estate which i've had 15yrs but the bodywork is on it's way out . I have little knowledge of how to thoroughly check a car over so am pondering getting one of those inspection reports done when I find a suitable vehicle. Just wanted to ask the STW if they have advice ,warnings , recommendations etc . I'll probably be buying a used Mondeo estate or similar £5 ..£7K ish max if it makes any difference ,
Thanks in advance.
Be prepaired for the fact that £5-7k buys a sh*t heap it seems these days.
Be prepaired for all car sales to be odious, oily individuals who place more store in thier suit than customer service.
And if you don't know cars, take a friend who does. Do you have a trusted garage? Ours seems to do a side business in selling one customers car to another customer - and askng £100 intro fee.
the inspection is very good and worth doing if its a relatively small cost. they'll tell you about any items needing replacement and likely to fail soon. much more comprehensive than an mot.
If your near me I'll go.look before you decide to do anything
I'm not infallible but I've done a few for mates n they seem to be ok
I work as a truck and bus mech, know a few things about cars, I would be more than happy to help you out as best as I can, I’m Yorkshire based. Or just drop me an email
Should quantify that as 20yrs motor trade n based Bolton...
Thanks for all the kind offers.I'm Exeter based so really need to find someone with a good reputation round these parts.
Be prepaired for the fact that £5-7k buys a sh*t heap it seems these days
Different strokes...my £3K Mini feels great! And hasn't had any significant faults yet...and I "checked" it myself.
Always run the Reg through the DVLA MOT checker online, don't just look at the last one look at the last two or three years worth at least, and pay attention to both what has been fixed and what might be an outstanding advisory...
Don't assume that because an advisory from 2017 didn't pop up on the 2018 inspection it was addressed, it might simply have been missed last year...
See if you can borrow a code scanner, run a scan on the car before/after the test drive. One garage didn't like it, so I walked, clearly knew that I knew what he was up to!
Mondeo MK4 (which is your price range) is pretty much bullet proof compared to the old MK3.
Having owned both.
Look out for:
cambelt change.
Rear sub frame bushes.
Stories of dmf failure and injector failure are on the old engines used in the MK3. The MK4 uses PSA developed diesels and the 140/163 bhp varients are sound. The 1.6 is the dv6 used in the Berlingo etc. That can have issues with the turbo but to be honest is to underpowered for the Mondeo anyway.
That's about it really apart form the usual service history, tyre condition etc etc.
Don't go for one with a sat nav dash, out of date sat nav is rubbish. One with a Sony dab is better. Go for Titanium X spec if you can. Nice extras.
Had two Mk3 1.8 petrol estates. First one went from 85k to 120k in 18 mths with never a problem until I wrote it off on black ice. The 2nd went from 125k to 175k in 18 months until it died (bodywork and extras, engine, gearbox etc all fine, just too much to repair). Total investment on the two cars was £2k (£1250 for the 1st, £750 for the second). Now in an 08 1.9 tdi Galaxy that's gone from 99k to 118k in 12 months with never an issue (other than headlamp bulb just gone, but that's life). Moral of the story is that the Fords seem to be very good cars and my garage (very good and straight down the middle) reckon that when you factor in reliability and cost of spare parts should anything go wrong, then you'll struggle to beat a Mondeo or Focus.
A quick look at https://www.reliabilityindex.com/ would be a good place to start as they use all the warranty data available. You can search by make/model/year to be able to draw comparisons. Ford come out of it well as do Japanese and Korean brands. Avoid French and/or Italian and tread carefully with German, they're not always as reliable as you might think..
Final bit of advice is I've always bought off private sellers. I like to meet the owner and see where they live, you can usually get a feel for who they are and whether they're out to stiff you.
Oh and Full Service History or don't even bother
I've had a couple of vehicles I was selling inspected by buyers, unless you're paying for the expensive check very little was done for the money. Quick test drive, look around at various bits, ultrasonic thickness measurer to check for paint repairs. Mot would be as thorough and cheaper.
Always run the Reg through the DVLA MOT checker online, don’t just look at the last one look at the last two or three years worth at least, and pay attention to both what has been fixed and what might be an outstanding advisory…
This x 100. Recently bought a used car (well down the bangernomics scale from yours), and it amazed me the amount of cars being sold as 'solid' underneath, with pics of the underside and rails being nicely coated with a thick layer of dinitrol. Then you look at the history and see years of advisories / failures due to excessive corrosion. It's not definitive but it's certainly
And +1 on the code scanner too.
If you're paying for an inspection I'd go for an independent, rather than AA/RAC as I think you tend to get more for your money.
Oh, and buy the seller as much as you buy the car. At my end of the scale <2K, if the car turns out to be a complete shed then I'll get scrap/parts values and whilst it'll hurt, it's not horrendous. At 5K+, if things go south it's a hell of a hit to take...
The only time I paid for an inspection from the RAC-one of the more thorough ones on their scale at the time with a promise of compensation if miss described- it passed with a clean bill of health.
The car nearly caught fire as I was driving it home from the sellers house and had to be trailered the last few miles. It was a Citroen BX and the high pressure accumulator for the suspension had sprung a leak and sprayed hydraulic oil over the exhaust manifold so loads of smoke and no suspension or brakes.
When I queried the report with the RAC it soon became apparent that there are so many get out clauses in their t's &c's that I wished I hadn't bothered
I actually had a good experience with last car salesman that actually sold us a car - Strathmore in Perth (offshoot of some outfit in Edinburgh I think). Guy was pleasant, didn't do the hard sell, organised for someone to pick me up at station (as I had no car...). He was a decent guy really.
As opposed to the tw*nt at Arnold Clark / Skoda in Inverness.
Be prepaired for all car sales to be odious, oily individuals who place more store in thier suit than customer service
In true STW style, sweeping Ill-informed generalisation there! Whatever next...all Brexit voters are racist? All priests are peadophiles? 😂