Buying repossessed cars, good or bad?

Just looking to buy my first car before the years out and me and my brother have talked about buying and selling repoed cars to in the future and i but i am actually looking into getting one for myself.

The prices look promising and for me i only have a budget of around 2 n a half k and I’m tempted to give it a go. Has anyone had any experience with repoed cars they can share?

Depends on what your getting – assuming all finance is cleared and not tied to the car (and in all the docs) Used cars are worth what they are, condition and servicing etc are the main things to look at.

Things to ensure the cars have – HPI report, 2 x keys and V5 log book.
If they don’t have these it will mean faff and cost to you.

hings to ensure the cars have – HPI report, 2 x keys and V5 log book.
If they don’t have these it will mean faff and cost to you

Thanks i will note that down, could you recommend any trusted places to look for repoed cars by any chance.

Most end up at auction

Thanks will look into it

could you recommend any trusted places to look for repoed cars by any chance.

I’m not quite sure what you are getting at here. The finance company will recover the vehicle, it will then go to auction to be sold for whatever the market value of that vehicle is that day. People buying at auction will not expect a discount just because its been repoed.

If its a BMW it might end up back on a BMW forecourt etc etc.

I cant see how you are going to get a better deal ?

And if a car has been repoed, I doubt it will have been serviced properly (as they could not afford to pay for servicing), it might have been driven to an inch of its life as the owner knew it was going to be repoed.

Ask Ling for some advice on getting a cheap new car, and ask Geordiemick if he will finance it for you…. problem solved.

I assume they’d just end up at somewhere like BCA along with all the other ex-PCP and fleet cars?

Risk is you get no chance to test drive it, and there’s usually no service history because they bin everything apart from the V5. But some places give you a week after the auction to return it if it’s got something majorly wrong that wasn’t apparent at the auction.

You can get a good deal there, you’re effectively cutting out the middle man (second hand car dealer) in the supply chain, but you’re taking on all their risk (and getting it serviced, and polishing out any marks, and generally getting all that stuff done) if you want to sell it for a profit.

I assume they’d just end up at somewhere like BCA along with all the other ex-PCP and fleet cars?

Risk is you get no chance to test drive it, and there’s usually no service history because they bin everything apart from the V5. But some places give you a week after the auction to return it if it’s got something majorly wrong that wasn’t apparent at the auction.

You can get a good deal there, you’re effectively cutting out the middle man (second hand car dealer) in the supply chain, but you’re taking on all their risk (and getting it serviced, and polishing out any marks, and generally getting all that stuff done) if you want to sell it for a profit.

They dont bin everything but the V5 at all….

So as someone who knows this side of the business intamently,I can give some advice. First off, I’m not sure you are going to see much or a “bargain” with a repossessed car. They fetch market value, dependant on condition and history. Nearly all repossessions will be auction sold as the lender has to prove fair market value, should the recovered funds not cover the settlement and they have to chase for the remainder through court.

As said by others above. Main dealers will purchase repo’s and sell on, providing they meet their franchise criteria and agreements on age and mileage.

If as the OP states, you are lookign for a £2500 repo, well its goign to be a fairly low end car. Many finance companies want the car to be no older than 10 years of age at the end of the agreement, so by that very nature cars will be usually (not always) under this. As such i would very much doubt you will stumble across many at the £2500 price point, even wholesale. If its nice enough for you to wan to buy it at that price. Its likely to fetch very, very strong money…

As a private individual just be aware of the auction house indemnity charges should you fancy buying a car. They are not insignificant.

Just check it over thoroughly, but get someone else to check the boot. 🙂

See if Ling has any kicking about…

If its repossessed see if you can get your money back from the excorcist

If its repossessed see if you can get your money back from the excorcist

I wonder if she will accept half plife.

Edited: Makes no sense out of context now that the mods deleted the spam post by a very poor Ling impersonator. Quick work Mods. Well done! Keep up the good work!

Ling? Is that you??

🙂 I thought that too – had to look twice 🙂

Don’t underestimate the cost of new keys – for some cars it can be over £400

I wonder if it’s possible to tell if someone has read the first post and jumped in to post without reading anything else?

As a few others have said, most decent repos will end up like every other car in the trade auction.

I’ve actually repo’d a few vehicles in my time, unlike what you see on TV it’s not about turning up at 2am with a tow truck and tearing off with is whilst the ‘owner’ chases you down the road swinging a bat.

There’s a requirement to prove that you’ve got fair market value for it because often whoever had it before is still liable for any short-fall I.E> they owe £10k – Car gets taken back, sells for £9k, they still owe £1k, sell for £11k, they actually get a £1k back (this was 10 years ago mind and regs might have changed).

The vehicles I repo’d were taken in agreement with the keeper, I’d turn up (I promise I look and act NOTHING like one of those twerps on ‘Can’t pay…’) Say Hi, say sorry for their troubles if they were talking about it, take the keys, shake hands and leave, the service history was usually under the steering wheel in a little cubby, if not the manufacturer could provide a replacement and stamp any services taken on their system. They wern’t sold as “just ripped off the drive of their last owner because they couldn’t pay for it”.

I’m sure the latest shark like ‘logbook loans’ types are a lot more nefarious, they seem to be happy to lend on any old banger and it’s usually the next owner who gets shafted, I guess a few of them turn up sans keys and locks. I personally wouldn’t be tempted because if the poor owner couldn’t pay the repayments, they weren’t paying for decent maintenance either – the car trade it so formulaic these days, it’s not worth buying something with a rough history when a good one is probably going to cost about the same.

Edited: Makes no sense out of context now that the mods deleted the spam post by a very poor Ling impersonator. Quick work Mods. Well done! Keep up the good work!

I thought you were referring to the animated gif up there – looks like Ling in a helmet.

You might try talking to finance companies direct. When I used to work for a car leasing company we had a website for dealers to see all cars returned from customers for whatever reason – normal end of contract / early return or repo.

Anything not sold via that route after x days went on to BCA

They dont bin everything but the V5 at all…

Often there’s no V5 with the cars I pick up, and occasionally no documentation at all, these cars are mostly Motability cars, but some are occasionally lease cars, VWFS, Lex Autolease, MBFS, etc, some of which have a V5.
I had an ex-Motability car the other day which hadn’t been serviced for three years, according to the service book, and a colleague went to pick up another which was showing warning lights for brakes and engine management, and no service stamps for five years!
I told him to make a phone call to check this out, and the pick-up was aborted.
I wouldn’t have driven the bloody thing, that’s for sure!
The point is that every car is different, condition varies dramatically no matter who it’s leased from, Motability cars can be smelly, dirty and rather abused, but so can regular leased cars and company cars. Caveat emptor really is important here, I picked up a car last week that had a large crop of small apples, twigs and leaves collected under the wipers, and green algae along the edges of the window rubbers, and the interior was rather mucky, BUT, there was no damage, all it needed was a damned good clean, and it had less than 1800 miles on the clock when I dropped it off, and it was two-three years old (can’t remember exactly, I drive usually three different cars a day).
Few are as good as the ten-month old Maserati Ghibli with less than 8k on the clock I brought home last year, though…

Depends how much you like getting into tense situations.