Buying part ex. cars from garages.

It can be done, all depends on the helpfulness of the salesperson.

If you go in at a quiet time when there's no interest in his shiny expensive cars, and get to speak to someone relatively senior rather than a sales droid, then you _may_ get taken out the back to have a look.

It's worked for me on a couple of occasions, but the cars they showed me didn't scream 'bargain', so I left it. However, I was tempted by a £1000 Punto Turbo - but it had done 90k miles, so I was a little wary. With hindsight, I should have taken it.

PS: I got a cheap Primera for sale ;-)

I've bought a couple of part-exes from dealers, but I found most just ship unwanted cars to the block and won't entertain private sales. Some do, and there are bargains to be had, some dogs too, so watch out ;)

If they ask if you're in the trade, say YES, I've not found one that'll sell to the public, probably some legal thing :)

There are some garages here in Gloucestershire which are selling remarkably cheap bangers. I've seen a couple with cars as low as a couple of hundred. Mind you, they were a bit tatty.

-- Malc

When you sell to the public there isn't any such thing as "Sold As Seen". The car's got to be roadworthy for starters and I guess that spending £40 to have the thing fail an MOT is considered to be a waste of money on the dealership's part.

/john

Thanks for the info, all.

I guess it's worth a try, I might go and dust off the sheepskin coat and head down to Russell's for a bit of bartering. Also, I had a look on Ebay and there seem to be some bargains there..... saw an M reg clio with FSh and about 60K go for about £675. Probably would go for well over 1K in a garage.

If I get a bargain for him, I'll post the results...... thanks for the offer of a primera, but it's got to be a really low insurance group.

Pete