Is buying privately just too risky?

nothing wrong with ex fleet - driven hard, serviced by schedule, fixed before de-hire, sounds good to me

Of the last 4 2nd hand cars my family have had, 3 have been ex-fleet cars, and have been immaculate.

Pete.

One assumes he took the rudimentary precaution of not believing the dealer and making sure they stated 'ex-demonstrator' on the sales invoice.

Either way, it was sold under a false description :)

If he hasn't got it in writing invoice he's got no proof of that, and nothing to go to trading standards (usually useless anyway) or small claims court with.

muzzel made the world a better place for us by saying..

Yup, from the muppets who don't know what they're doing.

bloody hell, I should really advertise the golf..

Just my word, and a friend who accompanied me, against theirs. I had no reason to doubt the salesman. I did not expect a main dealer to behave that way.

Now I will not trust any car dealer again (at least a Toyota one), and the next time I buy a car I will make sure that I get everything in writing.

But at least Trading Standards were made aware, and if anyone else has made or does make the same complaint then that person would be in a better situation. Hopefully.

Cheeky bastards wrote to me last month asking if I would like to trade in that car for a newer model. That letter went straight in the bin.

"Stay Away from Smith Knight Fay".

How's about that for a slogan!

But there's nothing wrong with the car, right? And it shouldn't really be worth very much less for being an ex-rental car.

Relax and enjoy your car.

This is of course, "in theory".

If the car is a lemon, and the dealer won't play ball, it can lead to months of tooing and frooing and arguments to sort it out. At least with a private sale you can just sort out whatever problem straight away.

It had six warranty repairs in the first 5 months, necessitating inconvenience and time off work.

Other than that, its OK now.

But the misrepresentation is the point here.

All this 'thrashing' stuff is a myth of course.

Demonstrators are only really bought by mugs I'm afraid. A "demonstrator" is a secondhand car. The fact that it was owned by the garage doesn't make it any less secondhand and the truth is that the garage never, ever sells it at a secondhand price. Firstly they get the cars cheaper than their normal stock and they get them with some extras which are in truth worthless in the secondhand market. Then they use that car to show off to customers, all the reps take it home and do their daily commute in the thing, thrashing to within an inch of its life, it's used to collect spares, as a loaner to customers, and as a general workshop bus. Then they put it on the forecourt with a price ticket at most a few hundred quid cheaper than the *new* price of a similar car, and laugh all the way to the bank when they've gone through the pantomime of pretending that it is something special and that they are doing the buyer a big favour.

Buy a year old ex-rental car or a two-three year old ex lease car. You'll actually get a better vehicle, cheaper. Let some other mug pay for depreciation.

Really? Whenever I get my hands on a demonstrator I rag the arse off it. It's not mine. When I see the reps taking the "demonstrators" home at the weekend, they thrash them into the ground and that's just leaving the showroom area.

I think it's a national disgrace that successive governments have done

I've unwittingly bought a clocked car, and known of one I sold being clocked. And considering how few cars I've bought or sold via a dealer, this must make it *very* common.

Nothing wrong with them at all if honest. But they are prime targets for clocking - near new, good condition but high mileage. Instant profit of several hundred pounds for a fraud that's rarely investigated let alone prosecuted.

I'd expect a substantial saving on the purchase price over an identical company car, though. I don't believe hire cars are looked after or run in properly etc - after all they don't keep them long enough to make it worth while.

By the time it's several years old, perhaps not.

Well, two of the cars were a Fiat Uno (6 months old 9k miles) and a Ford Fiesta, similar age, owned by Hertz. Not high mileage at all. The 3rd one was my Mondeo, 13 months & 13k. All bought from Fords of Winsford. Again, low mileage. This was owned by the Ford Bank in Reading. OK, it may have been clocked from 23k to 13k, but certainly not 113k to 13k.

They've got so many cars with such a throughput, it would need a team of mechanics just to clock them all.

Pete.

Yep...

My demonstrator exploits::

So far, I don't think I've bought a clocked car. The Golf could have been, but it's not on it's original engine anyway, and it was running well before the carb / fuel pump problems....... so I don't think this one matters.

However, when I sold my Cinquecento, the dealer who bought it clocked it and stuck it up on ebay with 25k miles taken off it. The local trading standards wanted loads of information off me, and when I couldn't provide any evidence of the clocking other than my original advert for the car, gave up due to 'lack of evidence'. And here was me thinking they'd be able to look up it's MOT history...... useless.