Where do you buy your cars from?

fizzle-187 · 17 Dec 2014 at 17:42

Guys,

Where do you buy your cars from? Dealerships or private?

I'm hearing nasty stories of numerous dealership experiences which kind of puts me off, and I'm kind of relying on a good one for financing a car.

Have you had any bad experiences?

Princey · 17 Dec 2014 at 17:45

Depends. Who ever is selling a car in the spec I want I will buy from. So both an independent dealer, a main dealer and private.

Amraam · 17 Dec 2014 at 17:49

Dealers will take a pound of flesh with their sales. Private sales have more realistic pricing, but you have nothing to fall back on if something goes wrong...

xs2man · 17 Dec 2014 at 17:58

Princey said:
Depends. Who ever is selling a car in the spec I want I will buy from. So both an independent dealer, a main dealer and private.

This.

I generally dont just buy any old car, I usually am looking for something specific. So I would then have to buy from whoever has the car I'm looking for.

However, for the purposes of any warranty / comeback, I generally consider I have virtually none unless bought from a franchised dealer. Then I'm not too disappointed if some small indy dealer takes the ****.

[TW]Fox · 17 Dec 2014 at 18:18

Private seller or franchised main dealer. The dealers in between I find irritating and I do not understand the point in purchasing from them. They are no better than private sellers once you discount the paper thin warranty and the fact many will argue over everything if anything goes wrong anyway.

hawker1986 · 17 Dec 2014 at 22:50

[TW]Fox;27361169 said:
Private seller or franchised main dealer. The dealers in between I find irritating and I do not understand the point in purchasing from them. They are no better than private sellers once you discount the paper thin warranty and the fact many will argue over everything if anything goes wrong anyway.

This is my basic principle. Last 2 cars were a few years old so bought nice examples privately, have also bought new which is fairly straight forward. If I was looking nearly new I would probably do franchised dealer rather than generic dealer, they seem a faff as fox says. When shopping for the 350z I couldn't see they offered me anything more than buying privately.

Hawker

Diddums · 17 Dec 2014 at 22:52

Bob. He's always got nice metal for cheap.

He offered me a Skyline recently for 5k, but a copper bought it before I could get to it.

swinnie · 17 Dec 2014 at 22:56

I have only bought cars* from a Franchised Main Dealer. The Dealer I uses has a number of franchises within their group and have an excellent reputation in the area.

However, if my mileage was much lower than it is currently, I would be tempted to look privately as well.

* a grand total of 2.

Iamzod · 18 Dec 2014 at 09:03

The last 2 cars I have bought being our Grand Cherokee I bought from a smallish used car dealer for a not too bad price & my Mondeo I did the same for a decent price 4 years ago which although it had 140odd thousand miles on the clock it was a one owner car with a full Ford service history, it's been pretty reliable.

The three cars prior to that were all bought via eBay but I did go to view all of them first.

fizzle-187 · 18 Dec 2014 at 09:44

Fox, what do you think about sytner? Cannot find any reviews about them.

pitchfork · 18 Dec 2014 at 10:47

I tend to buy private and just inspect the hell out of it, but I have bought from a dealership before.

Bank loan > finance though, dealer finance is usually a rip off.

XeNoN89 · 18 Dec 2014 at 10:51

I got my current car from a dealer and previous car form Car Giant

All ok. No problems at all.

geekman · 18 Dec 2014 at 10:56

[TW]Fox;27361169 said:
Private seller or franchised main dealer. The dealers in between I find irritating and I do not understand the point in purchasing from them. They are no better than private sellers once you discount the paper thin warranty and the fact many will argue over everything if anything goes wrong anyway.

I'm not sure I'd call it paper thin. Sure, it's nothing like a main dealer warranty, but if you buy a car from a private seller and the gearbox implodes a week later you have no comeback at all. At least with an independant dealer you're likely to get some or all of the repair cost paid for if you've owned the car less than three months.

Apart from my Jag, which was from an independant, I've bought all my cars from private sellers. I'm always far more interested in the condition of the car than anything else, and I must be doing something right as I've sold every car I've had for more or equal what I paid for them.

DAIR · 18 Dec 2014 at 11:13

Dealers only. Cant be bothered with the potential hassle associated with buying private.

rodenal · 18 Dec 2014 at 11:23

It depends what I'm buying and when I'm buying it. I've bought tons of cars privately but tend to edge towards dealers if I'm buying a car say £5k plus - not for any particular reason I should add but if I look back at my cars that's the trend.

If I'm buying from a dealer of any sort I tend to buy in march/April when they're coming up to end of year - I wouldn't even entertain getting into discussions with a salesman before I knew exactly what I wanted and how much I wanted to pay for it plus how it would be funded

[TW]Fox · 18 Dec 2014 at 12:58

rodenal said:
It depends what I'm buying and when I'm buying it. I've bought tons of cars privately but tend to edge towards dealers if I'm buying a car say £5k plus - not for any particular reason I should add but if I look back at my cars that's the trend.

The sort of dealers selling £5-10k cars are offering you nothing worth paying a premium for, IMHO.

Jez · 18 Dec 2014 at 13:51

Absolutely echo Fox's comments here.

Main agents, or private only.

The only middle ground is that i have bought cars at auction on quite a few occasions.

In all three scenarios you know exactly where you stand, any dealers in between you are simply paying them a living and receiving an auction car, with a wafer thin "warranty", and barely any comeback short of going to court with all of the hassle this entails. What is the point, if you want an auction car then buy one, and use the dealers margin to fix any unforeseen issues at your leisure.

rodenal · 18 Dec 2014 at 14:40

[TW]Fox;27364194 said:
The sort of dealers selling £5-10k cars are offering you nothing worth paying a premium for, IMHO.

I wouldn't disagree, its just where I've ended up buying them from. In recent(ish) times 2 cars from Arnold Clark and one from Peugeot - all of which I've been happy with the agreed price and any required after sales service. If I had found the same car privately at the time I'd have bought it.

Whilst the big chains can be just as bad I would never purchase from a random, has a few cars on a forecourt type place - I don't even know specifically why!

Edit - even that isn't quite true, there's a guy locally who only seems to put exceptional examples up for sale.....unfortunately they are also almost always stupidly priced

Cosimo · 18 Dec 2014 at 15:21

Mine have come from main dealers.

eatcustard · 18 Dec 2014 at 15:31

Most come from Private or connections in the trade