UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

As per the title... which one of the following would you buy?

Car A: http://www.jftc.co.uk/view-details.asp? ... Model=POLO
Y Reg Polo GTi in Black, 5 door, 13k miles, listed at £8,999.
The seller (Jefferies Farm Trade Center near Gatwick) claims to have had an HPI and RAC inspection on the car already.

Car B:
W Reg Polo GTi in Black, 3 door, 27k miles, listed at £8,000 ono.
This is a private seller. He is already the second owner. He is OK with me having an HPI and RAC inspection if I like the car.

Car C:
X Reg Polo GTi in Black, 3 door, 18k miles, listed at £8,800 ono.
This is another private seller. He is the owner from new. He is also OK with me having an HPI and RAC inspection if I like the car.


As you can see, I really want an RAC inspection on the car before I buy. The first supermarket already has it done, so it saves me time. But its the most expensive and probably hardest to haggle with. However it IS a trader so if the car f***s up I can sue their asses off. Also the car is the newest and lowest run of the three.

Cars B and C are from private sellers, and both are ok with an RAC inspection. A full RAC inspection which includes an HPI check is about 200 quid.

Car B is a little bit older and has more mileage but cheaper; and the owner claims it has over a year more of manufacturers warranty, since he bought it from a VW dealer.

Car C is slightly newer and has done less miles. Plus its only had one owner... so maybe the risk of getting something dodgy is lower....?

Or just goto a VW dealer, pay more (over 1000 more!) and save all the hassle etc.

So to conclude... which one would you guys buy if you were in my position? Points to consider:
1) Money is not "NOT a problem", i.e. I could afford all 3 but of course a penny saved is a penny going to future upgrades!
2) I'm a first time car buyer, so I don''t really know alot about buying cars, other than paying the money and driving away!
3) I'd rather not have the hassle of having to USE a warranty, or get a new one for that matter... so will buying the lower mileage ones be more worth while in the long run...? Or is there not alot between a 13k and 27k mileage car in terms of reliability?

Emm thats about it for now.. thanks for all replies and opinions in advance!

actually one more thing thats a bit OT...
are the RAC/AA inspections worth it? What do they actually tell you about the car and stuff? How long do they take and can I base my purchase on the result of one of the inspections?

I'm worried I'll get a "grey" inbetween kind of result of a check, not a clear cut "buy this!" or "steer well clear"....

What if the engineer says "the car is ok.. BUT...", what would I do then? I'd not want to buy a car that has any dodgy history or parts that could fail on me, but I'd not want to have wasted 200 on the inspection. not to mention if I did go for the inspection it would mean I liked the car in the the first place.

get the warrenty! with some of the small (but expensive) problems we've seen on this forum then the extra could pay itself back double.

just my 2p

go to dealers mate i know they are expensive but it's worth it as you will get a years warranty and roadside assistance thrown in they will also have full service and all the checks will be done including hpi plus you can also haggle with dealers as them for a discount you never know they may give one..good luck and enjoy.

thanks for the replies guys.

surprising, I'd have thought no-one would advise I goto the dealer!

I'll keep those points in mind... but car B has another year's left of manufacturer warranty left as well... as well as the Y reg '01 having a few months warranty left as well...?

Also those third party warranties such as from http://www.warrantydirect.co.uk, are they any good and worth considering?

I'd have to agree with Harry, I too bought mine from a dealer as I know they will do all the checks and they can find out all the service history about the car and it is by far the less riskiest place to get a car...they always have a reputation to uphold and so they are less likely to pull a fast one.

If you think about it, yeah, you may have to pay a grand more but you get roadside assistance, which is worth what a couple of hundred and a warranty (VW as well so all parts guaranteed) which must cost another couple of hundred so really you aren't paying that much more (especially if you haggle and get the price down...) when you consider that like you say you don't really know much about cars and it is less hassle, you go, check out the car, put down a deposit and it comes with the warranty and roadside assistance and you don't need to out and buy them separately.

At the end of the day we are all giving you our own opinions...do what suits you. I probably won't go for the car with two owners though...and I would have thought being a VW the engines are good for 150k miles so 13k to 27k isn't a great deal of difference, on average you would do about 10-12k a year so you can work it out...it's more for the residual value...if you do a lot of mileage I would get a low mileage car as it would not depreciate as much as if you had bought a high mileage one...

for a gti id go dealer as they have some serious gear box problems* which will cost you about 1700 quid to sort if it all goes pear shaped the only disadvantage is that you cant really mod it much (if thats your thing) with out risking voiding the warrenty
theres also the pedal box problems

* the gti gear box is known to fail (josh is on his 3rd box! ) the problem is so sever that vw have stopped producing the box that was originally fitted and has replaced it with a redesigned version but if you want to buy this i think its about 1500 quid plus fitting (which can be done diyt in a day using hand tools

Get the warranty dude!

VW have spent thousands on my car under warranty!!! I would not have liked to spend that myself!

I guess I'll goto a dealer then!

If a GTI is listed at 10,000 at the dealer, how much do you reckon I could haggle it down by? I've heard VW dealers are notoriously hard to haggle with...?

Any good techniques to get them to lower the price? I'm not gonna finance it for sure, straight buy. Would waving a wad of cash in front of them work? Or anything else?

this works when people buy phones (not sure about cars though)

walk in and put the money on the counter and say 'right, i am buying a car today' the salesperson will then know your not wasting his time and so go into 'sell mode' when we are like this we are more flexible cause we know theres a better chance of closing the sale.

Tell him you've seen one privatly for £XXXX and you understand they cant match it but can they go half way?

I not ask if there are any other dealerships in the area (they will hate this) and leave the store. The salesperson will now be getting a right gob full from his manager for not closing the sale. go back in about a hour later and speak to somebody else. make a demand - 'theres the money, accept that and you've got a sale'

Providing you dont go silly with asking for money off, you should blag it (or at least some extras)

hope that helps

Karl

If you've not got a trade in (which it sounds like you havent your going to a privare seller) you should be able to haggle around about £750 at least off the advertised price

so you can prob get one from a dealer for about 9-9.5k

You still have to have your wits about you when you buy from a dealer though. When I was seriously looking at Lupo GTi's, one had had a very poor respray up the whole of one side and the rear arch rebuilt (spot welds missing), and another's front was missaligned and offset to one side by about 5mm and they hadn't even bothered to spray the wing bolts on the side that taken the bulk of the impact. Both these were sitting on main VW dealer forecourts and were "walk away" jobs.

Having said that, I'd still go for a dealer - at least you have a chance getting any latent problems fixed as the law is on your side. None of the caveat emptor (sp?) stuff you'd have to deal with if buying privately.

When I was pushing hard to get deals - the dealers would only start to shift if you suggested you could make a deal there and then. They don't want you to walk out the door without having struck a deal. Of course, you'd pretty much had to have made you mind up about buying the car before then.

Also, if you find defects (even small stuff like kerbed alloys or paint chips), then haggle to get the repair costs deducted. Dealer will counter with "we'll prepare it to VW standard before we give it to you", but go for the price off (esp. if you plan to modify the effected areas anyway). Also, make sure you get these deductions into the figures at your guesstimate of market prices, not the dealers figures (as they'll be at cost).

Also, I noticed a lot of dealers shift strategies part way through if you're showing problems with the sticker price and start talking about "cost to change", rather than the full figures. Don't fall for that mind game (it puts you into a train of thought saying "I'm definately changing then" and it distracts you from the full sums involved (suddenly all the numbers seem "smaller")).

Oh yes, take a pen and paper with you and your own calculator. Hold your working figures in your lap and not on the desk in front of the dealer - they can read upside down, you know!!

Good luck and let us know how you get on...


Deek.

more than any thing else its your money so if you arnt 100% then go for a walk as there will be other gti`s. if you sspect that the car has had a shunt make an appointment and get them to put it on a ramp so you and a competent mechanic can have a look over it if you see evidence of it being jigged then demand a full engineers report on the fork done. the measuremnts taken sdhould not be more then half a mm out of stock specs on structural members. alsio ask where it was done and find out how long the work is guarenteed for and if the guarentee is transferable

RAC have started doing a free car check when you sign up with them, may be worth having a look at thier offer

thanks guys... great advice.