GB wrote:
On 05/12/2016 16:54, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Quite. Although buying an ex lease or whatever car at auction - where it
has simply reached the age and mileage where a main dealer won't want it
as used stock - can be a good deal. But you need to get it at auction
price rather than from a bomb site dealer who has given it a valet and
doubled the price.

Yep, though it depends where on the price spectrum you're on. The fees for
a private buyer at BCA (for instance) are pretty steep and you don't get to
examine the car much before purchase. So the dealer allowing you to walk
away is a useful feature. I found one that looked pristine, FSH, MOT record
was perfect. Price a bit low, but maybe there was no demand locally. Ran
well, everything looked fine. Plugged into the OBD port and read the codes
- the dealer hadn't mentioned the GBP1000 repair that was imminent which
was almost certainly why the owner had traded it in. I might have knackered
it even more just driving it home.

I bought my car at auction. 3 years old and 30k miles. It had just come
off lease. I bought it for almost exactly 30% of list price. The only
flaw with the car was that some ******* had taken one of the keys, and
flogged it on ebay for £20. Getting a new one cost £200.

It's worth fishing around forums, because sometimes you can find the dealer
software to do this is available - and then all you need to do is buy that
used key from ebay for £20.

My big tip is to buy in the last one or two auctions before Christmas.
The dealers aren't bidding much, because they know the stock will just
sit around for two or three weeks before they can even start selling it.

Thanks, I'll remember that.

Theo