Viewing used cars.

[motorbiking]

That particular volvo dealer in croydon are ok to do business with, but I wouldn't put £500 down to view it, I'd ask them to let me know when they have something similar in stock. I found them very easy to haggle with. I played all the usual tricks and got several £K off the asking price of a nearly new XC90. my local Nissan/Renault dealer wouldn't budge on list price so I walked.

My worry with high BHP small block french diesels is they blow up the turbos, fuel pumps and intercoolers at low mileage and they cost a fortune to repair

 

[Burnerman]

That could be true but good servicing largely covers that, together with the best quality oil.
I find that French diesels are quicker, quieter and appear cleaner than many others - just generalising of course. Recently I had a spankers Merc A series diesel on hire.....not a sweet engine, or a particularly nice drive either.
I'm impressed with my 150 bhp Yeti so far - that's euro 6 too.
John

 

[motorbiking]

I had a Diesel A class as a courtesy car once. All it ever did was changed gear. Seemed not to have quite enough power to be comfortable in any gear at any speed.

My X-trail died at 45,000 miles needing a fuel pump, intercooler and turbo.. 5k dealer quote to fix against a car with a max value of 6k on a good day.

I traded it in.

 

[DaveHerns]

Motorbiking yes they're very nice people to deal with but stuck with rules they have to work with. In my case they couldn't say when any more 65 plate V70s would come into stock at Croydon so it was put down £500 or walk away. As regards the engines that blow up, are you referring to the DV6 1.6 hdi engine?

 

[Doggit]

The other half's just changed her car from a 2.0TD CMax to a 1.5. The local for garage hadn't got any 1.5s to hand, but if we put £500 down, they'd get one from the Ford Direct system for her. Found a 1.5 to try over at Weybridge, so dropped the girls off at Thorpe Park and then went to look at it. Nice car to drive, and much quicker than the old 2 litre, so asked them to see about a better spec for us. Went in to the local garage a couple of days later on spec, and they found one straight off, but couldn't give us a price, as the sales manager had to work out the VAT on it. After sitting there getting bored for the next ten minutes, my tooth abscess flared up, so we left and I went off down the hospital. Decided to ring Weybridge, and they gave us a figure of £16.5K straight off, so we put down £500, and they ordered it, but on the basis that if we didn't like it, we'd get the deposit back - unlike the local guys, who wanted you to go through with the purchase whatever you thought of it.

The upshot of the situation, is the local guys rang back half an hour later, and quoted a thousand pounds more. They pride themselves on being the cheapest around, so they'd obviously spent time checking out what the local prices were, and then pitched the price accordingly. Still not sure whether to report them to trading standards, especially as the Weybridge garage said that the price he quoted us, was straight of the Ford website.

 

[DaveHerns]

That's surprising as used car dealers seem to charge more within the M25 . I had an argument with Robins and Day about this.