low mileage car is it too good to be true

[JohnD]

Do I walk away or dive in?

Go and have a look at it.

You can inspect the seats, steering wheel, pedals, switch faces for wear. You can look at the date code on the tyres. You can run your thumbnail on the brake disks looking for a wear ridge. You can look at the age of the battery and the dirt on the air filter. You can look for rust on the exhaust. You can look at the colour of the oil. You can look for dirt and road grit wear underneath. You can look for usage scratches round the keyhole. You can look at the bundle of MoT certificates and the originals of the service history.

There are plenty of older people who do very little mileage on their car but don't want to part with it. Garaging under cover will prevent paint fade, and moss growing in the window seals.

 

[Akka87]

my car had 8000 miles on it and had to have the front tyre's changed as they was Very close to the legal limit.. I am abit heavy on the foot tho

 

[Keithmac]

but as they are digitally held how can that happen surely when logging the mileage the DVLA would not accept a lower than previous MOT mileage ? Hence my assumption its not based on the whole car.

You can put any mileage in at MOT, we have to enter displayed mileage so if a new clock is fitted then a 20 year old vehicle could have 0 miles on its MOTC.

All up for scrutiny on the .gov website now so any irregularities will be obvious if you go through MOT history..

My car has done 20 miles this year, never use it..

 

[mwatsonxx]

Rang yesterday to have a look, but too late its sold. Was going to show you the ad but that has been removed. It was a renault laguna dynamique 2.0l auto petrol.

 

[HERTS P&D]

So we have learnt 2 things here:

1. If you snooze you lose.

2. Keith needs to sell his car.

Thankyou and good night.

Andy

 

[Keithmac]

So we have learnt 2 things here:

1. If you snooze you lose.

2. Keith needs to sell his car.

Thankyou and good night.

Andy

You sound like my wife .

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Your wife's name's Andy?

 

[Mike10]

It was a renault laguna

You probably had a lucky escape then in that case.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Lets hope your wife I don't look alike......otherwise she will look like a good looking hairy bloke.



Andy

 

[foxhole]

Being a Renault it was probably broken down to often to go anywhere.

 

[Keithmac]

Lets hope your wife I don't look alike......otherwise she will look like a good looking hairy bloke.



Andy

Luckily for me she is neither hairy or bloke like . Still moans about selling the car mind..

 

[mwatsonxx]

You probably had a lucky escape then in that case.

Being a Renault it was probably broken down to often to go anywhere.

Thanks for the opinions
Whats wrong with lagunas? I drove them as company cars for 6 years with no problems and currently driving a 2008 model. Yes they're a bit quirky, bit like living in a haunted house, they make strange noises and do unexpected things, but very reliable and comfortable long distance cruiser.

 

[Mike10]

They are comfortable, and yours may have all been reliable, but mine certainly wasn't. I had a 2001 2.0l Laguna estate for a few years. It was not particularly old at the time. The end came when the ECU went stupid and starting trying to put 20 times the required fuel into the cylinders. I went to source a replacement ECU and found there were 15 different ones listed for that model/engine/year, but only the correct one of those would work with my car apparently (unlike some manufacturers where a part fits multiple models over several years so there is more chance to get one.) I was unable to get a second hand one which was an exact match so had to buy a new one just to get it working again. I sold the car very shortly afterwards, what I got for the car was almost exactly what the ECU replacement had cost me, so that was a waste of time, money, and energy. I should have just scrapped it without bothering to fix it. Maybe I just got unlucky, but that car cost me a fortune and I swore from that point on that I would never own a French car again (and haven't).

 

[Burnerman]

Unfortunately the automatic transmissions by Renault at that time were a disaster - the only good point was that the diagnostic facility worked well
Best avoided (at all costs)
John

 

[DaveHerns]

I had 3 Lagunas, 1996, 1999 and 2000 models , new as company cars and have no complaints.