Where to buy a car?

Skoda Octavia TDI Tour de France 4WD, 2.0, £9.4k - looks good to me and ticks my boxes but the mot history has me thinking twice....thoughts?
https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/results?registration=Hj64fzd

Whoever owned it for the last 2-3 years / 21k miles didn’t fix the shock absorber until much too late.

It isn’t a meticulously maintained dead cert, but that wouldn’t put me off if it was what I was after. Generally that MOT history didn’t look horrific to me, and you can start getting it properly serviced regularly

I'm looking to get a car for myself and my girlfriend, mainly for use long-distance journeys across the country, unlikely to use in the city.

We've both owned Polos before, and thinking about a Golf, I def enjoyed testing the golf, but I thought I see what a Yaris and an Auris were like in comparison. I wasn't much of a fan of either Toyota, but I keep seeing how the Toyotas are really reliable, and cheap to repair. Any VW owners out there with any experience on what they are like to maintain? Is it that much? We're looking at a second hand, around 2012 in year. Cheers.

I have a ULEZ compliant VW Touareg V6 TDI automatic with 140k that I have no use for… will list it here shortly…

@photoben I might be selling my civic tourer '16 in a few weeks if you are interested. Amazing mpg. Great for carrying bikes. Ulez.

Oh nice. Is it automatic? Girlfriend with only drive auto now.

Get the Honda. The neighbours won’t be as impressed as they would if you got a VW but it’ll always work.

Ha! Def don’t care about image of the car.

It's a manual

Ahh, thanks anyway. Girlfriend will only drive an automatic.

If you’re looking at ULEZ compliant VW from that age make sure it’s either a non turbo engine (FSI) or if it is a turbo (TFSI) then newer than 2012, older than 2008. That 08-12 bracket are absolute garbage engines, all the diesels are good!

Repair/mechanic wise, the parts are probably 20/30% more than your jap cars (dependent on engine ofc) but in my experience last longer and work better. I’ve loads of experience with VW’s so pm me if you’d like a hand 👍🏻

Thanks, you gave me a panic there as it’s a TSI 1.4, but it’s a 13 model and I’ve just double checked it def is ULEZ compliant.

Cheers. Getting it on Friday. Looking forward to road trip in it. Anything you think I should know to treat it well? Someone mentioned letting the engine warm up?

Nice! Enjoy.

Keep on top of the oil changes, filters (air & pollen) and spark plugs and it’ll go forever. Even better if you learn how to do these yourself (messiest is an oil change) but all require very basic tools and keep the car running sweet and if done yourself can cost around £75.

I’d personally do it every year/5,000 miles (whatever comes 1st) and loads of info of how to do this yourself can be found online.

Don’t worry about letting the car warm up, modern cars warm up in 5/10 mins and modern oils/coolant is designed to be used cold 👍🏻

Amazing, thanks for the info. Yes, wouldn't mind learning how to do it. Can't be much more difficult than a bike right? 😂

Have you sold this yet? I need a new car..

Enquired about a car I was interested in on FB marketplace, received the following in their response:

We acquired this vehicle from an auction, this is why the lower price.
Since we are dealing mainly with transportation, please note that we don't schedule inspections/pick up at/from our location, but we sell the vehicle with a 5 days money back guarantee.

Anyone got any experience of this? It feels a bit scammy, and the company name isn't throwing anything up on line, but I can imagine how a business model of buying at auction and selling remotely, cheaply, with no customer service but a money back guarantee could make sense. I guess the catch will likely be the guarantee, is it actually enforceable, guaranteed or do they make it impossible to actually enforce (i.e. need to drop the car back to Newcastle, which is hard if it isn't starting on day 4 of ownership) - any experiences or insight much appreciated.

Find another car. Fuck that shit.

Almost certainly the correct course of action. I'm still curious as to what the grift is here. Presumably they take the money off the back of a bogus contract/guarantee never to be seen/traced again.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/385080/

Spam

You missed run away, don't look back.

Just a guess, the vendor and the delivery are separate so you can't use chargeback via credit card or paypal. So they have the money and then charge you to collect unless you drop back.

Buy sacredhart civic, his past car sales history shows he is a good second hand sales man ;) 5 stars and would buy again on the LFGSS car sales star program ;)

There are a LOT of cars for sale - would need to be either the exact super-rare make/model you are looking for and/or a HUGE bargain .... otherwise walk away.

Yeah, this is along the lines I'm thinking. still curious as to the exact nature of the grift.

Sadly his civic isn't automatic, otherwise I probably would have already.

Yeah, it's a serious bargain, which probably raises enough of its own warning flags. I'm still engaging with the guy but more to try and work out the angles than any particular likelihood of purchasing. He's just said "trust me" which is hilarious 😂😂

Oh PM me a link as I want to laugh. Won't post.