The demand for cheap cars never goes away. Sometimes they are stop gaps between a replacement, but quite often it is a motorist spending all they afford.
I’ve been reading back over interviews I did more than 25 years ago with proper banger dealers, ones who sold sub-gorillas (under £1000) and had a lot between two housing estates for the £99 dross. What they told me then remains highly instructive and is in effect a blueprint for anyone who wants to buy and deal in 2021.
My biggest takeaway was: don’t buy cheap cars from auctions, ever. A fancy classic for a load of money, maybe a nearly new or end-of-lease company car with a history, but never, ever a banger. So where should we be going to source them?
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Always buy on condition, never on price, and if you can’t afford anything decent then save up for a few more weeks. So with that in mind, let’s start expensive, at a proper car dealer. They will have obligations to make sure their cars are clean and roadworthy, and you have a comeback if there are issues, all of which is perfect. Pick a well-regarded model that is known to be reliable and cost-effective to fix, like a Toyota Yaris.
Ideally, it will have just a couple of owners and a full service history with a credible mileage that isn’t too intergalactic. Luckily, I found just that car: a 2006 1.0 T3 with 73,000 miles, up for £1400. Nicely presented, cheap to insure and run and itching to do a job. A three-door but otherwise the perfect runaround.
Those after something family-sized ought to try a Mazda 6, which seem to go on and on without giving much trouble. I stumbled on a partex trade sale 2011 2.2d Sport with 150,000 miles. There’s an element of risk there, but with an asking price of £1400 there’s also room for a bit of remedial work. That’s quite a lot of car for the money and, okay, it isn’t a 10 quid banger, but it is much better than that. You do have to spend a bit more to save yourself some grief.
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Never had an issue buying from a dealer in the £1k-£2k bracket, typically they've had their mechanic give it the once over, will sort out any major issues and offer a 3 month warranty.
Though the worst car I ever owned was a £500 Ford Orion from a Scottish dealer, was sat unloved at the back of the lot, given a years ticket and they just wanted rid.
Strange to see GTVs go for thousands, I bought one for £500 about 10 years ago, a private sale admittedly, but all up front in that it was an MOT failure and with a list of jobs needed to get it to a good condition. Once those were done it was a fun little thing to dash about it for a while.
So I guess there's good and bad in both dealer and private buying.
James,
The problem is that when you go to the banger dealers, who are all a bit Arthur Daley. I test drove a diesel Ford which wasn't running properly. The dealer said that it was probably the spark plugs. I questioned spark plugs on a diesel, and then he said it was probably the coil pack. I didn't have the heart to ask why a diesel would have a coil pack.....!
The dealers are just sitting there, watching the car auctions on their phone, buying cars and putting them straight on the forecourt. You test drive them, find the faults, go back, and they might, at best, knock about 10% off the price, but won't fix anything except the most serious of faults. The market is such as the moment that it is take it or leave it with so many dealers. Imagine going back and asking them to sort out problems that arise after purchase. You are just going to end up in Court, using the Consumer Rights Act, but it isn't going to be worth the time, trouble and expense over a banger money car.
You might as well buy the same banger from the auction and save the dealer mark up, because you are literally getting nothing for it from the dealer, or buy privately.