05 Honda Accord - 2.0 i-VTEC - opinions required

madds

I'm currently looking at 05 Honda Accord 2.0 I-VTEC with 35k mls on the clock, and an asking price of €14,600. I've read through the various threads in this forum and my mind is 95% made up but I do have a couple of questions:

1. What would be a realistic price to offer? Here's the car - link

2. I understand I'll be paying road tax on the old system but does anyone know that yearly figure is? I think it will be €539.

3. How thirsty are these cars? I'll be doing no more than 10k a year in this as I've a short commute to work/golf club and I really don't want to get on first name terms with the Polish lass in the local petrol station.

4. I'm hoping to test-drive said car today. What would be the top 5 items you would look for when checking this car out? Are there any issues specific to this car I should ask about?

Thanks in advance.

R.O.R

madds wrote: »

I'm currently looking at 05 Honda Accord 2.0 I-VTEC with 35k mls on the clock, and an asking price of €14,600. I've read through the various threads in this forum and my mind is 95% made up but I do have a couple of questions:

1. What would be a realistic price to offer? Here's the car - link Go in around €13,500

2. I understand I'll be paying road tax on the old system but does anyone know that yearly figure is? I think it will be €539.It's €590

3. How thirsty are these cars? I'll be doing no more than 10k a year in this as I've a short commute to work/golf club and I really don't want to get on first name terms with the Polish lass in the local petrol station.I get 700km from a full tank but that's mainly motorway driving (65 litre tank I think)

4. I'm hoping to test-drive said car today. What would be the top 5 items you would look for when checking this car out? Are there any issues specific to this car I should ask about? I've got wobbly steering due to un-balanced front tyres and a sqeek from the clutch. As far as I'm aware there are no known issues.

Thanks in advance.

I bought a higher mileage Sport spec 05 2.0i recently. 7,000km on I've had no issues other than the ones in bold above.

madds

So I went across to the dealer (see link above) this afternoon to check the car out. Drove it around the industrial estate for 15 minutes and liked what I saw. I then pulled over to have a fiddle with the dash controls, lights, air conditioning, etc.

Lifted the armrest to find the bin stuffed with paper. On closer inspection this "paper" was a bunch of €50 notes - €2,500 to be exact (I counted it )!! For a split second I did have "bold" thought, but thought better of it and placed the money back. The owner was probably using the car for a couple of days and this was payment for a job (the black economy eh?)

I then opened the glove compartment to have a look at the user manual. Opened that up on one of the centre pages and an A4 foolscap page fell out. Having found the money my suspicions were really aroused I opened the sheet up to find the following on it -

Tuesday 1st

6:45 dark
6:49 White Merc Van pulls in - Reg xx x xxxxx
6:57 Blue Avensis pulls in - Reg xx x xxxxx
7:01 Green Merc pulls in - Reg xx x xxxxx
7:15 Green Merc leaves in a hurry

There were about 25 entries on it all tracking the movement of cars in and out of a particular place. Very strange but none of my business - just thought I'd mention it.

So when I got back to the garage I was got talking to the sales guy and asked him about the FSH and his reply was that there was no service manual.

I told him that I was concerned about that but would ring his manager later on to discuss.

So, what would people's opinions be on buying a car from a dealer with no service history? Should I call the manager and see where he got the car from, if it was from someone who traded it in or from another garage in order to trace it back to where it was first sold from?

Sorry for the long post.

Tragedy

Sounds quite dodgy to be honest, I'd want to have a close look at the usual suspects to see if it really is only 35k miles.

Esel

Find out who did the valet job - obviously they are not too thorough!

I'd be a bit worried about the dosh and the surveillance record - who owned the car previously? You could end up getting a lot of unwanted attention from the Gardaí if you buy it!

mcwhirter

madds wrote: »

I'm currently looking at 05 Honda Accord 2.0 I-VTEC with 35k mls on the clock, and an asking price of €14,600. I've read through the various threads in this forum and my mind is 95% made up but I do have a couple of questions:

1. What would be a realistic price to offer? Here's the car - link

2. I understand I'll be paying road tax on the old system but does anyone know that yearly figure is? I think it will be €539.

3. How thirsty are these cars? I'll be doing no more than 10k a year in this as I've a short commute to work/golf club and I really don't want to get on first name terms with the Polish lass in the local petrol station.

4. I'm hoping to test-drive said car today. What would be the top 5 items you would look for when checking this car out? Are there any issues specific to this car I should ask about?

Thanks in advance.

The asking price seem very low! Check out the mileage history.

madds

Thanks for the replies folks. I've decided to leave this "gift horse" for someone else.