Buying a used car in Ireland guide

Max Power1

maccers1011 wrote: »

gave a guy a deposit on a car a few weeks ago and thought i would have come up with the difference but failed to do so.
asked the guy for the deposit back as im heading to college. he's saying he doesnt have to give me anything back but might give me half of the deposit i gave him. claiming he doesnt have to and if i was to go down the legal route that he would be in the right. advice ?? i personally think thats a disgrace as he made money on selling the car lately anyways but still acting stiff on the deposit. have no clue how to approach this except for consulting a solicitor.

Wouldnt bother

He'll tell you that you were entitled to nothing and charge you for the privilege
Deposits are non refundable, otherwise whats the point!

Esel

maccers1011 wrote: »

He's saying he doesn't have to give me anything back but might give me half of the deposit I gave him.

Half is better than nothing. A lesson learnt.

Denis322

I bought an 06 Yaris durin the week from a toyota dealership, and I'm just wondering about something. I recieved the Registration cert. thing in the post with only my name and details on it. Should there not be something else on previous owners or anything on it? Its a lovely car, was told it only had one female owner, but I'm just curious at the fact that there seems to be no evidence of previous ownership. It's my first car btw so no experience with this sort of thing.

hillbloom

Denis What you got is fine. Thats all you get . They don't give names of previous owners at all now. You will find on (J.3) number of previous owners.

Max Power1

Denis322 wrote: »

I bought an 06 Yaris durin the week from a toyota dealership, and I'm just wondering about something. I recieved the Registration cert. thing in the post with only my name and details on it. Should there not be something else on previous owners or anything on it? Its a lovely car, was told it only had one female owner, but I'm just curious at the fact that there seems to be no evidence of previous ownership. It's my first car btw so no experience with this sort of thing.

It is listed on the left hand side of the inner page, along with the chassis info and vin etc

MidlandsM

Limerick man wrote: »

The whole reason you gave the deposit was to hold the car with the intention to buy it.

I wouldn't give it back either to be honest, if it was "weeks later".

Max Power1 wrote: »

Wouldnt bother

He'll tell you that you were entitled to nothing and charge you for the privilege
Deposits are non refundable, otherwise whats the point!

Re; deposits;

I'd not be so sure lads, I was at court recently and witnessed a court case involving "a deposit" over a car.

basically, a bloke put a deposit down on a car, came back to collect it, spotted something that put him off the car, pulled out of the deal, asked for his deposit back from the seller who then refused to give it back.

He then took him to court......and won .........because the seller sold the car afterwards to someone else, and the judge deemed that the seller was just pocketing the cash.......

so, thread carefully one and all........

I always give deposits back to people after i sell the car in question, in fairness - sh!t happens, and its immoral to keep deposits.

Max Power1

MidlandsM wrote: »

I always give deposits back to people after i sell the car in question, in fairness - sh!t happens, and its immoral to keep deposits.

So I pay you for a service (in this case, holding the car and not selling it to anyone but me) and then, after using the service, I can demand my money back?

Great! So do other service providers support your payment model? :rolleyes:

MidlandsM

Max Power1 wrote: »

So I pay you for a service (in this case, holding the car and not selling it to anyone but me) and then, after using the service, I can demand my money back?

Great! So do other service providers support your payment model? :rolleyes:

I personally think its immoral because if I've sold the car on, and made my money on it, I don't think its right to pocket someones cash......what don't you understand in that??

.....plus, as I've witness in court, its illegal.......

Max Power1

MidlandsM wrote: »

I personally think its immoral because if I've sold the car on, and made my money on it, I don't think its right to pocket someones cash......what don't you understand in that??

.....plus, as I've witness in court, its illegal.......

As previously outlined, I don't understand why you would take a deposit if you just hand it back because the buyer changes his mind. What's the point?

I doubt very much it is illegal, otherwise no-one would take deposits!

MidlandsM

Max Power1 wrote: »

As previously outlined, I don't understand why you would take a deposit if you just hand it back because the buyer changes his mind. What's the point?

I doubt very much it is illegal, otherwise no-one would take deposits!

People and dealers take deposits, because it's part and parcel of the sales process, private and trade, has always been.
I give deposits back (after I've sold the car the deposit was on) because i don't want to land myself in court, and lose because the law would not be on my side as I've witnessed and accurately reported. Plus, you have to be human too, and not a B0llox especially when you are in business. I remember giving a lad his deposit back on a car once, and his uncle came in a few months later, and bought a jeep of me, citing how he heard from his brother (the young lads dad) that i was Daycent! So, its good practice.

Denis322

Max Power1 wrote: »

It is listed on the left hand side of the inner page, along with the chassis info and vin etc

Says absolutely nothing about previous ownership at all, you'd nearly think from it that I was the firs owner.

hillbloom

Denis The names of the previous owners are not listed but if you look at (J.3), (number of previous owners) it will have the figure 1, meaning in your case, it already had 1 owner. Take a bit of time & read the info on that document properly!!

Scortho

MidlandsM wrote: »

People and dealers take deposits, because it's part and parcel of the sales process, private and trade, has always been.
I give deposits back (after I've sold the car the deposit was on) because i don't want to land myself in court, and lose because the law would not be on my side as I've witnessed and accurately reported. Plus, you have to be human too, and not a B0llox especially when you are in business. I remember giving a lad his deposit back on a car once, and his uncle came in a few months later, and bought a jeep of me, citing how he heard from his brother (the young lads dad) that i was Daycent! So, its good practice.

What happens of you took a deposit on the car buyer pulled out and ended up selling at a loss?

MidlandsM

Scortho wrote: »

What happens of you took a deposit on the car buyer pulled out and ended up selling at a loss?

if it goes to court, and you can prove you ended up selling at a loss, the loss will be calculated and deducted from the deposit....but the remainder of the deposit goes back to the buyer who placed the deposit.........remarketing costs the same

the key thing to all of this, is don't let it go to court, because you'd lose...

SeaFields

how do boardies approach buying a car from a long distance away? obviously when buying locally you can pop over to the garage, take a test drive, put deposit, get your mechanic to look over it, and buy it.

Ive spotted a few cars that myself and mrs seafields would be interested in but the logistics of travelling half the country to see, buy, check it have me wondering is it worth the hassel. Travel costs and possibly a couple of days off work being factored in.

Cleveland Hot Pocket

For perspective
Last two cars I sold were to buyers from the other side of the country. Like 200km+ away each time.

I think the key thing is the phone call. You need to plan what to ask and do your research before calling. Also ask for photos, ask about condition, ask anything you can think of really!

Also, make the seller aware that you are travelling from far away. It might prompt honesty

Finally, both times, the people from ages away, came up and bought the car and drove it home the same day.

colm_mcm

SeaFields wrote: »

how do boardies approach buying a car from a long distance away? obviously when buying locally you can pop over to the garage, take a test drive, put deposit, get your mechanic to look over it, and buy it.

Ive spotted a few cars that myself and mrs seafields would be interested in but the logistics of travelling half the country to see, buy, check it have me wondering is it worth the hassel. Travel costs and possibly a couple of days off work being factored in.

In this case you should have driven an identical model or 2 already so you're absolutely certain you want one.
As above though, sus out the seller and let them know you're serious and hopefully they'll play fair.

L-M

Ichisaq wrote: »

Also, make the seller aware that you are travelling from far away. It might prompt honesty
.

If only.

Cleveland Hot Pocket

Limerick man wrote: »

If only.

Well it prompted me always to explain in great detail all negatives as well as positives.
Didnt fancy having people travel hundreds of KM, arrive, and the car is not as described!

L-M

Ichisaq wrote: »

Well it prompted me always to explain in great detail all negatives as well as positives.
Didnt fancy having people travel hundreds of KM, arrive, and the car is not as described!

I would do that irrelevant to how far someone is travelling. Sadly, from experience, most others don't.

dnme

Ichisaq wrote: »

Also, make the seller aware that you are travelling from far away. It might prompt honesty

In my opinion this would make the buyer more vulnerable. The seller knows that once you've traveled a long way, you are more committed to buying than local buyers and won't necessarily do or say anything on the phone to put you off. I've had a mixed bag of experiences in my life dealing with the motor trade and I conclude that it has a high degree of dishonest people. I treat them with a lot of skepticism these days.

L-M

If I travelled 200 miles (which I have round trip numerous time before) and wasnt happy with the car, I'd walk away. And I'm sure many others would too.

MidlandsM

+1

the only thing you can to to try and avoid having a wasted journey is to try and befriend the seller on the phone, and try and extract as much info out of them as possible.......asking the direct questions on every aspect of the car, bodywise, interiorwise, rubberwise, engine wise, gbox, clutch, aircon, steering, everything basically.......everything.......and if you can, get them to email you more good pics to your email.........

even then, you are at the mercy of the gods.......lol

dnme

and bear in mind that full service histories can be had from ebay these days. Their not even forgeries, their stolen main dealer docs that can be stamped to order. The buyer needs to be dam careful with this particular trade IMO. It's your money and it's hard earned, don't let any tosser con you. Trust no one, double check everything and keep your wits about you.

onionhead

Hi guys,

First of all great thread, really really helpful. Don't know whether im in the correct place here or not but I was hoping you could help us out? We have our eye on a 06 BMW 316 and the seller is looking for €6900 for it. Not really used to dealing with people regarding motors, prices etc because I basically dont know what im talking about. Just want to ask would that be a reasonable price and is there anything we should be looking out for or should be aware of with these cars? Cheers

Link

L-M

Dead as a doornail. So horribly slow.

onionhead

To be honest we're not really in the market for powerhouse anyway. The other cars we had our eye on were an Avensis or a Passat which were both 1.6 anyway

L-M

Not even the powerhouse fact, even if you got a 1.8 it could be better on fuel. Power to weight ratio and all that.

onionhead

Ah I see yes. Is the price that they are asking for reasonable?

duckysauce

Quick Quention went to view a car today with very low mileage , pedals interior are as you would expect for said mileage --cartell checks out aswell, is cartell 100% re milage on cars ???. Cheers.