Contacting a previous owner

InchicoreDude

Is it reasonable to ask the dealer if you can contact the previous owner of the car to get a "reference" of that car?

Atlantic Dawn

I think it is reasonable to ask, however I would feel there would be data protection issues if he gave you their contact details. I suppose the ideal solution would be for him to contact them and ask if he can pass on their contact details to you, that is ofcourse unless it's dodgy and he doesn't want you to find out anything about its previous history.

coylemj

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I think it is reasonable to ask, however I would feel there would be data protection issues if he gave you their contact details. I suppose the ideal solution would be for him to contact them and ask if he can pass on their contact details to you

+1 That would be the only legal way to do it.

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

that is ofcourse unless it's dodgy and he doesn't want you to find out anything about its previous history.

In which case the dealer can say that the previous owner has emigrated or died.

Realistically, I doubt if any dealer will put a prospect in touch with the previous owner.

InchicoreDude

I suppose the ideal solution would be for him to contact them and ask if he can pass on their contact details to you, that is ofcourse unless it's dodgy and he doesn't want you to find out anything about its previous history.

Thats what I meant by getting in contact and thats exactly why I would want to get in contact with the previous owner.

If the owner is not willing to be contacted, would you suspect something fishy is going on?

Atlantic Dawn

InchicoreDude wrote: »

If the owner is not willing to be contacted, would you suspect something fishy is going on?

Depends, some reputable dealers may not want a customer being questioned by a potential buyer of their traded in car, they may feel that an onus is being put on them to vouch that their car is good and you then have their contact details if it turns out to be a lemon. If the car has a full service history, you do a Cartell/Motorcheck search on it and the dealer is offering a long warranty I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Anan1

InchicoreDude wrote: »

Thats what I meant by getting in contact and thats exactly why I would want to get in contact with the previous owner.

If the owner is not willing to be contacted, would you suspect something fishy is going on?

Not at all, the dealer (quite reasonably, IMO) won't want the previous owner telling you how much they got for the car. What you can (and absolutely should) do is contact the garages who serviced the car and verify that all work was done as per the car's service history.

-Chris-

If I were the salesperson in this situation I wouldn't put you in contact with the previous owner.

It would be nothing to do with hiding anything, it would be about respecting their privacy.
They "sold" me the car, they gave me all the information I asked for, they trusted me to be the professional.
I doubt they ever expected me to be unable to make a person believe in my trustworthiness and have to vouch for their old car.


Alternately, who's to say the car wasn't traded in perfectly, then crashed while the dealership had it? The previous owner would say it was never crashed, you'd buy the car based on that, you'd find out later that it was crashed, you'd then haunt the previous owner for lying to you when in fact it was the salesperson's dishonesty.

Can of worms imho.

FlashD

Let's look at it from another angle.

Personally, if I sold / traded a car in to a dealer, I wouldn't want any of their potential customers contacting me.

A case for me...... 'it's not my problem anymore'.

Its unlikely many previous owners will want the hassle of talking to any of the dealer's potential buyers.

.....more trouble than it's worth.