Would you walk away?

seandive

Hi all,
Went to see a car today for an initial look,
the add in donedeal went
Mercedes 2003 e270 cdi avantgarde, automatic 150,000 miles, full cartell and full service history.
All the usual bells and whistles, and from a dealer.

I carried out a cartell and uk car check. The UK check and cartell said it was a manual.
3 owners in the uk, last mileage check was for 40K in 2004.
Car arrived in Ireland 2008, around 2 years in total without car tax till Oct 2012.

In fairness the car looks in mint condition, asked the sales guy to see service record. Last service was in 2004 at 27000 miles in the UK, possible slight gap in maintenace. I was more worried about genuine mileage, he claimed with the cartell is was impossible to clock a UK import.

I hold my hand up to say i know feck all about cars, so my question to the boards members, would you walk away?

ironclaw

seandive wrote: »

Last service was in 2004 at 27000 miles in the UK, possible slight gap in maintenace. I was more worried about genuine mileage, he claimed with the cartell is was impossible to clock a UK import.

Seems like a massive gap in history for my liking, would be more worrying than the mileage. Could have been lying up for years without servicing or maintenance. Its import date, if I'm not mistaken, would place it coming into the country around the time of those massive floods in the UK which saw a lot of damaged cars on the market here.

Far be it from me to say, but why are you investing in a 2003 car in 2012?

Kenny Logins

Are you saying it has done 123,000 miles with no service recorded?

djimi

The mileage is probably genuine (27000 miles roughly equals 40000km). As others have said the obvious lay up would worry me more. Might be genuine reasons for it; I know of a couple of people who have garaged similar cars for periods of time and have serviced them properly, but its a gamble nonetheless.

seandive

Hands up, i am looking at a good few cars. The merc was more of a bangermatic attempt.

The car was registered in ireland 2007. The last day of sale was 10 June 2008.

The advertised full service history, stopped at 27K miles in the UK 2004.

What annoyed me more was the Sales guy actually said the last owner was doing big miles. The car had clocked up 41k miles to 2004 in the UK.

Paddy@CIRL

With that much uncertainty, I'd walk. It's a buyers market.

Wicklowandy

Someone imported in 2007,sold within a year and then its been parked up?

Early e class like this have a lot of problems. And even if its actually a good car, it really would want to be eYe wateringly cheap.

If you thought you had a bargain, dont think you'll ever sell it anyway near what you paid. And when it needs injectors or a new box expect €€€€€ (and it will.)

Unless you go in with eyes open at how much one costs to run(even disregarding tax) id walk. Cars that are lying up for long periods always develop faults when put back into service

CiniO

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Are you saying it has done 123,000 miles with no service recorded?

There is a difference between 123,000 miles with no service record, and 123,000 miles without actually being serviced.

None of my cars I owned ever had a service record during the period I owned them, but all of them were regularly serviced.

Pottler

Service to 27k and 150k on the clock? When did it lay up, at night? That's not a gap, that's a chasm.:)

RustyNut

seandive wrote: »

he claimed with the cartell is was impossible to clock a UK import.

Don't walk, run and don't look back?

Alanstrainor

In case you were in any doubt OP, I'd leave this one be tbh.

No history after 2004 is absolutely ridiculous for something like an E class. Not worth the potential headache.

T-Maxx

I wouldn't shoot it down so quickly myself now. If the price is right it might well be worth the calculated risk. A lot of car can be had for little money with those Mercs. I'd advise to get someone knowledgable to check her out for you - a Merc indy with Star diagnostics FTW.

Wicklowandy

Most of them i see of that year seem to be beige or horrible blue, with small tacky alloys. Lots of ex taxis too.

And what about that 'wood'