RedCow Car Sales & Used A4 Purchase

bobbytables

I'm considering this: http://www.carzone.ie/search/Audi/A4/2.0-143-/36513745855986810/advert?channel=CARS

On paper the car looks great. I'm wary of the seller, as they're a registered business (not company) since Feb (this year). Google street view shows premises as Nolan motor company (a few years ago). No landline phone numbers, just mobile.

I'm exhausted at this stage tracking down cars of interest between this dealer and Ramillies, but have read many reports which would push me away from even walking in and checking out the cars.

I have no mates that are mechanics, so any car I would check out, I'd need to pay a mechanic to visit on site.

Should I rule out this sort of purchase and in particular does the above deal look dodge to any of you, or should I take a look?

Thanks in advance

Anan1

Buy privately, do all the checks, and pay a mechanic to look at the car before handing over any money. Safer and cheaper.

skankles

Bought Seat Leon off them never had a problem . Good car, If any help to you.

Wossack

I'd be treating any car dealers around the red cow area like private sellers tbh

trabpc

Bought a mazda 6 there earlier in year(Petrol) no problems

_Kaiser_

Anan1 wrote: »

Buy privately, do all the checks, and pay a mechanic to look at the car before handing over any money. Safer and cheaper.

While I'd be wary of most of the portacabin types, €16k is a lot of cash to be handing over for a car like that with no comeback whatsoever.

George Dalton

Anan1 wrote: »

Buy privately, do all the checks, and pay a mechanic to look at the car before handing over any money. Safer and cheaper.

A genuine private sale would be fine, but how many of those will you find? not many. I would be willing to bet money that the majority of the 2009 Audi A4s being sold privately on Donedeal are actually being sold by black market part time traders and aren't genuine private sales at all. So you are getting the worst of both worlds.

Anan1

George Dalton wrote: »

A genuine private sale would be fine, but how many of those will you find? not many. I would be willing to bet money that the majority of the 2009 Audi A4s being sold privately on Donedeal are actually being sold by black market part time traders and aren't genuine private sales at all. So you are getting the worst of both worlds.

I mean a genuine private sale.

lomb

Buy from a proper dealer with warranty here and pay their overheads for the that or consider it private.

I personally would head to the UK or North and purchase ex fleet at 3 years old. 50% of all UK cars are bought by businesses on lease deals and these run usually for 3 years (sometimes 4). Remember they have a plate change twice a year which doesnt align with calendar years and a month or two after that is the time to buy when the old ones are dumped to auctions or trade and flood the market depressing prices. They tend to get imported to the North also as the business/ moneys in the South East of England and Northern Ireland being poorer has a shortage of good used cars at 3 years. There is no lower depreciating car than a good 3 year old UK machine bought right. Make sure the tires are good and use it for 12 months. Something with 70k miles is the sweetspot as it can be sold with a reasonable 80 or 85 but is too high for retail sale on a forecourt so the price is depressed buying.

vibe666

isn't that the "dealer" who keeps appearing and disappearing at different premises with slightly different company names to avoid any comeback on dodgy cars? seen a few threads here about them, not 100% sure it's these guys, but fits the profile from what i remember from past threads, so i'd be wary, particularly with an expensive purchase like that.

bobbytables

Thank you all for the replies thus far. Genuinely appreciate it

I have been tracking the market for a few months now, and it has dawned on me that in that time (literally a few months) I have test driven very few cars, which is not good. All my research has been online. The thing is I am in a position to buy (not tyre kicking), so I need to get out there. If I don't look at the above car, I'm going to Dublin no less (and incl. around the Naas Rd) to check out some dealers. I can't let the chance of a lemon stop me from trying any more. I know exactly what I'm looking for.

Some people have said treat the Naas Rd like a private sale, or just buy privately, because either way you're going to have to bring a mechanic. I agree with this, but I'm still going to try the dealer for 2 reasons:

1. Warranty (even if it's hard to get any benefit from it, I'm not afraid of fighting for my legal entitlements)
2. It's likely I will want to trade in my existing car. Not something I can do with a private sale.

The dealer that can do me right on the above, will get my business along with the car checking out also.

The last thing though that stands out is that many of the "call out mechanics" are based around the Naas Rd themselves, so is it now a case that not only can I not trust dealers, but can I trust the mechanics not to be in cahoots with the dealers to give cars the all clear for a small cut of the sale?

Thanks again

bobbytables

I should add, regarding the trade-in of car Vs. private sale... When viewing cars via dealers thus far, I have been offered more there for my current car than I have seen in the private market. So it seems to me that I can get more off the price of my next car through a dealer without having to go to the extra expense of advertising, hassle of viewings, etc.

R.O.R

bobbytables wrote: »

I should add, regarding the trade-in of car Vs. private sale... When viewing cars via dealers thus far, I have been offered more there for my current car than I have seen in the private market. So it seems to me that I can get more off the price of my next car through a dealer without having to go to the extra expense of advertising, hassle of viewings, etc.

What's your max budget, and does it have to be S-Line?

bazz26

bobbytables wrote: »

I should add, regarding the trade-in of car Vs. private sale... When viewing cars via dealers thus far, I have been offered more there for my current car than I have seen in the private market. So it seems to me that I can get more off the price of my next car through a dealer without having to go to the extra expense of advertising, hassle of viewings, etc.

Don't be fooled by overly generous trade-in prices for your old car as dealers tend to add it back onto the price of the car you are buying from them. The important figure to focus on is the cost to change price, i.e. how much money does the garage want with your car for the newer one.

Remember also that if you are buying straight (no trade-in) from a dealer you can haggle a straight deal discount off their asking price, in most cases selling your own car privately and then buying from a dealer with no trade-in will always be cheaper than trading your old car in. The dealer has to buy it at a cheaper price than they sell for in order to allow for prepping/valeting it, putting a warranty on it and selling it on at a profit.

Selling private can be more hassle and take longer but financially is the cheapest way to go.

bobbytables

bazz26 wrote: »

Don't be fooled by overly generous trade-in prices for your old car as dealers tend to add it back onto the price of the car you are buying from them. The important figure to focus on is the cost to change price, i.e. how much money does the garage want with your car for the newer one.

That is great advice, and I assure you I will be sticking to it. I know my own budget here. I had thought that I was being offered great money for my own car, while being asked to pay a high "change price" before. I expect garages want to do business, it depends how much they are willing to haggle.

Take the example (car) I opened this thread with. They're asking for 16,950. I drove the same spec car with 7k less miles while reviewing a private sale before. The seller was asking for 15k. I walked away to think about it. Decided overnight to go for it, called back the next day and it was gone. I was gutted, but it sort of set in my mind what can be bought. If the Naas Rd is like a private sale, I'm expecting to get the same value there, otherwise it's not worth the risk.

Am I asking too much? (even if I traded in my own car on top of it (2000 Focus Ghia Saloon - 130k - Running great).

bazz26

A 13 year old car is not going to be worth much if anything to a dealer, the trade in allowance they will offer you will just be a discount off the other car. Any of the big dealers will buy it at trade price as they will pass it onto smaller dealers as it's too old to retail and warranty it at a profit. My advice is to try and sell it privately otherwise it is a disadvantage to you as part of any trade-in deal for a newer car.

Muff Richardson

I went to this dealer look at an A4...its a fairly shady looking operation, as in they have a tiny forecourt and a portacabin office, you can barely find the place. HOWEVER...they seem to be running an operation where they work on a very quick turnover of cars with prices cheaper than elsewhere...spoke to the guy and he seemed to be fairly decent in terms of minimal bullsh*t and just straight talk...i think a lot of the cars they have are from the UK market so if you see the reg with the "09 D 2009" as you do in the ad I'd say it hasn't been VRT'd yet as was the car I looked at. They said the price was VRT included and they would take care of it, I wasn't really interested until this was all taken care of so I didn't buy.

ask them for the UK reg if it is an import and get a motorcheck done, only about €8 on the english sites compared to our very own Motorcheck rip off of €25 for Irish plates...the mechanic thing is a pain in the hole and seems to be the norm and necessary these days...up to you to get it checked and its a risk i am toying with taking if the background check and FSH is available.

go check the place out and make your own mind up, all i read are horror stories here and it has made it near impossible to buy happily and with confidence. starting to think about getting a few more years out of the sh*tbox I have outside. if its a nice car, all i'll do is worry about it anyway

colm_mcm

May as well add that its perfectly normal for a dealer not to pay the vrt until the car is sold. The ar would be registered to you.
Eg you're address is in kildare, you get a KE reg and not a D.


Re the reg check, what do you get for £8? Mileage finance and insurance checks?

bazz26

09 D 2009 is a display plate, look it up on the motor tax website and it tells you it doesn't exist.

And you would want to be spending more than €8 to get a comprehensive check on any car your potentially spending thousands on.

Muff Richardson

I thought they could VRT it to the garage and just place a Dublin reg on it or wherever the garage is based? Then you would just have the ownership forms filled in?

CarCheckUK.co.uk

Have done a few checks on Northern plates and you get exactly what you get off the motorcheck.ie.

Here's a paste of the PDF report you get sent for a car I did a check on, I removed some of the plate in case it breaches some privacy stuff, I dunno!!! This car was sold before I got to it.

Your Car Check - LX5***K
Vehicle Registration
Number
LX5***K
Make AUDI
Model A4 S LINE TDI
Colour BLACK
Door Plan 4 DOOR SALOON
Transmission MANUAL 6 GEARS DIESEL
Engine Capacity 01968
Engine Number CAG 259449
CO2 Emissions 134 g/km
Date of First
Registration
01/09/2009
Year Manufactured 2009
Imported No
Exported No
Used before 1st
registration?
No
Mileage
Source of Mileage: DVLA
Date of Mileage: 11/04/2013
Mileage: 081394
Source of Mileage: NAMA
Date of Mileage: 09/04/2013
Mileage: 081332
Stolen
This vehicle has not been reported stolen
Scrapped
This vehicle has not been scrapped
On High Risk Database
This vehicle is not on the high risk database
Plate Change
This vehicle has not had it's plates changed
Colour Change
This vehicle has not changed colour
Number of Former Keepers
This Vehicle has had 001 keepers
Last Keeper Change: 11/12/2009
Condition (write-off and category)
This vehicle has no condition details
Recall Data
This vehicle does not appear on our database
This Car Check was provided by CarCheckUK.co.uk. All data was correct on 2013-08-31 01:28:15

Muff Richardson

bazz26 wrote: »

09 D 2009 is a display plate, look it up on the motor tax website and it tells you it doesn't exist.

And you would want to be spending more than €8 to get a comprehensive check on any car your potentially spending thousands on.

It's as comprehensive a report as the motorcheck.ie only a lot cheaper, I was just making the point that a background check is a lot less on the UK sites for UK plates then it is on the Irish sites for Irish plates. I wasn't saying that its gospel and all you need to do to be absolutely certain the car is gold before handing over money.

colm_mcm

The above check doesn't tell you if there's finance owing.

HPI check is £25

mickdw

George Dalton wrote: »

A genuine private sale would be fine, but how many of those will you find? not many. I would be willing to bet money that the majority of the 2009 Audi A4s being sold privately on Donedeal are actually being sold by black market part time traders and aren't genuine private sales at all. So you are getting the worst of both worlds.

Yes, you are no doubt correct but surely its easy enough to weed out the back yard dealers.
If the seller has had the car for a few years, log book showing this and proper name and address, well its pretty easy to work out if genuine.
If on the other hand they are selling for brother in law who is on holidays and the name on the logbook is not related to the seller at all, well, enough said.

colm_mcm

A lot of those cars the part time traders sell are still on uk plates mick

George Dalton

mickdw wrote: »

Yes, you are no doubt correct but surely its easy enough to weed out the back yard dealers.
If the seller has had the car for a few years, log book showing this and proper name and address, well its pretty easy to work out if genuine.
If on the other hand they are selling for brother in law who is on holidays and the name on the logbook is not related to the seller at all, well, enough said.

It is very easy to weed these guys out once you know what you are doing. Unfortunately a large percentage of the car buying public don't know what they are doing.

Muff Richardson

colm_mcm wrote: »

The above check doesn't tell you if there's finance owing.

HPI check is £25

Apologies...you're right, you have to fork out £20 to get the outstanding finance check done. That's roughly the same as the motorcheck.ie check. My mistake.

mickdw

colm_mcm wrote: »

A lot of those cars the part time traders sell are still on uk plates mick

But sure you have advance warning then. you are guaranteed that its someone who sells a few then. If you are still happy to buy, if you dont do all your checks and a proper inspection, you deserve all you get.
Personally, I wouldnt buy a car in such circumstances.