Clocking and how to protect yourself?

Big Nelly

OK, few people will seen me posting on here last few weeks. Changing the wife's car so got some good advice, thanks. Normally I must admit we have a plan of years etc to change cars but this time it was kind of last min so my research was poor...we had planned to change next year

Anyway was looking for estate, buying cash. We decided on Audi. Went with A4 simple due to size. Got the car and we both where extremely happy. UK import, loads of extra. We had got cartell etc from garage, sales guy was grand etc. Anyway driving car around for a week and not sure exactly but something just felt off, so I just fired off email to Audi UK. Didn't think I would even get reply.

We had bought car at supposed to be circa 70k miles but Audi UK had service 06/14 with car at 125k miles. I nearly fell off seat when I read it. Went back to garage straight away, they apologized etc and got full refund for car. Which is grand. The main issue is wife is 7 months pregnant and the stress on her was unreal. Just worried about not getting money back etc, was her first big spend on a car, normally would stay at the 10k mark and then about 5k per upgrade....

Anyway we are back in market for car, just wondering how the hell can you protect yourself against this? I thought cartell etc but seemingly they are more or less useless. We will end up buying import because of the basic cars that seem to be only available if originally Irish. I rang Audi UK and they can only help if car was always serviced in Audi garage. Very few of them around.

We are dealing with SIMI only dealers now but does this make any difference?

Is best option to get service history and just ring each of the garages on the history?
Any car harder to clock?

Anything else I can do?

Can't be putting the misses through the stress again when buying car.....

Sorry for the long post but just trying to explain where I am at the moment

Thanks

P.S. Please no posts on name and shame etc. I will not be doing that

Moanin

I have purchased and sourced a few UK cars and always do the UK car check i.e. HPI. I find this very good. A full main dealer history is a must also and to be sure call the garage that's on the service book.

I agree with you re quality of UK cars but the guys here in Ireland are giving them a bad reputation as being 'clocked' when most of the times the cars have genuine mileage leaving UK. They are then clocked when arriving in Ireland.

I have an 2010 A4 tdi myself and was sourced by a dealer friend in Galway. The reason I didn't source this one myself was I had car to trade and am not too keen selling private nowadays......

Big Nelly

Moanin wrote: »

I have purchased and sourced a few UK cars and always do the UK car check i.e. HPI. I find this very good. A full main dealer history is a must also and to be sure call the garage that's on the service book.

I agree with you re quality of UK cars but the guys here in Ireland are giving them a bad reputation as being 'clocked' when most of the times the cars have genuine mileage leaving UK. They are then clocked when arriving in Ireland.

I have an 2010 A4 tdi myself and was sourced by a dealer friend in Galway. The reason I didn't source this one myself was I had car to trade and am not too keen selling private nowadays......

You mention full main dealer, alot of the cars I have seen are serviced by dealers but not specific main car manufacturer dealers. E.g. Audi serviced twice by Audi dealer and then twice by garage, so question is am I better staying away from that car versus trying to get car with full audi service history? these are very hard to find with full Audi service history

Moanin

Big Nelly wrote: »

You mention full main dealer, alot of the cars I have seen are serviced by dealers but not specific main car manufacturer dealers. E.g. Audi serviced twice by Audi dealer and then twice by garage, so question is am I better staying away from that car versus trying to get car with full audi service history? these are very hard to find with full Audi service history

It really depends on yourself. Personally when buying second hand I always look for main dealer service history. When the guy was sourcing mine this was a request that I had. To be honest most UK drivers tend to service at main dealer.

mickdw

Walk into Main dealer in the uk and buy your car. You will pay your money but would be pretty sure not to be buying a clocked car.
Sourcing from random places in the uk and looking at bargains especially can be a very dangerous game.

Big Nelly

Moanin wrote: »

It really depends on yourself. Personally when buying second hand I always look for main dealer service history. When the guy was sourcing mine this was a request that I had. To be honest most UK drivers tend to service at main dealer.

Thanks, I have just been looking on autotrader.co.uk and seems to be very few, one of the best I found with full audi service history is up the road in North....any better websites?

Moanin

Big Nelly wrote: »

Thanks, I have just been looking on autotrader.co.uk and seems to be very few, one of the best I found with full audi service history is up the road in North....any better websites?

Would you not go to UK yourself as MICKDW says? I would look at Audi UK website or BCA Car Auctions (Where most of the fleet cars are sold).

I will PM you the guys name that sourced mine if you like?

Big Nelly

mickdw wrote: »

Walk into Main dealer in the uk and buy your car. You will pay your money but would be pretty sure not to be buying a clocked car.
Sourcing from random places in the uk and looking at bargains especially can be a very dangerous game.

Not looking at bargain, been looking so far at cargiant etc as would expect them not to have clocked cars....cargiant have audi which is spec I want but service history is not full audi dealer...

bazz26

First of all run your own history reports. A chancer selling a clocked car with a cartell report is hardly going to have a report that is contradicting the odometer on the car. It's not very difficult to fabricate a history report in the hope a seller takes it at face value.

Same with a stamped service history, ring the garages who stamped the car and correlate what they did with what is stamped in the service book. If the service book is missing then it's missing for a reason as it's very unusual to find a UK car that doesn't have one.

Secondly, use some common sense. Have a look at similar cars and their asking prices. Compare like with like, in other words if there are about 5 similarly priced A4s but they all have over 100k miles on them and this one only has 70k miles but asking similar money then my gut tells me something is not right here and more investigation is needed.

Thirdly, people really need to stop believing every advert they hear or see about the S.I.M.I. All they are is a group made up of member car dealers who lobby for their own interests and needs. They do not have any interest in representing customers and very rarely rule against one of their own members. As long as the annual membership fees are paid up to date then the dealer gets to hang the S.I.M.I. logo over his door and that's about it.

Big Nelly

bazz26 wrote: »

Thirdly, people really need to stop believing every advert they hear or see about the S.I.M.I. All they are is a group made up of member car dealers who lobby for their own interests and needs. They do not have any interest in representing customers and very rarely rule against one of their own members. As long as the annual membership fees are paid up to date then the dealer gets to hang the S.I.M.I. logo over his door and that's about it.

I have never seen an advert for SIMI to be honest, that is why I asked, wasn't sure exactly what SIMI meant, if as you say it is just a group of mates more or less or if they have to sign up to specific requirements....looks like just a group of mates

Atlantic Dawn

Big Nelly wrote: »

Anyway was looking for estate, buying cash. We decided on Audi. Went with A4 simple due to size. Got the car and we both where extremely happy. UK import, loads of extra. We had got cartell etc from garage, sales guy was grand etc. Anyway driving car around for a week and not sure exactly but something just felt off, so I just fired off email to Audi UK. Didn't think I would even get reply.

We had bought car at supposed to be circa 70k miles but Audi UK had service 06/14 with car at 125k miles.

Can I ask did you get a Cartell report run on the car to see what it showed up? Would be interesting if it turned out the garage also falsified a Cartell report.

mickdw

Big Nelly wrote: »

Not looking at bargain, been looking so far at cargiant etc as would expect them not to have clocked cars....cargiant have audi which is spec I want but service history is not full audi dealer...

Car giant are pretty good to be fair.
All auction stock but I know of alot of cars that have come from them and they all look genuine enough to me.
There was a story here also where they sold a bmw with the beginnings of a chain issue to an irish buyer. They were pretty good in refunding him I believe.

Big Nelly

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Can I ask did you get a Cartell report run on the car to see what it showed up? Would be interesting if it turned out the garage also falsified a Cartell report.

I haven't, would cost me 35 quid to get cartell, already wasted enough time on it to be honest, I got my money back for car, I had paid the tax on it and garage refunded the tax as well.

hfallada

I know in some us states you have to report your millage to an independent authority everytime you sell to stop clocking. I think their should be one of those authorities here to prevent clocking of cars. You just enter a car reg on a site and it tells you everytime the car was sold the millage on it

bazz26

Big Nelly wrote: »

I haven't, would cost me 35 quid to get cartell, already wasted enough time on it to be honest, I got my money back for car, I had paid the tax on it and garage refunded the tax as well.

Not trying to be harsh here but that €35 could have saved you and your pregnant wife alot of stress. Not saying that a €35 report is a knight in shining armour but it may have flagged it or at least questioned some of the history on the car. In this instance you got very lucky imo in that the garage you bought it from refunded you the cost of the car + tax. You could easily have gotten burnt too for the sake of €35. Not doing proper due diligence and proper background checks is one of the main reasons there is big business in clocking cars.