cheap old car with faults or pay more for fault free?

[irocfan]

just curious here...

would you pay a premium for an older car (call it £3500) with a stack of bills or would you chance your arm at one (say) £1100 cheaper but good potential for borkage?

Is the potential saving for a (semi) decent snotter outweighed by 'common faults'

eg:

rust (Puma)
dash-board electrics (Y2K Mercedes)
abs problems etc

each fix is (potentially) not ruinous but they can mount up and then there's the inconvenience to think about.


Personally I've always tried to go for the best possible history etc but these days is it still worth it at the lower price points?

[HustleRussell]

Check and inspect the car thoroughly. You can see rust propagating. Random electrical faults are probably no more likely on a scruffy car than a tidy one.

[cootuk]

Depends how long you want to run it.
£1000 with a full MOT and you can get rid after a year.
£3000 and you would want a few years out of it.

I'm keeping an eye on a certain model spec, and prices vary from £1500-£4000 purely based on what a dealer thinks the market will stand. MOT histories can discount some of the more expensive ones as well, so you can pick up a cheaper cracker.

[stuart_83]

Pay the premium.

Bought an Alfa GT for about £1500 less than it should have been looking at the market, then promptly spent £2500 putting it right.

This included :

Buckled wheel
Discs and pads all around (expected the rears)
Track rod arms
Injectors
Clutch and DMF
Paintwork (expected)
Alloy refurbs (expected)

The clutch, dmf and injectors failed within a month of purchase with no sign when I test drove it.

Never again.

[TooMany2cvs]

Depends entirely.

If it's something that's definitely resolvable within the budget, and all else is equal - definitely.
If it's something like rot - then probably not, depending on the car. If it's upper-end price because it's already been done, then depends on how well it's been done.

[NickdeBug]

I guess it comes down to confidence in the seller.

Plenty of people look to get shot when they know that some big bills are on the horizon, others have a genuine reason for selling.

Test drive and inspection are key. My brother-in-law test drove a Freelander a while ago and thought that the steering felt a bit funny. Not being mechanically minded he was happy with the seller's explanation that it was probably due to have the tracking looked at and the wheels aligned and was quite chuffed to get £100 off the agreed price to cover this.

If he had bothered checking he would have seen that steering rack problems were common on the Freelander 2 and he wouldn't have ended up with a £1600 bill within a month of buying it.

Rear diff went as well three months later.

He really hated that car.