thegarageblog.co.uk : Used car bargain or finacial liability? Know your history.

Sometimes no matter how hard you try, things don’t always go as planned in the world of car maintenance. The simplest of jobs can occasionally turn into an ongoing saga of misery and failure with the technician trembling at the sight of the rogue car reappearing on our forecourt with yet another defect.

At the moment we have one such car in our workshop, that seems to develop a new problem every few weeks. I know the registration number from memory, as well as the owners telephone number. So, what makes a car keep going wrong, and how can you prevent it? Well, it’s no one particular thing in this case, but more a combination of factors.

When a car gets to a certain age, it’s not uncommon for things to wear out or break. Some cars are more durable than others, whilst others just seem to fail regularly. In the case of older cars, the past service history can have a huge bearing on the subsequent reliability for present and future owners. Take a car that’s always been regularly serviced at the correct intervals, at a reputable garage by a skilled technician. During that routine servicing, the technician would (or should) have spotted the impending failure of any mechanical components, and advised the customer accordingly who, in turn, would’ve paid for them to be replaced. Over the course of a few years, the overall effect is that many of the wearing parts have now been replaced, and are therefore less worn than the rest of the car.

With a car like this, it’s generally fairly safe to assume that you won’t have any major expenditure on replacing several worn-out parts in one go. With the exception of any sudden catastrophic failure of something major through negligence or just bad luck, routine maintenance should be limited to just normal wear and tear items such as brakes, tyres and exhausts.

Now, if you take a car that’s been somewhat less than regularly serviced, or has been serviced ‘at home’ by the owner, it’s far more likely to have multiple parts worn-out at the same time. There’s actually a sound basis for the often-heard advice to ‘only buy a car with full service history’. Apart from the fact that regular servicing implies a more ‘caring’ owner, it’s far easier to budget for any potential repairs once you know what’s already been done to a car in the past! In some cases, say when buying a used car, the difference can be huge.

I’ll use an example of how 2 very similar cars can be so different in terms of cost and future reliability.

Fred Jones is looking to replace his old 1993 VW Golf with a newer GTi model. He’s found a few examples for sale in Autotrader and has narrowed it down to just 2 of them. Both are the same age and similar mileage, yet one is advertised privately and one is at a local independent dealer.

The 2 adverts read as follows:

1) Volkswagen Golf 1.8 GTi 20 valve Turbo, 5 door, 2001 X reg, 81000 miles, Oceanic Green, Full VW Service History, Air Conditioning, CD Player, Alloy Wheels, Electric Windows, Beautiful condition throughout, New MOT, no tax. £3995.00 Trade Sale

2) Volkswagen Golf 1.8 GTi 20 valve Turbo, 5 door, 2001 X reg, 77,000 miles, Oceanic Green, some history, Air Conditioning, CD Player, Alloy Wheels, Electric Windows, Beautiful condition, 4 months MOT and 6 months tax £3000.00 Private Sale

So, Fred looks as both adverts and goes to see the cars. He likes both the sellers and doesn’t ask too many questions about the cars as they both look SO nice (compared to his old K reg Golf) The one for sale through the dealer does has a few thousand more miles on the clock though, has no road tax, and is almost £1000 more expensive than the other, so he decides to save a few quid and makes the private seller an offer for the other car. The seller wants £3000 for it but they both agree on £2800 (after some gentle haggling) and the deal is done.

Fred collects the car later that week, having paid out his hard-earned £2800 but is happy that he’s bagged himself a real bargain, and left that ‘ripoff trader’ with his unsold car on the forecourt for someone more gullible than Fred to buy.

It’s now late November, and Fred’s car still has 4 months of MOT left so he enjoys whizzing around in his new Golf and feels very pleased with himself indeed. He hasn’t had to spend a penny on it so far, so reckons he’s saved himself a cool £1200.

Come April, and his car is due for the MOT and is only a little late for the 80,000 mile service. He’s done a few thousand miles in it by now, and it’s now just turned 81000 miles. He’s begun to notice a little bit of a rattle from the right hand side of the engine lately too, and a bit of a scraping noise when he’s braking hard. Also, on one of those rare ‘warm days’ he thought he’d try the air conditioning and it didn’t seem to do much in the way of cooling him down. Still, he knows a friendly garage and he books it in to them for the service and MOT, and to take a look at the other items.

On the day, he gets a call from the workshop manager around lunchtime with a ‘bit of bad news’

You see, the 80,000 mile service on a 20v GTi requires the replacement of the camshaft timing belt and tensioner pulley. It’s also a good idea to replace the water pump while you’re in there, as this also wears out and starts to make a noise and leak coolant. This little lot costs around £550.00 inc. labour. The technician also points out that the front brake pads are worn to metal and have badly gouged the discs, so they’ll need replacing too (another £220) and that the rear pads are almost down to metal too (£95). The reason the air conditioning doesn’t work (and probably never did – Fred didn’t bother to check it, and the previous owner who knew full-well it didn’t work, decided not to mention it!) is because the compressor clutch is broken. This’ll need a new compressor, expansion valve, fiter/dryer and a regas to ensure it stays working. That little lot will add another £900 to the bill, if Fred wants to keep his cool this coming summer. So, all in all, Fred (if he wants his car to be tip-top) will have to fork-out another £1765 on his faithful Barclaycard!

If only he’d have looked a bit closer at the other car on sale with the dealer, and not focused solely on the screen price. You see, he’d taken that Golf in as a part-exchange from a wealthy couple against a 2007 Golf GTi. The trader had allowed them £2775 in part-exchange against the £18,000 cost of their new Golf. The couple that’d owned the car before had always taken it to the Volkswagen dealer for servicing, and although it’d done 81,000 miles, it’d just had the all-important 80,000 mile service at VW a month before they traded it in.

Had Fred bothered to look through the wad of service invoices in the glovebox, he’d have spotted the last bill for the huge amount of £2400. This included the 80,000 mile service, replacement of the camshaft timing belt, tensioner and water pump. Also, a set of front and rear brake pads and discs, 2 new tyres and a wheel bearing. Better still was the new air conditioning compressor the old owners had paid for. All in all, this was a real ‘no expense spared’ maintenance history, all paid for by the previous owners!

All the trader had to do was to get the car valeted (for around £65) and it was ready to sell. The fact that the previous owners had paid all that money for a service was irrelevant and didn’t make the car value any greater. The trader, knowing he had nothing much to spend on it, was able to offer them a top price in part-exchange and at the advertised price of £3995.00, he stood to make a £1000 (pre-tax) profit for his work.

Unfortunately, Fred only saw the fact that is was £1200 more expensive and had NO tax (£115.50 for 6 months). Had he have walked-away from the private seller’s car and bought the other one, he’d have saved himself almost £600, not to mention the fact that the car with the full history would most likely prove to be far more reliable over the next few years.

When I buy or sell a secondhand car, I always take into consideration the previous service history when setting a price. We often sell ‘cheap’ cars that are priced similarly to that of a private seller, but with the advantage that ours have been through the workshop and have had EVERYTHING done already. I simply buy the cars at a cheaper price to reflect what I have to spend on them, based on the cost of parts at trade price and a greatly reduced labour cost. I also include a warranty, so if it does break, you won’t have to pay. Imagine if Fred would’ve gone back to the chap he bought the car from 4 months later, moaning about the work required!

So, remember when looking for a used car to check out the trade adverts too. They might seem a bit more expensive at first sight, but could save you a fortune in the long run.