How accurate are Parkers used car valuations?
- Thread starter Don Barzini
- Start date
Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
Who cares, you know exactly what I mean....sat in your glass and metal wharehouse of a showroomDon't you mean GIN palaces???
Piece
Tour Winner
It used to be Glass's guide that the indie trader's used to rely on, not Parkers. Maybe it still is? Parkers is OK for guide price.
Smiffy
Grand Slam Winner
Haven't used Glass's for years. Most of the bigger garages use C.A.P. (Car Auction Prices) online nowadays. Some of the tiny back street garages might still use Glass's but I haven't seen one of those books now for about 20 years or so.
D
Deleted member 23270
Guest
Who cares, you know exactly what I mean....sat in your glass and metal wharehouse of a showroom
Do you mean warehouse? :rofl:
Smiffy
Grand Slam Winner
Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
No, I meant wharehouse ....as that is just as wrong as the modern steel and glass motor dealerships.
Blue in Munich
Crocked Professional Yeti Impersonator
Who cares, you know exactly what I mean....sat in your glass and metal wharehouse of a showroom
If it's Smiffy should the "a" have been an "o"........ ?
Don Barzini
Assistant Pro
Thanks very much for everyone’s responses on this. Apologies I’ve not been back and replied, hectic couple of days!
So, the evening of when I started this thread, the car asking price had actually come down to £1,995 anyway. So I was pretty optimistic.
Sadly, when I got there it was a bit of a pig. Loads of dents and scratches on the bodywork (which wasn’t apparent on the pictures), absolutely no record of any service history available, only one key and all four alloys scratched to buggery.
So it wasn’t the car for me. But the guys at the garage seemed good blokes. Absolutely no pressure, left me to have a good look, didn’t try to hustle me. The kind of place I’d like to buy from, but they didn’t have anything in at the moment of interest.
So it’s back to the drawing board for now!
Apologies for my turn of phrase. Wrote my OP in a bit of a hurry and probably would have phrased it differently if I wasn’t in a rush.
I think I must have been unlucky in the past though. I’ve had several annoying encounters with dealerships I’ve bought from - or tried to buy from...
At an Audi dealership. Guy offered me a pathetic and paltry amount for my BMW part ex and said that when he’d run it through the system to get a price, it had flagged up that my car was an import, so worth much less. He’d even gone to the trouble of calling BMW to double check, nice fella that he was. They told him that yes, it was an import. So he did me a favour cos he felt sorry for me and managed to talk his boss into giving me an extra hundred quid for it, but only if I shook hands on a deal there and then. Really put the pressure on. Naturally I walked away and called BMW myself. They told me that it absolutely was not an import! What did flag up was that it had belonged to someone in the past who was located on an army base somewhere abroad, but it wasn’t actually imported. When I did trade that car in elsewhere, I got around two thousand pounds more for it than the Audi conman offered.
Ford dealership. Bought a well specced people carrier for my wife to accommodate our growing family. A couple of months later the sat nav broke down and took it back to them. Oh no, sorry sir, that isn’t covered by our warranty. Had a bit of a disagreement on that with them and they agreed they would look at it. When they returned it to me, they said they couldn’t fix it...but upon its return, absolutely none of the display was working so I couldn’t control the radio, climate, Bluetooth or anything else i.e. it was worse than when I handed it back to them. They offered to put it right for fifteen hundred quid and I absolutely exploded at the bloke and said either sort this out or he’d be hearing from my solicitors. A day later, I got it back completely fixed.
My last car, the one I’ve recently got rid of. Bought from an independent dealership. Lovely guy, until he got my money - over ten thousand pounds of it. Soon after I drove away I found out that the radio system didn’t work properly. Then the engine management light came on. He didn’t want to know about the radio system as apparently it was going to be three hundred quid for a new part. I argued my case with threats of consumer law and trading standards and he put it right. He also reluctantly took back the car for diagnostics and there was a fault showing with some sort of valve (sorry I’m not an expert on car mechanics) He re-set the system and said it would be fine. Several months down the line I’m getting engine faults again and this time took it to an independent diagnostic guy. He finds it riddled with historic electrical faults, he literally has no clue where to begin with it and suggests if I did go down the route of tying to sort it, it could run to several thousand quids worth of fees and I may still never sort I properly. Though the faults were “historic†he couldn’t give me exact dates. Naturally the original guy I bought it from doesn’t want to know and of course I cannot prove that those faults were there at the time when he originally ran diagnostics on it. I obviously have my suspicions, but legally I don’t have a leg to stand on. So I just sold the bloody thing to one of the webuyanycar type companies.
So yes, maybe I’ve been unlucky, but my experiences have left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Hence my comment about dealerships trying to screw you if they can. I’m now in a position where I just don’t want to spend silly money on cars and am looking for something cheaper but reliable. Smiffy, if I’m allowed to “bank†your offer of having a look at asking prices for me, I may do so in the future!
So, the evening of when I started this thread, the car asking price had actually come down to £1,995 anyway. So I was pretty optimistic.
Sadly, when I got there it was a bit of a pig. Loads of dents and scratches on the bodywork (which wasn’t apparent on the pictures), absolutely no record of any service history available, only one key and all four alloys scratched to buggery.
So it wasn’t the car for me. But the guys at the garage seemed good blokes. Absolutely no pressure, left me to have a good look, didn’t try to hustle me. The kind of place I’d like to buy from, but they didn’t have anything in at the moment of interest.
So it’s back to the drawing board for now!
Apologies for my turn of phrase.
Wrote my OP in a bit of a hurry and probably would have phrased it differently if I wasn’t in a rush. I think I must have been unlucky in the past though. I’ve had several annoying encounters with dealerships I’ve bought from - or tried to buy from...
At an Audi dealership. Guy offered me a pathetic and paltry amount for my BMW part ex and said that when he’d run it through the system to get a price, it had flagged up that my car was an import, so worth much less. He’d even gone to the trouble of calling BMW to double check, nice fella that he was. They told him that yes, it was an import. So he did me a favour cos he felt sorry for me and managed to talk his boss into giving me an extra hundred quid for it, but only if I shook hands on a deal there and then. Really put the pressure on. Naturally I walked away and called BMW myself. They told me that it absolutely was not an import! What did flag up was that it had belonged to someone in the past who was located on an army base somewhere abroad, but it wasn’t actually imported. When I did trade that car in elsewhere, I got around two thousand pounds more for it than the Audi conman offered.
Ford dealership. Bought a well specced people carrier for my wife to accommodate our growing family. A couple of months later the sat nav broke down and took it back to them. Oh no, sorry sir, that isn’t covered by our warranty. Had a bit of a disagreement on that with them and they agreed they would look at it. When they returned it to me, they said they couldn’t fix it...but upon its return, absolutely none of the display was working so I couldn’t control the radio, climate, Bluetooth or anything else i.e. it was worse than when I handed it back to them. They offered to put it right for fifteen hundred quid and I absolutely exploded at the bloke and said either sort this out or he’d be hearing from my solicitors. A day later, I got it back completely fixed.
My last car, the one I’ve recently got rid of. Bought from an independent dealership. Lovely guy, until he got my money - over ten thousand pounds of it. Soon after I drove away I found out that the radio system didn’t work properly. Then the engine management light came on. He didn’t want to know about the radio system as apparently it was going to be three hundred quid for a new part. I argued my case with threats of consumer law and trading standards and he put it right. He also reluctantly took back the car for diagnostics and there was a fault showing with some sort of valve (sorry I’m not an expert on car mechanics) He re-set the system and said it would be fine. Several months down the line I’m getting engine faults again and this time took it to an independent diagnostic guy. He finds it riddled with historic electrical faults, he literally has no clue where to begin with it and suggests if I did go down the route of tying to sort it, it could run to several thousand quids worth of fees and I may still never sort I properly. Though the faults were “historic†he couldn’t give me exact dates. Naturally the original guy I bought it from doesn’t want to know and of course I cannot prove that those faults were there at the time when he originally ran diagnostics on it. I obviously have my suspicions, but legally I don’t have a leg to stand on. So I just sold the bloody thing to one of the webuyanycar type companies.
So yes, maybe I’ve been unlucky, but my experiences have left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Hence my comment about dealerships trying to screw you if they can. I’m now in a position where I just don’t want to spend silly money on cars and am looking for something cheaper but reliable. Smiffy, if I’m allowed to “bank†your offer of having a look at asking prices for me, I may do so in the future!
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