Looking through Autotrader it seems that a scarily high percentage of 20VTs for sale within 100miles of me are being sold by traders.

Now this probably is a really stupid question to ask, but should I be more wary of this than if I buy private?

And what is it with High Wycombe? It seems to be a bloomin Coupe hot spot at the moment? I'm going to look at one tomorrow and there are another 3 or 4 traders in HW with 20VTs for sale!

Lastly, does anyone have any experience with Crest Autos? They have had 3 20VTs advertised in the last week, and on every advert it says Lady Owner and Cambelts been changed. Hmmmmm, what a coincidence! Sounds like a lot of pish to me, which makes me think that I should be even ore wary of someone like this. Fortunately I'm not intending to buy from this dealer as it will be the first coop I look at.

And please, please don't reply telling me to try and buy a member owned car! If I nice one for no more than £3.5k and not too far from me comes up then fine, but until then I'll keep looking.

traders more money , might not know much about the cars they are buying and then again they might , ask them some tricky questions off the buyers guide and see what they say? maybe how often should i check and change the oil for this car?? things like that .? redkey questions. and cambelt questions . other than that take it out for a hard drive . nothing worse than buying a clean on the outside car and finding out its a shitter

i looked at one at crest autos a year or so ago, was the worst one i've seen, overspray all down one side, brakes had had it, i could go on. oh yeah all the history was for a different car and even that had tipex all over it.

I would be wary buying a coupe from a trader unless they were a specialist. Would certainly want verification of service history and bills and also pay someone to look it over.

If the car is in HW, L&M used to do a pre-purchase check for under £100 (so half the cost of the AA and they are specialists) No decent seller would refuse

Sorry, but who are L&M?


Interesting comments about Crest Autos! Good job I'm not going with a view to buying. I might see if I can squeeze in some visits to the other traders in High Wycomb while I'm out there, plus there are another couple on my route back in to London.

This is really just an exercise in building up some knowledge for me, and to get some sort of a feel for the cars. Although I've got a pretty good mechanical knowledge of cars, I haven't bought many, but most of the ones I have bought have been on a whim instead of playing the waiting game and looking at plenty of examples. I've promised myself that this time around I won't rush in and buy the first Coupe I see.

L&M

L&M are coupe specialists in HW http://www.l-m.co.uk/

Best place to buy a cared for coupe is this forum - you can check history, the owner's previous posts for any issues they may have had, talk of work done etc etc

Funnily enough, I did too and that was also terrible despite the description and so-called history

If you are going as far as Wycombe from London, go as far as Oxford and pop into Solo Italia (in Begbroke between Oxford and Woodstock on the A44)

You mean "We are Solo Italia"?

Well I went and had a look at 2 20VTs today.

The first one was a Porto Blue at Crest Cars. Nothing jumped out as being terribly bad, but some obvious niggles which the guy tried to gloss over.

The bodywork was remarkably dent free, but had plenty of scratches, scuffs, stone chips etc. The floor pan was dented on both sides from jacking in the wrong place. The interior CL button didn't work, and this is the funny bit....

...I said to him 'how does it work, I can't hear the motors', to which he replied 'oh it does work, but when you open the doors from inside they unlock, so you can't test it'. So I hit the button, then wound down the window, stuck my arm out and opened the door with the outside handle. He had no answer to that!

The alternator belt was screeching (dunno if that is common), and there was a ticking coming from the front f the engine. I guessed this may be a cracked manifold, but I'm used to hearing the ticking from the injectors and ignition on my 205 GTi so don't know if Coupes do the same.

Also, the oil pressure guage was at max when the car was running for 10 minutes? Is this normal? I couldn't remember what the guide said.

Next I went to see a metallic red (wine red?) that was suspicsiously cheap, but it was not far away. Absolutely loved the colour, but a I could see why it was cheap. It had LE skirts that had seen better days, Plus mirrors, the grill fom an LE or PLus (I think), damage the rear bumper around the exhaust, the front bumper wasn't lined properly at one side, interior had some marks, exterior had planty of scuffs and scrapes and the odd bubble of rust. Oh, and yet again the floorpan was dented on both sides!

Didn't take either car for a drive as they were both pretty sub-standard, and I'm sure I missed 101 points, but I feel a bit more confident now that I've had a poke around a couple of Coupes.

You do have to remember these are 10 year old £3500 Fiat's.

There not concours Ferrari's and whatever you buy will be marked or will get marked very very fast.


Even spending 7k on a Plus, there is no such thing as perfection, these cars are held together with niggles, there not supposed to be perfect thats the idea and love of them!

Wait till you have owned one, soon scratched marked and banged, floors can be sorted thats nothing.

Unless you get one freshly rolled out of an oven it will be marked, it will have had paintwork, but i guess a fresh painted one would be out the window for you as im sure you'd be put off by that???

Funnily enough when I bought my first coop new, there was severe orange peel on the tops of the doors (almost matt) where the window rubbers are.

Went to Fiat (it was an import I got from Belgium) and saw that two of the four cars they had at the dealer had the same problem.

So even new they were flawed.

Thanks for the advice Carl, but I'm not sure how to take your final comment about a re-sprayed car!

I wouldn't be put off by a re-spray providing it wasn't the result of accident repair, and providing the re-spray was to a high standard.

And I am fully aware that a 10 year old car at this budget is not going to be in concours condition, but both of these examples were in need of quite a bit of tidying up. And to be fair, their condition possibly was to be expected at the price they were advertised at, which was a fair bit below my budget. If they had been at the £3.5k to £4k price range then the sellers would have definately been taking the mickey. Maybe as I look at more of them I'll see that they are all similar, but just maybe I'll find one that is far better and worth buying.

At the end of the day, the kind of money I'm looking to spend (both in terms of buying a coupe and then initial servicing and tidying etc) is far from pocket change to me, so I think I have the right to be picky and try to et the best for my money. Ultimately I might find out 2 months down the line that I'm just not going to find anything worth investing in and I may simply look in to something else within my budget, or chuck all the money in to my 205 GTi (which I love to death despite it's many foiballs).

Investing in? Nah surely your not possibly thinking a coupe could be an investment.

No Carl. It was my poor wording.

If it was an investment I wouldn't be funding it with a loan

Hi folks!

Can anyone give me some advice on PAYPAL?

I've ordered some Alloy Rings from Amaturenringe in Germany but not sure how to do the pay pal thing.

Help!!!!

GLP

What Carl is getting at I think is that some post factory paint and bodywork is likely on almost any at least 7 year old car. It's nothing to fear (within reason) and to be expected of ANY car of this age.

Silver fox, go to the paypal site and sign up, simple as.

Cheers...sorry went off topic!

Cheers...sorry went off topic!

I bought mine from a trader and had no problems. The car was just as he described and I went armed with a buyers guide, so I felt confident that my checks would reveal any problems. I'd by from a trader again also.

Which trader did you buy from?