Advice please

[Nathan Reynolds]

Hi I'm a Brava owner, but have just been looking at a Skoda Fabia for my mum.

An old chap is selling the car having owned it since new. The car is 18 months old and has done only 678 miles.

The chap has had his licence revoked as he has had a stroke. The car is very genuine and in pristine condition as you would expect with only 678 miles.

The only problem with the car is in September 2 months after he brought it he rammed it into his garage parking. This resulted in a complete new body shell being replaced. The work was done by Listers a main dealer for VW and Audi and presumably Skoda as part of the VAG group it has a guarantee. Whilst it was being fixed was when the chap had his stroke so the car was away for 6 months and he is now selling as he can't drive anymore.

The car is very well priced it's a 1.4 auto elegance model and in a showroom it would fetch £8,000, he's selling for £6,750 although I think it would go for £6,500.

I would expect that having a new body shell is preferable to having a bent want rejigged but I would value anyone's opininon on here as to whether this is a good buy.

Furthermore do finance companies with outstanding finance owed retain the V5 (log book) or not.

Cheers for any help

Nathan

 

[Tom]

Personally I would not touch it. Even if its been reshelled it will have lots of problems. Also as its only done a really tiny mileage its probably never warmed up properly and is most likely a bit nackered.

You could be looking at continued big bills. All depends if the warrante is transferable and how long it lasts.

 

[Kev]

Agrees with tom

Yeh - basically what you have here is a car that should be sold for tuppence!

If you wanna get this car (which i wouldnt) you should be offering a much smaller amount! All the repair work has been done by hand - including the welds etc that orriginally would have been machine done!

The final piece may look the same but i asure you the mechanics dont care/wouldn't do anywhere near as good job as the manufacturers!

You may aswell be buying an insurance accident repair/stolen recovery! These normally go for around 50% of the retail value!

Id be looking to pay around £4000 to $4250 tops!!!!!

Kev

 

[Craig]

Re: Agrees with tom

i wouldnt offer more than £3000- £3500.

with an engine that has done so few miles can't have done the engine much good, i'd prefer one with 20,000 miles personally.

if you intend on buying, get the car up on a ramp and take a very good look at the quality of workmanship.

ideally get an RAC inspection.