Dealer Feedback

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,085
Location
Stoke area
Hi all,

Just wanted some feedback on a car dealer. He's got a mk5 golf I am interested in, has everything I want and seems to be the only trade car that meets my requirements and budget. There's 1 other but it's private and I need to whack it on a credit card. I am heading down tomorrow for my brothers passing out parade so want to pop in and check it out, and if I am happy, drive it away.

http://www.zacksmotorcompany.co.uk/

Google location from the website is a housing estate and gmaps shows nothing but houses. He has 13 cars on Autotrader for sale.

Can't find any real reviews for him, text the mobile number twice, no response the first time, got a message from a different number the second time. No response from that number after 2 more messages. Land line goes to answer machine.

I've done a check on the car itself with mycarcheck.com:

Everything has come up green apart from some number plate changes before 2014:

First Registered 26 Sep 2006
Year Manufactured 2006
Former Keepers 2
Last Keeper Change The last recorded change of keeper occurred on 25 Oct 2014
Tax Status ✘ Untaxed - expired on 01 Oct 2016
MOT Status ✔ MOT - expires 26 Jul 2018

So it's not been taxed in 12 months but the MOT check says it's done 6000 miles since the MOT on 14 Oct 2016 and the one done July 2017. Driven untaxed or an error on the system?

Now, I'm hoping it's just me being a little paranoid, but what do you guys think? Seems legit or not? I really want this car and with the budget I have, and wanted the DSG and Xenons as minimum, with the uprated stereo (gps) and leather as preferred choice there isn't a lot out there.
 
Housing estate, doesn't return calls, most of his cars have over 100k on which have all probably been picked up at auctions. Nothing comes up on Google about the company. Do you really need to ask?
There's a ton of Golfs around why bother just look for another one.
Is it the really cheap GTI your looking at? Your normally talking 5k plus for a decent example not 3.7k
 
Sounds totally legit...in the same way that Irish sounding bloke that offered to do your driveway is also legit.
 
That website text is the standard autotrader blurb you get when registering a site with them (copy/paste it and you'll see it on quite a few "dealer" sites), his finances match up as someone selling a few cars from home but he's probably storing them at a mate's place on an industrial estate somewhere. No chance of him offering credit card payment at the level he's trading. He probably has the car and willing to sell it, but I wouldn't treat it as anything other than a private sale.
 
After having been conned by a dealer which looked 100 x better than the link in the OP, I'd run a country mile.
 
if it's too cheap to be true then it probably is...

If he's a nightmare to get hold of now, imagine trying to if you have a problem with the car... As Sigma, I've had a mental run around in the past from an "official" bricks and mortar used dealer, so a lad trading cars from home is an instant no go from me. Sure, the car could be ace and have no problems, but you generally get what you pay for.
 
There are far too many good, straight, history solid cars out there to spend time considering ones with hooky back stories. Walk.
 
DereksDontRun said:
confused about the tax tho - would mycarcheck list it as SORN'd if it has been? how is he expecting to test drive it, if it's not taxed?
Click to expand...

The .gov tax check site would tell you if it's SORN or just untaxed IIRC and it appears it's just straight untaxed.
 
DereksDontRun said:
confused about the tax tho - would mycarcheck list it as SORN'd if it has been? how is he expecting to test drive it, if it's not taxed?
Click to expand...

Any reasonable trader will have a set of trade plates that you'd stick on the car.

So if the OP turns up and the guys not even got a set of trade plates to stick on the car, then i'd run a country mile - that just smells of some back street trader trying to do everything on the cheap.
 
Working from home isn't a big issue, my wife's company does trade insurance for a lot of dealers from home.

Everything else though... I agree.

Wife managed to get him on the phone this afternoon, was really confused when she asked about the golf with the reg MIG 9731 "hmm yeah I've had a text about that but wasn't sure what it was about!" ....

Back to auto trader.
 
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