Rav4 - MOT Advisories.. help me

rule one of buying a used car - check MOT history before even thinking about contacting / speaking to the dealer.

At this kind of price bracket - no dealer is actually going to "fix" all of the above - to do all the above properly is going to cost thousands and lose the garage a ton of money. They're banking on purchasers not spotting this and just selling them a ticking time bomb of deferred maintenance.

Find a car that's been properly serviced and doesn't have a tone of pending work the dealer is hiding.

Their idea of fixing this will be to give it the cheapest new tyre they can find and give everything underneath a quick coat of paint with a rattle can to hide the corrosion and taking it to a different MOT station that will be "friendly" to them and just not list the other bits of worn bushings etc..
 
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He sent a video saying it's surface corrosion, not deep... dirt & paint. He said they will clean it up with a wire brush and underseal it all. He knocked on it a few times and they it's all solid. I've taken screenshots of the corrosion he pointed out: (not videos)
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This'll go one of two ways. Either the dealer is one of the extremely rare honest lot and will actually fix everything (maybe that just about justifies the ridiculous asking price) or you're going to end up putting your mum in a car that'll be potentially dangerous.

My advice - tell the dealer that you're expecting everything to be rectified or you're walking away with your deposit back. Ask them if they'd be happy for Toyota to examine it before the sale completes. If he says no, then demand your money back.
 
Spleen Sauce said:
Ask them if they'd be happy for Toyota to examine it before the sale completes. If he says no, then demand your money back.
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I would expect most dealers would just give you your deposit back without asking and tell you to go and buy another car if you asked for a 16 year old car to be inspected by the original manufacturer prior to completing a purchase.
 
Fr0dders said:
At this kind of price bracket - no dealer is actually going to "fix" all of the above - to do all the above properly is going to cost thousands and lose the garage a ton of money. They're banking on purchasers not spotting this and just selling them a ticking time bomb of deferred maintenance.
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It's not just at this price bracket - LR main dealer tried to weasel out of scored and corroded fr brake discs on a 3yr old RRS SVR with 15k miles. This was highlighted in the MOT history, salesman told me the MOT tester was being overly strict and that they would re-MOT the car if i wasn't happy. Hey presto, no advisories the second time around (1.5 months between MOTs).

You can't really trust any dealer/salesman regardless of size of brand IMO, not until they've earned it.
 
Hey guys, i know you all(most of you) hate my decision making. However, I've had two mechanics & an old colleague who buys and sells SUVs give me their opinions and they're saying it's fine to go ahead with the car. Mechanics have said due to salt spreading on roads and age of car, surface level corrosion is expected on Rav4s. They've said that the coil, shocks and tyre needs to be replaced, which the dealer is doing. They've also said the dealer working on the corrosion and applying underseal is a good sign. They said due to the low mileage of the car, it should last for another at least 5 years or 50k miles if regularly serviced and maintained well. The car has only 67,000 miles on the clock so this makes me think it's not been driven much for it's age and up to 2023 it's got the records of a full dealership service history, from then it's an independent garage service, so that makes me think it has been well taken care of.

Yes I did ask for all your advice and opinions and understand your concerns, so thank you for highlighting. I've searched on autotrader for Rav4s under £6,500 with less than 70,000 miles, and no older than 2008, sold by dealers with FSH and I can't see a better deal than this. I'm not sure where everyone else is looking, but why is this a bad deal? Is it just because of age? I thought Toyota and Lexus' cars are very reliable, especially with low mileage. Is there any other cars of this size I can get which is newer, at the same price? (automatic & petrol).
 
AmateurGuy said:
Hey guys, i know you all(most of you) hate my decision making. However, I've had two mechanics & an old colleague who buys and sells SUVs give me their opinions and they're saying it's fine to go ahead with the car. Mechanics have said due to salt spreading on roads and age of car, surface level corrosion is expected on Rav4s. They've said that the coil, shocks and tyre needs to be replaced, which the dealer is doing. They've also said the dealer working on the corrosion and applying underseal is a good sign. They said due to the low mileage of the car, it should last for another at least 5 years or 50k miles if regularly serviced and maintained well. The car has only 67,000 miles on the clock so this makes me think it's not been driven much for it's age and up to 2023 it's got the records of a full dealership service history, from then it's an independent garage service, so that makes me think it has been well taken care of.

Yes I did ask for all your advice and opinions and understand your concerns, so thank you for highlighting. I've searched on autotrader for Rav4s under £6,500 with less than 70,000 miles, and no older than 2008, sold by dealers with FSH and I can't see a better deal than this. I'm not sure where everyone else is looking, but why is this a bad deal? Is it just because of age? I thought Toyota and Lexus' cars are very reliable, especially with low mileage. Is there any other cars of this size I can get which is newer, at the same price? (automatic & petrol).
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What people are saying is that RAV 4's just represent terrible terrible value, they've got really inflated prices for some reason so you're correct in saying it's probably priced right compared to other rav4's, they're just extremely expensive for an old car.
 
sovietspybob said:
What people are saying is that RAV 4's just represent terrible terrible value, they've got really inflated prices for some reason so you're correct in saying it's probably priced right compared to other rav4's, they're just extremely expensive for an old car.
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Oh I see what you mean. Hmmm.
 
AmateurGuy said:
Yes I did ask for all your advice and opinions and understand your concerns, so thank you for highlighting. I've searched on autotrader for Rav4s under £6,500 with less than 70,000 miles, and no older than 2008, sold by dealers with FSH and I can't see a better deal than this. I'm not sure where everyone else is looking, but why is this a bad deal?
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It's a bad deal because it seems so old for the money. Honda CRV is a comparable car that is similarly priced for the age.

AmateurGuy said:
Is it just because of age? I thought Toyota and Lexus' cars are very reliable, especially with low mileage.
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no one is saying they aren't reliable, but old cars are still old cars - They don't last forever.

Low mileage isn't necessarily the reliability hallmark you think it is either, given that could just mean it gets used a couple of times a week to pop into the city centre not getting up to a decent operating temperature and if it was a manual the clutch would have extra wear through all the stopping/starting (I'd assume an automatic will have some kind of equivalent wear), as opposed to an "easy life" travelling up and down the motorway.

AmateurGuy said:
Is there any other cars of this size I can get which is newer, at the same price? (automatic & petrol).
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You'll struggle as not many big SUV's came with petrol and fewer still in Automatic.

As already mention though, removing the actual 4 Wheel Drive requirement and going a little smaller can move you forward a good few years, which is beneficial in terms of technology but also safety.

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sovietspybob said:
What people are saying is that RAV 4's just represent terrible terrible value, they've got really inflated prices for some reason so you're correct in saying it's probably priced right compared to other rav4's, they're just extremely expensive for an old car.
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Most likely Landcruiser syndrome has filtered down to the smaller Toyota models.
 
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