Buying 2nd hand car from companies it Cazoo, Carshop and etc

Schizophonic

Schizophonic

Schizophonic

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Joined
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Northampton
I've gone to buy my last few cars from manufactures and there is an element if safety net but I need to get a suitable car for my fiancé after she wrote her (was mine) off.

Any advise why not to go with a car shop like Cazoo or Cinch for example? I know prices are slightly higher than buying from private but we need a reliable car and need some sort of safety net if something was go wrong in the first 7 days of getting the car.
Reading some reviews, the handover isn't great and people have complained about the (lack) of valeting but to be honest I'll be doing all of that myself when I get the car.
 
Beans on toast Dave said:
make sure you spend at least £100 on a credit card
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Almost, but not quite.

You will be entitled to Section 75 protection if the purchase price is more than £100 (ie a £100 item is not covered) and less than £30,000.01 and you've paid any amount of that on a credit card, even a single penny. There are some more rules that you need to follow but this doesn't apply in the case of Cinch and Cazoo as long as you don't use PayPal or any other similar intermediary. If the car costs more than £30k, it won't apply.
 
Have a search on YouTube as I've seen a few videos reviewing purchases from the likes of Cazoo, a lot of them not favourable.

Are you buying the car on credit or outright? Cazoo and the like tend to be expensive, particularly on credit, and are you really getting value for money. Is their vehicle check really that good? etc

Better value can be had elsewhere but I guess it depends on how good you are at assessing car condition.
 
DRZ said:
Almost, but not quite.

You will be entitled to Section 75 protection if the purchase price is more than £100 (ie a £100 item is not covered) and less than £30,000.01 and you've paid any amount of that on a credit card, even a single penny. There are some more rules that you need to follow but this doesn't apply in the case of Cinch and Cazoo as long as you don't use PayPal or any other similar intermediary. If the car costs more than £30k, it won't apply.
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The car will be around 10-15k so we can take the advise on putting some of it on credit to give us some extra leverage.

radderfire said:
Have a search on YouTube as I've seen a few videos reviewing purchases from the likes of Cazoo, a lot of them not favourable.

Are you buying the car on credit or outright? Cazoo and the like tend to be expensive, particularly on credit, and are you really getting value for money. Is their vehicle check really that good? etc

Better value can be had elsewhere but I guess it depends on how good you are at assessing car condition.
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We will buy outright so we wont be going down the HP route. I know they have their own criterias in terms of wear and tear but I will go over with a light check what they have mentioned as imperfections and what is not noted. I guess when I drive it away it then tends to be difficult to raise the issues as its left the showroom.
 
Personally I wouldn't buy a car from Cazoo etc, because I'd like to see the car first hand before buying it. I would rather buy from a trustworthy local trader (if any) or a main dealer.

What cars are you considering?
 
On the flip side, Ive heard from smaller dealers they dont want to fix any issues once you drive it off their forecourt. Yes there you have some sort of warranty work covered by them but I think there is a lot of back and forth with the smaller dealerships to get some sort of result. Larger companies there is a system and process in place which we can hopefully rely on and not some individual sole trader.

Yes I was reading their website and I would like to see and test drive a car before handing cash over but apparently they all go through their QA process to note down imperfections, quality checks and etc.

It will be a Golf mark 7 I believe.
 
A lot of these cars are ex-fleet cars (possibly ragged, why wouldn't it be), or cars people want to ditch quickly because it's about to poop out a large bill.
 
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You can have a bad experience anywhere. From what I know Cinch, Cazoo, Big Motoring World, Bravo Auto are all reliable sellers. To suggest that their stock of cars are all ragged ex fleet units is a bit silly. Dealers buy cars from multiple sources. Half of UK car sales are to fleets/business and often those cars are the best looked after. Personally I think it's worth always looking at a used car before you buy. Even if its just to check the boot is big enough, the seats are comfortable the spec is what you need. A lot of course depends on your budget and the age of the car you are buying. Franchise approved used normally come with a decent warranty and many are now being sold with good extended warranties to cover years 3 to 6. Other brands like Kia offer 7 year warranties that are transferrable.
 
Schizophonic said:
On the flip side, Ive heard from smaller dealers they dont want to fix any issues once you drive it off their forecourt. Yes there you have some sort of warranty work covered by them but I think there is a lot of back and forth with the smaller dealerships to get some sort of result. Larger companies there is a system and process in place which we can hopefully rely on and not some individual sole trader.

Yes I was reading their website and I would like to see and test drive a car before handing cash over but apparently they all go through their QA process to note down imperfections, quality checks and etc.

It will be a Golf mark 7 I believe.
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If in doubt, just buy used approved.. VW have 2 years warranty, 2years MOT cover and 2 years roadside assistance thrown in..

The other way is do it manually, find a car with qualifying service history/mileage and get a manufacturers extended warranty if reasonable.. whilst it's still a warranty subject to cop out clauses, they tend to be the least problematic..

Check service histories, MOT histories etc.. Ask for the vehicle VIN ( perfectly legitimate if you want to do any form of 'car check') and then use that to phone a main dealer, say you've just bought the car (they'll need to know this due to GPDR) and want to check the service history.. most are accommodating, and for some brands, you can actually search yourself via the VIN (need to be a bit creative, but it's surprising what you can do online!).

I imagine with Cazoo/Cinch, getting a pre-purchase inspection may be difficult? Because if you want a good second set of eyes, that can be useful for £150.. A lot are MOT or ex-MOT inspectors, so they tend to be fairly good, and will test drive and check everything works, which is often great..
 
I bought a Seat Arona from Cinch a year ago, paid £12k, traded in our old Ford KA against it. The guy (in his fifties) was very friendly and professional, couldnt have been nicer actually. The car was spotless and exactly as I would hope for. He briefly checked over our part ex, we signed a few bits of paper and off he went in our KA.

It was easily the best car buying experience I have ever had and I will use them again in the future.

Cinch's website has very good photos of the cars, they also point out any imperfections and list when it last had a service for all the vehicles.
 
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Nasher said:
A lot of these cars are ex-fleet cars (possibly ragged, why wouldn't it be), or cars people want to ditch quickly because it's about to poop out a large bill.
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Over half the new cars sold in the UK are to fleet or business so the chances are that's what you are getting anyway.

As for being "ragged" what does that really mean? Most people with a company cars aren't doing track days in it or fooling around in a McDonalds car park. The closest my company car gets to being ragged is being accelerated flat out off every roundabout on the A11 which only damages the fuel economy, not the car.
 
lordrobs said:
Over half the new cars sold in the UK are to fleet or business so the chances are that's what you are getting anyway.

As for being "ragged" what does that really mean? Most people with a company cars aren't doing track days in it or fooling around in a McDonalds car park. The closest my company car gets to being ragged is being accelerated flat out off every roundabout on the A11 which only damages the fuel economy, not the car.
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That is also going to put more wear on the car. Especially launching it from a standstill.

When you look up the MOT history you often find things like worn bushes.
 
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I've bought a car from Cazoo and a car from Cinch.

Admittedly you can't view the cars properly before buying them but they come with a 7 day no quibble return period. So you basically get a week to test drive them. Both the cars I've bought have been spot on and I wouldn't hesitate to buy from them again.
 
Nasher said:
That is also going to put more wear on the car. Especially launching it from a standstill.

When you look up the MOT history you often find things like worn bushes.
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Accelerate off the roundabout, not onto it. I do exactly the same in my own car anyway and I've never had to have bushes replaced on any of my cars.

TBH the two main differences between my company car and one I own are that it goes through a car wash when I can't be bothered to wash it and I don't worry as much where I park it.

I'd honestly have an ex hire car over a low mileage 3 miles a day school run motor in most cases. Ex taxi or cop car would be pushing it too far though :p

Our company cars tend to be used so next time I'm given a budget to source a car I'm tempted to do it from the comfort of my office chair rather than deal with the slippery salesmen pushing their "approved used" motors fresh from the auction. It's literally the same stock.
 
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