Racism when buying cars?

jamoor · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:11

great advice said:
I wouldnt buy a car from an Asian, simply because i dont like Mercedes.

Code:

LOL, thats soo true, you see so many of them driving E class ones, imo its ruined the image and I would never own one, the only one I could just about bring myself to buy is the new S-class because it has so much cool stuff, but all that really says is

I own a chain of corner shops

cleanbluesky · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:44

I don't think asians abuse their cars, but in general I wouldn't trust many of them with anything.

In general.

I most likely wouldn't trust a pakistani but would be much more likely to trust an indian, most of the indians I meet have been very nice. Having said that, my judge of body language is better than my race-sense so race probably wouldn't enter into it much.

Mackass · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:50

My parents give their cars a service every year, and both their cars have full service history's - even though they don't know much about cars.

v0n · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:54

[ASSE]Hinchy said:
Japs > British > *

For me.

Japanese people I've known always seem to look after their cars better than anyone else.

As a guy who bought and sold fair share of imported cars at some point in my life as a side job I can tell you - yes - they are well looked after and serviced, but man, japanese sellers are dodgy like you would not believe. My estimation is that perhaps 1/3 of imported cars in UK have true mileages. It's a great legend that japanese never do more than 100,000km in their cars and never do more than 10,000km a year. Trust me, they have rep mobiles just like any other coutry. And they too have their equivalent to Avis or Hertz fleets. And just like in any other country no one wants them after.
I've seen cars shipped from jap auctions with documentation showing up to 200,000km in service history in precise 10k intervals and speedos would read just above 50,000. Hell - I actually have a car right now where I can scan and show you history docs where last service including cam belt change before sale is at 88,000km, and few weeks later shipping documents and pictures show 61,000k on the clock. If it will fetch few hundred yen more you can be sure they will do what it takes.
Back in 2003 a guy from work wanted a Galant. I knew dude who just shipped batch of cars including very well specced Galant from Japan. We picked the car practically straight from the ship, still unregistered, still on the truck, white booklet full of papers under front seat, service history, even original custom spec list, speedo shows 55,000 km, last of the attached shakken sheets suggest more like 155,000. What's even weirder - the spec list states black leather interior, we are obviously looking at creme leather. Checked all the numbers, all adds up - except the trims and seats were clearly from newer, perhaps salvaged car. A lot of efford put into turning high mileage car into good sell. Strange they didn't loose papers. Perhaps history docs were warrant of fetching even higher price at auction.
Bottom line is - in my experience - parralel imports are usually of outstanding trim and cosmetic state, but beware, because there is far more really, really dodgy stuff shipped our way than true low mileage cars.
And I think most of them are still going strong only because they were indeed services regularly in their previous habitat, but many of them are way past their "best before" date before they will make it to your local autrotrader.

Toryglen-boy · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:59

rG-tom said:
read the thread, the general concensus is chinese / japenese look after their cars even better than english

Tom.

thats English as in UK right?

and dont you get "English" people of ethnic and asian origin?

gc123 · 17 Mar 2006 at 22:03

interestingly i get it from the other side. i have a business friend, who is indian, and he has given me his last three cars to sell. ok we service them, but his coment is white people wont buy off indians, and judging from the comments in this thread he is correct....the funny thing is he is a fanatic with his vehicles. If i say it needs something done he will spend the money no problem. :eek:

Vertigo · 17 Mar 2006 at 22:12

volospian said:
Yep. I drove about 30 miles specifically to see the car. It was the top of my list. I ended up buying a Jag in the end.

Because of the attitude of the dealer?

s0ck · 17 Mar 2006 at 22:25

cleanbluesky said:
I most likely wouldn't trust a pakistani but would be much more likely to trust an indian, most of the indians I meet have been very nice. Having said that, my judge of body language is better than my race-sense so race probably wouldn't enter into it much.

I always get the feeling the Indian people I have dealt with try, hard, to be as honest as possible. This is conveyed in their body language and their tone of voice. This is besides the point as Indian != Asian but I felt I needed to say it.

I can't say the thought has ever entered my head though.
In one glance you can usually tell if something is amiss, regardless of race.

Morba · 17 Mar 2006 at 22:34

Jez said:
I really wouldnt care about the owner with regards to the car as long as it all checked out and it looked in good condition.

Where i would have a problem is actually dealing with an asian in a typically rough asian type estate, wouldnt feel comfy taking lots of cash to their house etc without some friends to back me up.

Wrong - maybe, but i wouldnt feel comfy. Then again the same would apply to any rough estate so it has little bearing on the race.

thats one of the things that put me off a 200sx i test drove in east london. drove thro some areas that were clearly lacking in white people where i was getting some very dodgy looks from people, including the spanner monkeys in the garage!

rG-tom · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:07

Toryglen-boy said:
thats English as in UK right?

and dont you get "English" people of ethnic and asian origin?

By English, I mean people of English descent, "White British" as it is classified on job applications

Tom.

Toryglen-boy · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:13

rG-tom said:
By English, I mean people of English descent, "White British" as it is classified on job applications

Tom.

your making the same mistake twice ....

white brittish and people of English descent can be two totally different things ...

great advice · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:15

I agree, not sure what kindof job your applying for but White British and English are very seperate.

Phantom · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:42

i wont discriminate the buyer unless they smoke.

if youre worried abobut servicing check the service-log book
look at the owners house and general appearance as to whether theyre a careful owner.
take the car for a tests drive and you''ll be able to tell if its been ragged round

its not as though you have to marry or spend the rest of your life with the owner or see them ever again once you ake the purchase... i dodnt see the problem to be honest

volospian · 18 Mar 2006 at 08:31

Vertigo1 said:
Because of the attitude of the dealer?

Not specifically. I wanted something of that size and power. I had looked around and had narrowed it down to a BMW or a Jag. There were two jags one BMW within reasonable travelling time, that fitted the bill as far as specification, mileage, price and so on. This dealer wouldn't even let me test drive the BMW, so I went and test drove both of the Jags and chose one of them.

Had there been another 535 of the same age, mileage, spec and price in a reasonable distance with another dealer I would have looked at it, but there wasn't and I'm not in the habit of pleading with salesmen to sell me something. If I wasn't good enough to test drive his car, he can sell it to someone else. Shame there wasn't a similar car elsewhere at the time though.

Scania · 18 Mar 2006 at 10:43

My cars as Black as the Ace of Spades, & I love it.

Me no motor racist.

lordrobs · 18 Mar 2006 at 10:56

jamoor said:
Thing is they dont really care about the cars as they have much more important things to think about,

As opposed to us white people who can just sit around thinking about when we will next get our car serviced :confused:

panthro · 18 Mar 2006 at 11:05

Being indian myself, I dont think I would buy a car from an indian/pakistani/bangladeshi because they are known for not looking after their cars. Having said that, both my parents have lived in england since they were 8 years old and have nice cars (never owned nissian blubirds or sunny's lol), and they are looked after meticulously.

shimy182 · 18 Mar 2006 at 11:19

i know by a fact that all japanese people treat anything like god. unless there sports in to sports cars then they will raz there cars like anything.

i dont know about other asian people though.

Sirrel Squirrel · 18 Mar 2006 at 11:39

volospian said:
I've been discriminated against by a dealer for not being "posh" enough.

I wanted to test drive a BMW 535. I turned up in my Saab and when I said "any chance of a test drive?" he said "Is that your car?" nodding towards my Saab. I said that it was and he said "No, I don't think it's worth you going for a drive in the BMW, sorry" and went back into his little office.

Scum bag!

When my dad was looking for a new car I went with him and as we'd both been at work we were wearing greasy overalls and the Merc deaer didn't even acknowledge us, so we bought a BMW instead lol.

triggerthat · 18 Mar 2006 at 14:01

I'd never buy a car from a typical rude boy. Saying that, you always get people who are dodgy from any race.

If the car's owner looks genuine, then I'd consider. My dad is a mecanic, and he can sense any BS'er from amile away, and recently I can too. Its always wise to take your time when buying a car and make sure you do a the necessary research.