AA Auto Check -

[Crispy Squirrel 0]

Anyone ever used AA's service to check a used car before purchase ? I thinks its quite expensive but am tempted to save a 5 hour train journey

[MattPc 0]

You can try car text check for £4, this gives you the cars make, model, year, colour, any outstanding finace, number of previuos owners and if it has been stolen or recoverd.

 

Matt

[dragon green 5]

I did, they were very thorough, even measured the paint thickness on all the panels.

I did end up buying the car, and don't regret using them !

[krishen 2]

Anyone ever used AA's service to check a used car before purchase ? I thinks its quite expensive but am tempted to save a 5 hour train journey

 

There used to be a section on here where you could ask forum members who live near the said car to go and have a look for you. Saves you time and wasted journey.

In hindsight i wish id taken advantage of this and had someone who knows corrados come along with me.

[tony_ack 0]

I would imagine that the AA check would *have* to be very thorough as they don't want you coming back and putting in a claim if they missed something.

 

---------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

 

EDIT - it only covers cars up to 15 years old, so no good on Corrados!

[dragon green 5]

Mine was done eleven years ago !

On my Corrado

[Crispy Squirrel 0]

Anyone live near cornwall then lol ??

[Portent 0]

Personally I wouldn't use an AA inspection to view a Corrado unless I'd already seen it myself. I have little mechanical experience and before buying mine in May I hadn't bought a car privately since the 90's. I'll explain more...

 

As some on here will recall it took me about a year to buy a car. Most of that was down to me expecting too much of a 15 to 20 year old car but some of it was due to being messed around by sellers. I quite often turned up to a "mint" car with "absolutely no rust" and "full service history" to find it tatty, rusted to high heaven, leaking oil everywhere and with a 20k history gap. It was rare to find the V5 in the sellers name too. It seemed that almost everyone allegedly sells a car on behalf of their friend or it's registered at their mums address 200 miles away (one man dealers *cough* - you know who you are!). Come on, I wasn't born yesterday ;)

 

If I'd have used the AA for every car I wanted to see then I'd have spent all my car money on inspections.

 

Also any buyer should appreciate they are buying an old car. Unless you're paying top price it will almost certainly have faults of some description. A few will be "perfect" but most will have something that needs to be done to it. In all likelihood the AA report will have a list of issues which will scare you off, even if it;s one of the best cars out there. So I'd rather meet the seller and get a good feel for them and how they talk about their car. An AA report will simply highlight a lot of things that will worry you.

 

I'm not saying don't get the car checked out at all. I would certainly recommend taking someone with you who knows about cars even if they don't know Corrado's. You can also do a lot of homework long distance by carefully reading the ad and getting a feel for the words the seller uses (the ad itself is hugely telling in my view), talking to the seller on the phone (do they seem to care for the car and sound enthusiastic about it). Youshould also be able to lookup the service history with VW or talk directly to the garage that services the car (I did this - in fact I went to the garage itself and could judge whether I trusted the mechanics).

 

An AA inspection will probably be better than all of the above but I would personally recommend that if you do want to pay for one then you should do it on a car you have already seen. Otherwise you might end up paying for a lot of inspections. I'd use them in a heartbeat for a 4 year old car. But on an old "modern classic" I'm not so sure.

 

The best thing you can do is view as many cars as possible yourself. I probably viewed 2 or 3 cars which were better than the one I bought and should have got them. But I also viewed a lot of dogs too. Not being mechanically minded and previously just buying cars from dealers I had no real way of judging what a good Corrado should feel like. But after a few viewings I gradually got a feel for it and I think that, while I'm still no mechanic, I know what a good and bad one is like.

 

Come on people - anyone in Cornwall willing to help out?

 

If I was near there I'd be happy to view it first but sadly I'm in Surrey (If you happened to be near me and wanted to collect me en-route I'd happily accompany you for some moral support and a second opinion. I'm no mechanic though).

 

EDIT: So my recommendation is: see the car, take a friend if possible, letg a forum member view in advance if possible, then get an AA inspection if you feel the need.

 

EDIT2: P.S. Sorry for so many typo's... just a touch drunk right now

 

EDIT3: I highly recommend buying a 'known' car from someone on this forum too. In fact when buying mine, my preference was for a car sold on this forum, then Pistonheads, then Autotrader and ebay as an absolute last resort that would probably never happen.

 

EDIT4: Wow, did I really type all that while drunk?

Edited July 24, 2011 by Portent

[ANDREW 30 0]

Anyone live near cornwall then lol ??

Yep i'm in Penzance in Cornwall, where abouts is the car tho as it's quite a big county!

[Walesy 0]

Yeah I'm on the north coast near Newquay, where's the car mate?