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compoundgrowth · 2 years
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Buying a Car in 2021
What should be a simple "coming of age" experience, seems to have gotten worse and worse over the years (in the UK). Those who are starting jobs and need a car in the coming months will have a few routes to go down. Buy new... said nobody ever, unless you come from a family where that type of money is readily available. Even then I don't think this should ever be an option, it's almost guaranteed you're going to bump a wall or take out a drain-pipe (or two) when parking. Doing this with an older car is fine, but with a new car? Probably not. The second route is leasing, not only do you have all the issues of a new car, you don't even get to keep the thing after your term (in some cases you can purchase the vehicle). Leases are ridiculously expensive; £150-£170 per month is on the low end of things, with an initial rental fee of £1,600+, any damage to the vehicle you'll be charged for massively. At least if you scrape your brand new car you can choose to ignore it or fix it yourself, with a lease car, not an option. So that leaves one final avenue, buying on the used market.
I've been using sites like AutoTrader to try and find local deals, but at the moment, the asking prices are extremely high! Not only that but the "warranties" on these are just ridiculous. A one month warranty on a something that costs £2,000+ is just astonishingly terrible, in most cases this won't even cover the entire car, just the engine and transmission. It feels like dealers are just trying to make a quick buck, see if they can sell off something they know is destined for the scrap or auction. So what can you do? If you are in the market for purchasing a second-hand car, I highly recommend carcheck.co.uk. It tells you the MOT history of vehicles and can sometime be telling if the vehicle has passed a "questionable" MOT. Take this 2004 Jaguar X-type (not a typical second-hand car, but many other 04 plates are this price; fords, golfs, etc...) for example:
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The price isn't extortionate, however when we use carcheck.co.uk to check the MOT history, we see some not-so inspiring information. To name a few; "Offside Rear Outer Suspension component mounting prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength Sill (5.3.6 (a) (i))". The car was sold five days after this MOT, in which there's no possible chance the list of red which contains many significant failures was fixed, and they have the audacity to provide a one-month warranty.
So what can we learn from this? The second hand car market in its current state is difficult for buyers of any kind, with one month warranties on cars that should probably be sold for scrap or go to auction for a much lower price. Websites like carcheck.co.uk help prevent against making a mistake such as the now-owner of this vehicle, whom will be very upset once that one-month warranty window is over. Make sure you get your car-to-be inspected before purchasing, whether that's by a family friend who knows a thing or two, or a garage. Best of luck to everyone trying to purchase a car in this market, hopefully there was some useful information in this alongside my ranting that helps you in your purchasing decisions.
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