Vx-Man-G
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2017
- Messages
- 414
- Reaction score
- 70
- Your Mercedes
- C-Class CDI
Please read this post and then scroll to the bottom for pictures...
You may already know this, but just wanted to point out a fantastic site I discovered which saved me a lot of pain and issues further down the line.
Basically, I was looking for a new car for my dad and saw a few but something just didnt hit the spot with the seller(s). To be honest, we were getting a bit desperate to find Dad a replacement car as the C-Class at the time decided to drop its pants and goosed its Oil Cooler, Starter Motor and Water Pump all at the same time. Ironically when it was fixed, it drove better than it ever has, but thats end of an era as its been fixed and since sold.
Anyway, this site, vcheck, found me the info I needed on the potential car(s) we were looking at: https://www.vcheck.uk.
It shows all the history and if the car has ever been in a Salvage Auction, with pictures of when it was advertised so you get to see all the damage at the time of salvage auction sale.
Now, I'm not adverse to buying a Cat-N (D) or Cat-S (C) vehicle, but as long as I know what was wrong with them prior.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The one I nealy bought for Dad was a Vauxhall Mokka, 2019/68-reg, 1.4T Auto. It was advertised on FaceAche but was local. I knew it was a Cat-S, but the seller claimed it was just drivers side wing, light, bumper and bonnet, no airbag damage and no suspension damage, and to be fair I have seen cars written off to a Cat-S category with much lesser damage so quite feasible its true. If I'm honest, the slightly (and only very slightly) poor paint job was only really affected on the driver wing and bonnet so seemed consistent with his description.
There were a few things I werent happy about, it had far too many owners and no service history, I was going to do my service history checks anyway with Vauxhall, etc, before I commited to a purchase.
Anyway, this car was a ghost, no Vauxhall garage had ever seen it in 5 years, and apparently it was straight from a Vauxhall factory to end customer (whoever that was) and then never seen for a service or recall, National, Halfords, nor KF, so tracing the service records was impossible, if at all it had any.
I did however take down the garage details off the back reg plate and contacted them, they wrote back to me to confirm my fears.
Long story short, the car had been clocked.
When it was sold at salvage auction on 10/08/2021 the miles were 41143, and when it was MOT'd 13/01/2022 the miles were 21809, and was now being sold with around 25k on it. The garage I contacted did a service on it and sold it in March 2021 with 38k on the clock.
Remember earlier I mentioned what the seller claimed was the damage?
Well this is what WAS actually wrong with it!! I assure you, its worth the wait...........
.
You may already know this, but just wanted to point out a fantastic site I discovered which saved me a lot of pain and issues further down the line.
Basically, I was looking for a new car for my dad and saw a few but something just didnt hit the spot with the seller(s). To be honest, we were getting a bit desperate to find Dad a replacement car as the C-Class at the time decided to drop its pants and goosed its Oil Cooler, Starter Motor and Water Pump all at the same time. Ironically when it was fixed, it drove better than it ever has, but thats end of an era as its been fixed and since sold.
Anyway, this site, vcheck, found me the info I needed on the potential car(s) we were looking at: https://www.vcheck.uk.
It shows all the history and if the car has ever been in a Salvage Auction, with pictures of when it was advertised so you get to see all the damage at the time of salvage auction sale.
Now, I'm not adverse to buying a Cat-N (D) or Cat-S (C) vehicle, but as long as I know what was wrong with them prior.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The one I nealy bought for Dad was a Vauxhall Mokka, 2019/68-reg, 1.4T Auto. It was advertised on FaceAche but was local. I knew it was a Cat-S, but the seller claimed it was just drivers side wing, light, bumper and bonnet, no airbag damage and no suspension damage, and to be fair I have seen cars written off to a Cat-S category with much lesser damage so quite feasible its true. If I'm honest, the slightly (and only very slightly) poor paint job was only really affected on the driver wing and bonnet so seemed consistent with his description.
There were a few things I werent happy about, it had far too many owners and no service history, I was going to do my service history checks anyway with Vauxhall, etc, before I commited to a purchase.
Anyway, this car was a ghost, no Vauxhall garage had ever seen it in 5 years, and apparently it was straight from a Vauxhall factory to end customer (whoever that was) and then never seen for a service or recall, National, Halfords, nor KF, so tracing the service records was impossible, if at all it had any.
I did however take down the garage details off the back reg plate and contacted them, they wrote back to me to confirm my fears.
Long story short, the car had been clocked.
When it was sold at salvage auction on 10/08/2021 the miles were 41143, and when it was MOT'd 13/01/2022 the miles were 21809, and was now being sold with around 25k on it. The garage I contacted did a service on it and sold it in March 2021 with 38k on the clock.
Remember earlier I mentioned what the seller claimed was the damage?
Well this is what WAS actually wrong with it!! I assure you, its worth the wait...........
.
) then it's pretty much all profit...
