Cheap Used Cars For Sale

Q.I have been helping a relative buy a newer car. Currently she has a M-reg 3dr Metro Casino 1100 with 43k miles. (not the most exciting car in the world, but its pretty reasonable). She wants a Clio. So we went a generic car dealer in north London who had a Clio 1.4 RT 3door S reg with 64k miles on the clock. The Clio was fine. Ok, so here is the problem. The sicker price was ?250, which is blatently too high. I checked the parkers guide, including mileage adjustment came out to ?315 "dealer retail". The parkers guide suggested that the trade-in value of the Metro is ?90. So with this in mind, the cost to switch should be ?025, according to Parkers. When I offered this to the dealer he just said "no way", and I tried to explain about parkers valuation, and I was met with "parkers is just crap, they don't know what they are talking about". Instead, he offered switching for ?000, and I couldn't get him to budge. He said that the Metro was basically of no value, and that he would give us ?50 against the Clio as a discount gesture. (he didn't even bother to inspect the Metro or look at the paper work, so this could well be true). In fact he asked us where we had "pushed" it from. The cheek! God how I hate car dealers. You always feel like you are being completely ripped off, but he kept insisting the Clio was worth the full sticker price, claiming it had only been there two weeks and someone would take it without problem, and that it would cost ?800 to replace it. So what can I do? Every time I deal with car dealers I feel like I am hitting a brick wall, I can negociate on other things fine.

A.If the Metro is only worth a few hundred it's probably best to hang on to it and sell it privately, as there won't be the problem with "bridging finance" that there can be if a trade-in is worth thousands. There's a strong demand for small, cheap-to-run cars and if it's in good nick you might well get more than ?90 for it. Going into used car dealers without a trade-in puts you in a stronger position.

Used car prices?

I know that the used car guides have a 6 level pricing scheme where a low mileage car that's been stored will be a 6 and a bearly running (or not running) parts car is a 1. So how does one tell the differences between these catagories? What's ...

Best Used Cars

From the Maximas I've seen on the road, I believe the 89 thru 94's make the best used cars on Earth. Is there any reason why I could be wrong? I need a good cruiser with lots of appointments, great looks, good performance, reliable mechanicals ...

Used Auto Parts Houston

My 1991 Mercry Cougar has forever been missing a nut & bolt on the driver's rear side that ties the shock absorber to the wheel assembly. This gives me only three active shock absorbers. The car bounces a bit more than it should, but never enoug...

Blue Book Value Used Cars

My husband's father bought my husband a car in '87. When we got married in '88 we took over the payments, and paid the car off in '91. The car's title is still in my father-in-law's name. We'd like to transfer the car to my husband's name, but ...

Buy Used Auto Parts

I have finished touching up and patching my Black Rose cabinet and need to clear coat it to smooth out the gloss and finish. Clay used a 3M Medium cut then a 3M fine cut polish after eurythane on TOP7. Don't want to wait for it to ship to me ...