Secondhand cars and Argus prices

[Hells Bells]

We're currently searching for a secondhand car to replace our 15 year old UK registered VW. Our budget is around  Euro 5,000 tops but we've found in garages (main dealers and independent) and in the small ads that cars are always advertised at around double (at least) the Argus price. Anyone had any experience of getting prices down to the Argus price?

Any other tips down the cheaper end of the market?

Thanks

Hells Bells

[Bones]

What's Argus?

2nd hand prices are paradoxicaly expensive in France.

If you are going to spend around 5k try following Eb*y under the automotive category and search under both LHD and left hand drive. Use your nouse and you will get a cheaper deal in the UK!

Or perhaps the trick is to take the (private sales) advertised price as a bartering point?

There is one guy on Eb*y who sources quality used vehicles in Belgium and takes care of all the re registration stuff cheap. He's selling a Mitsubishi Shogun at the moment and if you click on it he has full details of his buying and selling policy therein. I assume motors are cheaper in Belgium or he'd work out of France!! What about Spain?

[Clair]

2nd hand cars appear expensive in France because the "company car" use is not as widespread here as in the UK, therefore the market is not as saturated with cheap cars as in the UK.

After I tried ice-skating with my Smart (and failed!) last Nov, I had to replace it and was shocked to see that a Twingo was more expensive than the car I finally bought: Opel Corsa 2001, 1.7 DTI, 55000 km, 1 year garantee parts & labour, new front tyres and brake pads fitted by the VW dealer who had taken it in as a part-X... He also paid for the re-registration cost.

I did have to pay slightly more than €5K for it, but the peace of mind it brings me is priceless.

[Richard-R]

Crazy second hand car market here. It often works out cheaper to buy new if you are looking for a 2-3 year old car to buy. Even classic car cost a bomb, i saw a late 70's mini in poor condition going for around 1200 euros the other day. Oh and alot of used cars here have VERY high mileage on them, even after only a couple of years.

[Hells Bells]

Thanks for all that. Can only agree that prices are crazy!

Argus is like Parkers in the UK, basically a kind of 'official' 2ndhand price guide. We've seen on small ads several times cars advertised at 'Argus + 2000 Euros'. Which may make sense to the seller but not to us...of course we'd like to give you 2,000 Euros more than this guide says it's worth.

We had thought of UK and Belgium but as we live in the Pyrenees we'd have to be pretty certain we'd found the perfect car before making the journey, and at our budget (given that 5,000 is tops) I'm not sure the cost of a trip to the UK/Belgium is worth it. Spain is obviously an option but the prices we've found on the web would seem to be about the same as France. And then we'd have to pay for certificate of conformity etc. etc.

Guess we just go and get some dealers to laugh at us when we try them with offers of half what they're asking.

Thanks again

[Richardbk]

The argus price is more official than you might think. If you need to pay TAX on a second hand card, e.g in the case of registering a previously diplomatic plated car, you basically pay the tax on the quoted argus price for that week.

When trading in a car the dealer will base the value of your car at  the Argus price  less ~ 10-15%. In fact when a dealer gets an argus price quote  they get a different quoted price than a private individual. At the end of the day there is still a market although there are few that will go much below the argus price.

Remember also that of when buying a car  privately you also have an automatic guarantee of at least 3 months and longer up to 6-9 months depending if the problem can be traced to a vice cache when the car was sold. In these cases a system of court appointed experts is used to asses the problem.  However, in order to easily follow this through you should ensure that you have a legal protection insurance (a few tens of suros) that specifically includes buying/selling cars. Not all policies have this as default.

BTW Is not just cars that have high 2nd prices. 3 year old previous technology electrical/electronic goods can be as much as 60% of the original price. Similarly most other second hand good. - just look at some of the prices at the local village brocante.

regs

Richard