Tag Archives: new car

Ladies – beware of lemons at car auctions

A survey that’s unlikely to encourage many foxy lady drivers to take a financial risk at car auctions confirms that close on a third of buyers regretted buying an unreliable car.

And wouldn’t have if they’d known this of course.

Unreliability and breakdowns soon after purchase are the biggest regrets mentioned in a recent survey by Manheim Auctions.

Nearly a third of all respondents mentioned that their biggest regret was buying an unreliable car and 24% claimed their car broke down soon after they bought it. Nearly 15% of motorists regretted buying a car because they found it to be too expensive to run while 11% admitted that they paid too much for their car.

Only 3% of motorists did not like the colour of the car they had bought ‘proving that colour choice is a key buying decision factor’ [sic]. I’d have thought the opposite; that colour wouldn’t matter to those who were buying for price reasons. And unsurprising for the same reasons and to be expected in a recession, only 2% were concerned that the car they bought was not as environmentally friendly as they had thought at the time. Even though this would cost them more in running costs…

Andy Cullwick at Manheim Auctions explains
“Research is key to buying any car, as is buying from a reputable source whether it is an auction, car supermarket or dealer.  The internet is great for information gathering and for researching running costs including insurance, fuel consumption as well as service and repair costs. Don’t necessarily avoid high mileage cars; these tend to be ex fleet cars that have been well maintained and regularly serviced and may still have the remainder the original warranty in place.”

I’m not an expert of course but I seem to remember that it’s largely a male dominated and ‘caveat emptor’ environment where this sort of dissonance can be expected. Perhaps Manheim bucks the trend here by providing more support services for customers than others at their physical and online auctions?

But for the very reason this survey spells out, I’d steer clear of live auctions unless you know what you’re doing. Avoid ‘sold as seen’ cars unless you’re prepared to take a big risk and where in doubt ask for an Engineer’s report (for a fee) if you want a second opinion about the mechanical state of the car in question.

Prior to the bidding process, it also makes sense to check out the car’s value online, its performance in the reliability index, its safety performance at NCAP, the car’s servicing record, VED and insurance ratings before taking the plunge. Because you have little comeback in law if you buy a lemon as the following statistics confirm.

Regrets some 3000 motorists had after buying a car at an auction.
It wasn’t very reliable      30.3%
It broke down soon after I bought it     24.3%
It was expensive to run       14.8%
I paid too much for it     10.7%
I didn’t like the colour        3.3%
It wasn’t as ‘green’ as I thought     2.3%

FOXY

Members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club can count on a handholding and advisory service when they come to buy a new or used car. Heaven forbid they end up with a lemon but if they do we help them sort it out and, if all routes are then exhausted, we can at least tell other ladies inside the Club about their experiences so they don’t have the same problem.

Women car buyers get a better deal

I am not surprised that the nice people at  Parker’s are finding that most car buyers know they can negotiate a better deal outside the new car scrappage scheme than from within its confines.  We’ve known for ages that women drivers can get much better new car deals when they know what prices to aim for.

I think this is because the industry has talked up an industry rescue package, imagining that what has worked in Germany will work here, but without doing sufficient elementary customer research to find out who is buying and what they need or want.

Isn’t that a bit patronising, to imagine that they know better than us?

Yes it sounds exciting for showroom staff in new car dealerships with few sales to celebrate for the moment. It’s also human nature for ambitious perpetrators to want to see their names in lights in trade and business news pages but this scheme wasn’t road tested on motorists first and we aren’t daft, whatever they might think!

My anecdotal evidence for this is based on a Homer Simpson-like conclusion of some simplicity –  anyone trading in an old car worth iro £2k in a recession is much more likely to be a used car not a new car or even a nearly new car buyer.

If members of  FOXY Lady Drivers Club can read the Which? car Spring 09 magazine and know to look for the likes of 28% off a new Ford Focus, for example, pre any trade in, why would they be bothered with the scrappage scheme – this promotion isn’t talking to them.

Just imagine the amount of wasted time taken by all the top industry jollies talking this one up, plus trade publication editors and our politicians.

No point sitting on the fence any longer – this hasn’t been looked at from the motorists point of view.

However I fear that some trusting female motorists might settle for a lesser deal in their local car dealerships than they could have negotiated if they had known better.

I can almost hear the salesman telling the woman driver…. ‘I know you aren’t eligible but we will discount the trade-in deal to the tune of £2k and match the scappage deal’ when there is a better discount to be had.

Unless she picks a female friendly new car dealership that has signed the FOXY Promise, chances are she’ll be none the wiser about whether she got a good enough deal or that foxy ladies like her knew how to do better.

FOXY