Almost a wasted day!

Well were at last sure that were looking to buy a C3 Picasso Exclusive, we've had a spin in a regular model and we've decided that the extras like an armrest are well worth having. So today we went to look at a 1 owner low milage 2014 model, the dealer said it was in excellent condition,,,,,so we were very disappointed to find that one front wing looked like it had been repainted with an aerosol and the flat rubber strips down either side of the windscreen were cracked and so brittle that bits of rubber flicked off when touched, the rubber was not glued on at all at the top,,,is there supposed to be some sort of coverstrip over those rubbers and is severe premature perishing an issue? We were able to give it a run and it was a lovely car but quite what had happened to it to end up like this I cannot guess. An annoyance because the salesperson casually said when I asked about the wing that another customer had noticed it too!! So a day and round trip of 100 miles wasted. I will be asking a good number of “daft” questions before traveling any distance again thats for sure.

You have my sympathy! Buying a used car these days is fraught with danger.

My own experience of buying a 2015 C3 Pic with the Puretech 110 engine is posted on another page. I would not touch a car now with an internal cambelt and I mean any make.

Considering that, I've been forced, against my better judgement, to buy a diesel. To dispense with as many fancy foibles as possible, like 'Ad-Blue', I've bought a 2010 HDi90 'Exclusive' with 75000 on the clock. The independent dealer has been good so far. When I decided to buy he said he was waiting for a power steering motor/module which he duly fitted. He then had the car back a week later and fitted a cambelt, lower suspension arm and gave it 12 months mot. He also replaced the toolkit which was missing. The bonus is I live a mile away from the garage. At £2.5k I think I had value for money.

Referring to your paintwork mentioned above, I came across a FB page called 'Dodgy Cars'. Looking at some of the input on there it seems that salvage cars are being sold at auction and being part repaired and then resold at auction. Unsuspecting buyers are then getting cars which look like they have been lightly damaged, needing say, a bumper, headlight etc, completing the job and then selling the cars with clear title not knowing the real history. There are photos of these cars on main dealer forecourts selling as HPI clear.

I'm glad I now have only £2.5k invested in a car. It would still hurt but I can stand a hit on that.

Hello Paul and apologies for the tardiness of my late reply. The interesting thing for us is that it now seems almost impossible to buy a car privately, they are just not available, its going to a dealer or nothing. The upside is that there is a warranty of some sort though how much help you would get at the level of car were looking at buying, I don't know,,I suppose its something,,we wonder if its the same as a fear of answering their mobile phone to a number they don't recognise, advertise a car and all sorts of strange people will be ringing,,,and worse calling round your house,,,safer and easier to contact “we buy any car” perhaps? but in weeks of looking we have only seen one that said it was a private advt.
Anyway, were looking at a 2013 (mk11) exclusive with almost 100.000 miles, recent new cambelt and despite the milage looks good at £3.500.
Just as a BTW when new cambelts are fitted, is it also necessary to change the waterpump and tensioner on the diesel engined cars?
Steve.

Steve
Likewise I pop in now and then.

From my experience, mileage wise it is probably higher than average but the price is adjusted to match. Only thing I would say is being a 2013 does it have the modern foibles like AdBlue and do you want them? At 100k miles it would offer some peace of mind if it had a good service history.

As regards the water pump I don't think it's an expensive job on these engines so......if I was paying I would probably have it done at the same time but otherwise get it checked on the services to make sure it's ok or else if it goes it can throw the belt off.

Good Luck