Auction Houses and Checks

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Wed 14 Apr 2004 18:09
Auction Houses and Checks - Quinny100
I have been having a discussion with a colleague this afternoon about buying cars at auction as he's after a little runaround for his Mrs.

What checks do auction houses do on cars that they're selling, and what are they obliged to announce to the customer at the point of sale?

My understanding was that all cars were data checked and anything dodgy was announced - eg. if its on VCAR or its had a plate or colour change and things of a similar nature. Am I right?

I'm trying to convince my friend he'd be better buying from auction than the local "Arthur Daley" type dealer, but he's got it into his head he's going to end up with something thats been written off or is a cut and shut or other equally ridiculous scenarios.
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Wed 14 Apr 2004 19:04
Auction Houses and Checks - Honestjohn
Ask for the auction house terms and conditions and read them very carefully. Often the limited warranty is self-financed by the auction house. Listen very carefully to the auctioneers tape-recorded description of the car. That is the basis on which it is sold. Not the sticker in the window and not the description in the catalogue. If the car is sold "without warranty", that's what it means. Because records are now properly computerised it is highly unlikely that a car previously sold though the auction house would come up again with a lower "warranted" mileage.

HJ
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Fri 16 Apr 2004 20:46
Auction Houses and Checks - Solunauk
I would recommend that you be particularly wary if the mileage is "Not warranted". We recently got interested in a car that was coming up for auction at one of the large places hereabouts. We did a full HPI check on it before the auction and discovered that the supposedly warranted mileage was way out according to the National Mileage Register. NMR had a reading of 140,000 from year 2000 and it was being sold this year at a claimed mileage of 57,000. We reported this fact to the auction house and their reaction was "We'll tell the vendor and they'll probably just change the mileage description to Not Warranted." We didn't bother going to the auction to see what actually happened. Anyway, for "Not Warranted" read "probably clocked".

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