Everyone knows that selling your car privately will probably give you more money than selling it to a trader. And everyone knows that buying private you’ll be paying less than a trader. But buying and selling privately means the risk is all on the buyer. Now you will be able to see what a car’s health status is, warts and all, and go into a purchase completely eyes wide open.

Welcome to Bamford Rose and another question of the week. This week, I’ve taken the question off our YouTube channel comments section. The question is, do you think a pre-purchase inspection is necessary when buying from reputable sellers or are you paying premium prices for well sorted cars which come with a 12 months warranty? Well, thank you for that question. For many videos now you would have heard me say that the best place to buy your Aston is from a franchise dealer. I say this because the cost of the cars from franchise dealer isn’t that greater than the cost of some independent resellers and the cars that come with the approved used timeless warranty are great because that offers a fantastic safety net. If there was any with a car that you bought because of that safety net and the very formal corporate nature of who you’ve bought the car from. I often say that when buying a car from those outlets, you don’t need to do a pre-purchase inspection with someone like the likes of us going to examine the car.

You know, it’s good enough for you to look around the car, look at the paint, look at the wheel condition, interior condition, look at the tire wear and of those things at face value, make a decision, whether you like a car or not. Then for peace of mind, get us to do a post-purchase inspection. Because if we did find anything that was pretty serious in need of immediate repair, then that very corporate, that very formal nature of the approved used warranty would no doubt take care of such niggles. If coming away from that franchise dealer route, you really do need a pre-purchase inspection, no matter who is selling the car. And this DBS is a perfect example to explain why. This car was brought to us for a post-purchase inspection after immediately being bought from an independent reseller.

Fundamentally, this car is very, very good. The paintwork condition is awesome. There is no stone rush into the front end wheel condition. And the interior is really, really clean. It drives quite well and doesn’t immediately present any problems on the surface. So here’s the subtlety, which we’re trying to get the bottom of here. If a car was fundamentally fit for purpose, then the seller is not obliged to conduct any remedial action, especially if what is being complained about is a niggle rather than preventing the car from going from A to B. Something that was fundamentally unfit for purpose must be resolved. Whilst we’re being pragmatic, knowing that we’re buying a pre-owned car, which will come with some wear and tear, it’s that gray undefined area of what is a niggle which will develop into a problem, or issues that have perhaps been masked over just to get the car through the sale.

So when this car was brought to us for post-purchase inspection, the first thing we did was take it out for a drive. Up to 50 mile an hour the front end felt a bit harsh. It felt like the tires got a little bit of a flat spot. Maybe the compound or the rubber had gone a bit hard closer inspection revealed that they were date stamped 2012, which is not ideal. Brake performance was really, really poor. You know, these ceramic brakes should have some real bite to them, but these breaks didn’t perform very well at all. And trying to look at the real-time misfire count when on the go, this car had not got its misfiled profile correction learned. So it wouldn’t display real-time misfires, which also means that if there was a misfire, it wouldn’t put the light on. Quick fault code Reid also showed that the tracker was faulty.

So immediately there are some concerns there. And you could perhaps argue that those things would not have occurred from a car being sold through the franchise network. The car would not have left with a fault code, visible fault codes for the tracker module, which could cause the car to break down, not start at any point. New brake pads had just been fitted and the reason that the brake performance was really, really poor is that there were no signs whatsoever of heat witness marks indicating that the pads had actually been bedded in. Once the car was back in the workshop, we did the ramp based inspection and mechanically. This car was really, really good. So there’s not anything really to comment about. It’s mechanical wear. Although classic gen one Gaydon era problems, DOR modules were an issue. When you locked this car, both passenger and driver door would lock, but if you were to open the passenger door handle hit would then unlock the passenger and driver’s side.

So this car needs a Parador module. The cynic would say that the misfire monitor system was purposefully disabled so that if there was any misfire, it wouldn’t put a fault code on the dashboard. That’s a really dodgy practice because if a misfire did occur, then a driver will not be alerted to that fact. And we all know that misfire can potentially fail the primary catalyst and the engine ingests that debris. And then you’re left with a failed engine. So we went back out and learnt that misfire profile correction and Hey Presto, this car then recorded misfire counts. As you can see from this graph, this car is at the threshold where if it was a service car of ours, we would be telling the customer that he needed new spark plugs and coils.

So what looks like an absolutely fabulous car on the outside, and whilst there being nothing fundamentally wrong with it, it is harboring several niggles that could cause a problem in the short to medium term. The brakes not bedded in properly will start to cause a premature pad where the desk surface will become rough. And if left in that state will eventually compromise the desk as well. Clearly, this car is misfiring. Now, if it was left without the misfire profile correction learn so that the airline, the dashboard would never be eliminated. If that misfire just got a little bit worse and it could compromise a catalyst, then a failure could occur there and the driver knows nothing about it. How many owners go and check that their doors are actually locking by pulling the passenger handle? So you could have locked that car left it in a car park and someone could come along, just open the passenger handle. And that would have unlocked the whole car and with a full house of fault codes for the tracker module, then a breakdown is inevitably looking for that reason.

So the tracker reflash, pair of door modules, 12 spark plugs, 12 coils bed, the breaks in, and there’s close on two grands worth of corrective work that the car needs, which is inevitably going to come out the bottom line of the seller. But if those problems were masked, at least for the short term, it means that the seller hasn’t got to lose his bottom line. The buyer is blissfully unaware of the problems that the car is harboring, at least for the short term and for the short term, everyone’s happy. I’m sure that some things will slip through the net of even the franchise data, but I very much doubt a car would have left a franchise dealer with that rap sheet.

So to answer this question directly, then if you’re buying from a franchise dealer, as I always say, do a post-purchase inspection and the corporate, the formal approved use timeless warranty will no doubt take care of you. And until I am given an example where it fails, then I’ll keep advising that. If buying independently, then no matter who that is from then you really need a pre-purchase inspection to the level of detective work that we do during that pre-purchase inspection that would uncover this list of problems on a car that generally presents itself as being pretty good. So what that results in is a cycle where the buying market will go to franchise dealer to buy their car, which will come with a price tag. If that’s what the market is doing, then sellers will look trade up at a franchise dealer, which inevitably means being low-ball on the offer for your car. The difference between that low-ball offer and the price tag to sell the car with all of those bells and whistles, it means that somebody is making a nice little number.

Then look at the alternative, which is to buy from the independent world. Clearly with this DBS here, you can see that there have been some corners cut, meaning that also someone has made a nice little number out of that transaction. It’s about time. Both those cycles were broken. It’s nothing new. Everyone knows that to sell your car to franchise data, you’re going to get a low number, sell your car to an independent seller. And you’ve got to get a little less of a lower number. Buy your car from the franchise dealer. It’s going to be a high number, buy it from the independent seller and it’s a little less of a higher number. Everyone knows that selling your car privately will probably give you more money than selling it to a trader. And everyone knows that by buying private you’ll be paying less than a trader. But buying and selling privately means the risk is all on the buyer, unless a pre-purchase inspection was done, but for the buyer to arrange a seller, to get the car to a garage so they can do a pre-purchase inspection is pretty awkward logistics.

So here’s where the Bamford Rose independent Aston sales portal comes in handy. We’ve created a Facebook group, link is in the bio, specifically for sales. So if you’re a seller, you can drive your car to us. We will conduct a pre-purchase inspection. You will go away with that report and that authorizes you to advertise your car for sale on our Facebook group. You can put as many pictures and the description that you like and then on each car, I will come up with a bit of commentary and my thoughts on that car. This is great for buyers because now you will be able to see what a car’s health status is warts and all mechanical condition, paint condition, consumable wear condition, and go into a purchase completely eyes wide open. Meaning that you’ll be buying a car for a lower price than what would have been advertised at a franchise dealer or independent reseller. Yeah. Without any of the pitfalls of buying blind privately, because you will know what that car’s complete health and history status is. If you’re a seller, you’re going to get more money for your car this way than trading into a franchise dealer or independent reseller. So go search out the independent Aston sales portal, a Facebook group by Bamford Rose. And as always, we hope you liked that question of the week and it really helps us if you can like, comment and subscribe to our channel.