Travelling To Buy A (Used Approved) Avensis?

[jonny123456]

What are peoples opinions on travelling for a used car? It seems all the best ones (Toyota Avensis, Estate, Automatic) are 150-200 miles from me, and a 2.5-3 hour journey away.

How does this work?

Do you negotiate over the phone, then travel down, test drive, (and if all is ok) leave your old car with them and drive the new one home?
Or is it a case of negotiate over phone, drive down, test drive, agree to buy, drive home, wait a week, repeat to pick up the car?

Not knowing much about what makes a good car, and what makes a lemon, should I be able to trust any used car a Toyota Dealership provides? Do I need to check everything (electrics etc) at the time I pick it up? From what I've seen you can't see much under the bonnet other than a black plastic cover anyway...

If it makes any difference I'll be looking at a 4 year old car (with the remainder of a 5 year warranty).

Also, can any warranty claims or other issues be sorted at my local dealer, should I discover anything soon after the purchase?

[FROSTYBALLS]

In reality probably be similar to the second scenario.

May be able to investigate room to manouver over the phone, drive down, test drive, negotiate/agree on price, arrange likely collection date, go home and collect vehicle/leave part exchange on agreed collection date.

If you're looking at a 4 year old car, you would probably be better off a Toyota Approved Used warranty rather than rely on the remainder of the five year warranty - you'd then have a full year of cover (with the option to extend) and warranty/servicing work can be undertaken at any Toyota dealer. Only difference would be that servicing during the Approved Used warranty would have to be done at a Toyota dealer (block exemption only applies to new car warranties).

[Heidfirst]

I pretty much did the 1st, picking up from Birmingham which is 300 miles from me (mind you I was buying an 18 month old ex-Toyota management car).

You do need to check it over & test drive it before parting with the cash - when I turned up a no. of things (wheel refurb & replacing 2 tyres) that had been previously agreed to as part of the deal hadn't been done. They weren't too pleased when I rejected it because of this (nor was I at the thought of a 600 mile wasted return journey) but they whipped it into the workshop & I twisted their arm a little more for the inconvenience ;)

[alan333]

We got a dealer to deliver the new car and collect our old one.

Accurately describe your car over the phone and get a trade in value. Make sure the new one is accurately described too. Go and show them your car and test drive the new one. Hopefully get more for your trade in now that he's seen it (we got a couple of hundred more). Agree the deal and when to deliver.

In theory you could collect the car while you're there, but only if it's ready to go, and if you can arrange insurance doc's so you can tax it.

[jonny123456]

when I turned up a no. of things (wheel refurb & replacing 2 tyres) that had been previously agreed to as part of the deal hadn't been done.

If it's not a daft question, if you agreed the deal over the phone, how did you know that the wheel refurb was needed, and the same for the tyres needing replacing?

Thanks for the input all :)

[Heidfirst]

I had asked for individual photos & tyre tread depths for all wheels. I also had photos of both sides & front & rear.

I also asked about the car's history - no. of owners & who/what (how I knew it was an ex-Toyota management car), service record, had it ever been involved in an accident etc.

a lot of emailing back & forth beforehand but it did mean that I had everything in writing rather than saying "you said this over the telephone ....".