Buying advice please

[wayevs]

Hello all.

I'm new to the forum here and have been looking at buying a used rav4 for a few weeks now.

I found this on gumtree yesterday, its a 2001 rav4 1.8 nv vvti  115k on the clock for only 999.

It seems like a bargain so I ve done a background check and asked the guy - he only has some service reciepts .

The background check came up OK and the mot history was good but the thing that alerted me was the 7PREVIOUIS OWNERS.

I am still going to look at the car no harm in that , is there anything I should be looking at specifically? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

David.

[firemac]

The 1.8 NV was originally FWD only, not 4x4, so get underneath and look for a full set of four driveshafts and the central propshaft to the rear diff. unless, of course, you only want FWD.

The  number of previous owners may not necessarily indicate any issues (roughly one very two years) but it does seem alot given that most people tend to hang onto RAVs once they realise how good they are. Maybe they all thought that they were buying a 4x4 and then dumped it when they discovered it wasn't?? The MOT history isn't necessarily always reliable as testers' abilities vary enormously - where one will pick up on genuine problems, 10 others may miss them. The lack of service history is the biggest problem IMO since. without it, you have no idea how the car has been treated. However, at the end of the day, it's an old car so your expectations have to be realistic. Nevertheless you need to check it out very carefully.

Good luck.

[wayevs]

Thanks for the advice , I ended up buying it I couldnt resist -£950.

I drove it home and it all seemed fine, got a mate in Halfords who can look have a look over it for me to see what Im faced with. Just hope I got lucky with the price I dont think its 4wd tho :-( as I think they only made this model in 2wd. Heres some pics