Golf GTi Mk5 Edition 30 - Motorpoint - would you buy one?

[Basil Hume]

I'm eyeing-up the possibility of buying one of the batch of MK5 GTi Edition 30s that Motorpoint have languishing at their sites. The sticker price is £19k and I fancy a reasonable trade for my current Clio 197.

Because I bought my current Clio 197 from Motorpoint, I'm well aware of the possibility of non-VW UK provenance and potentially shortened warranty. I can live with that to a point, if one could be had for a good price. It would also probably be easier than finding a used Edition 30 and significantly cheaper than the new "Mk5.5" GTi.

Is this unsold batch of Edition 30s "known" to anyone? I'd just like to find out anything I can.

[J500ANT]

Basil Hume said:

languishing

Good word.

There was some comment here a while ago regarding GTI's from Cyprus, complete with corrosion.

[va1o]

I am not aware of the specific batch you refer to, but I am aware of Golfs that have been sold in Motorpoint in the past. Generally these cars are old model years that have been sat in a field in a foreign country for a year or two before been exported to the UK and sold on. The specification usually differs to a UK model, you get 24 monthts warranty from date of PDI rather than 3-years and as J500ANT mentioned there have been cases of cars comming with corrosion and rust under the bonnet. Then of course you have the fact the residuals will be piss poor.

Couple of links:-
http://www.tyresmoke.net/forum/vw-golf-gti-forum/9...
http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=5881...
http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/p/129088/922327.aspx

And a post I made on the topic before, in this case subaru imprezas at the same place:-

va1o said:

The trouble with Motorpoint is they don't just say "Hey guys lets import some cars from France today and sell them for £13k tommorow"....

What actually happens is e.g. in 2006 BMW Malaysia buy a batch of 525i's from the factory in China/ India, and keep them in stock. Come 2008, the cars have been sat in a field for 2 years unsold. To make matters worse they are now the old model, as the current 5-series has been facelifted. As they clearly arent going to sell and are now pre-facelift, they decide to accept a loss and sell them on cheaply to another RHD country. Motorpoint UK take them at a vastly discounted price. Now heres the clever bit, although the cars are 2+ years old, they never got officialy registered, so Motorpoint are able to stick them on a 58 numberplate, and sell them to Joe Public as a brand new motor. As its an outside of EU import theres not going to be a proper warrantty, and the specification, security and emission standards are completely different (uaully much lower) to UK.

A few years down the line you may find the car that was cheap at the time fails its MOT (this happened to a batch of Mercedes imported from India in 2003 as they did not meet UK emisssion standards).

You will also find when you come to sell the car on, most people won't touch it with a bargepole as it was originally a grey import. In this case BMW dealers were all sent a memo warning them to stay away from these particular cars.

Finally because these cars were sat in a field for ages, little things go wrong like there may be rust and corossion, and paintwork can get damaged.

Now this is only one example, but I know near enough the same happened to some Golf GTIs (2005 Dubai cars sold in UK 2007) and I've noticed some other very suspect looking cars recenty, including a batch of Mercedes B-Classes, some VW Jettas and these Imprezas.

What bugs me the most is they don;t say on there website its an import, you only discover this if you go down and ask.

Not all cars are motorpoint are imports, its mainly they new ones. The nearly new cars are generally UK ex-fleet and ex-hire stuff than didnt meet manufacturers approved used standards.

HTH

Edited by va1o on Sunday 14th June 19:45

[marx]

va1o said:

I know near enough the same happened to some Golf GTIs (2005 Dubai cars sold in UK 2007) and I've noticed some other very suspect looking cars recenty, including a batch of Mercedes B-Classes, some VW Jettas and these Imprezas.

What bugs me the most is they don;t say on there website its an import, you only discover this if you go down and ask.

I asked about these GTis. They had no warranty as the manufacturer's warranty had run out whilst the cars were laid up somewhere.

Bought a Golf from Motorpoint in 2001. It had been PDI'd in Germany in 2000. Best to check the warranty status of the Ed30's.

[Basil Hume]

Yikes! Thanks.

I suspected this sort of thing when I bought my Clio 197, but was lucky that it was "only" 3 months from purchase in France before being sold to me.

I'll be looking elsewhere for Golfs then!