Buying from independant dealer

[Simbu]

I'm considering looking at an R53 Mini Cooper S tomorrow. I've read the PH buying guide and done some research. The good news is this one has had the steering pump and exhaust replaced and has a decent history. It looks tidy enough from the description and pictures.

A couple of questions:

- The dealer in question has a couple of negative reviews i found after a bit of internet sleuthing. Should i care about this much? I'd imagine every dealer might inadvertently pass on a lemon occasionally, or if someone has gone to the trouble to post online, should I pay heed?

- The car is one owner from new - is it reasonable to ask to contact that owner and have a no BS chat about the car before parting with my hard-earned?

Cheers!

Simon

[mikeyr]

How many good reviews does it have? I'd take the tripadvisor approach, discount the best/worst reviews and see where the middle point lies.

Might be worth asking on the Mini subsection for any recommendations on good dealers in your area?

[Simbu]

mikeyr said:

How many good reviews does it have? I'd take the tripadvisor approach, discount the best/worst reviews and see where the middle point lies.

Might be worth asking on the Mini subsection for any recommendations on good dealers in your area?

I've not found any positive reviews - but then i guess very few people would post about positive experiences, compared to negative experiences! It's actually a big gap in the industry - how do you build trust with consumers?

[mikeyr]

Interesting - I had a similar experience with Portiacraft in London ... there were a couple of negative threads on here but I got a nice vibe from my communication with them so went for it. They were excellent, couldn't fault them really.

[Jonno02]

Trust your gut on the day. If they're the stereotypical car salesman "Alright there chief, yeah it's a brilliant motor" then that'd put me right into the "hmm" mindset right away. As it's previously been said, people leave reviews when things go bad. Barely anybody reviews a transaction that's gone well.

The usual, take the car a test drive on a dual carriageway or something then stop in a quiet carpark and do some full lock low speed turns to head any whines or knocks applies.

[Simbu]

The few negative reviews I've found were on places like Yell, not what i'd call a quality source! I suppose i'm assessing the car, not the dealer.

[ging84]

if the dealer seems awful but the car good, you don't have to walk away, just treat it like a private sale, if they still want top money for it then let them keep it, if they are prepared to go down to somewhere close to a private sale value, then you've got a bit of the best of both worlds, you've got some come back if something is really really wrong, certainly more than you normally would on a private sale, but you are not paying over the odds for what is more or less sold as seen