Buying part-exchanged cars from dealers

[RB5]

I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with anything like this. If I went to, for example, a main Ford dealership and asked whether they would be willing to sell me any recently part-exchanged cars (sold as seen), is there any chance they would be happy to agree?

I'm looking for something cheap (sub £1k). The dealerships I have in mind only sell new and nearly new cars in their showrooms. Surely this would save them the hassle of sending them off to auction, along with any fees. Does anyone have any input?

Thanks.

[mattman]

most of the time the big dealers have agreements with local smal dealers to take all their px's - they rarely sell to private inidividuals as far as I know.

You might be better off with the auctions

[schuey]

I have bought and sold a fair few main dealer px cars,however that is mainly due to knowing the sales manager. He wouldn't sell them to anyone though to avoid hassle,as mentioned above they pretty much all go to local car dealers,whatever they don't want goes to auction.
Surprising how cheap some stuff is,especially luxury barges.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Yes, dealers get PX'd cars which they don't want and they either pass them on to a backstreet trader or, more likely, just send them off to auction.

As a private buyer your chances of intervening in this process are pretty much zero.

The problem is that when a dealer (same thing as a trader, just posher premises) sells a car to a private individual there is AUTOMATICALLY a warranty given that the car is fit to be used on the road, in a condition which reflects its age and price and reasonably reliable. This automatic warranty CANNOT be overridden by saying the car is "sold as seen" or anything like that.

So for the dealer it's just not worth the risk (in money or to his reputation) of retailing old PX'd cars. Better to chop them out in the trade or off to auction.

[RB5]

Pretty much what I thought! Auctions might be a good place to look, thanks.