Buying used car - no service book?

[Shoxt3r]

Hi all,

So I've been debating about getting a Ford Mondeo and managed to find one at a reasonable price (about £11k).
Unfortunately when I asked about service history they said that they couldn't find the service book but they had serviced the car when they received it back in March.

It's a 2015 model with 25,000 miles. I've given it a test drive and a once-over and all seems well.
The dealer has said it will get a fresh MOT (due December 2020) and it will get a 145-point check before I take delivery.

Thoughts?

[whatmoretyres]

Thoughts? Find another one

11k with no history? You must be able to find another one the same with it. I have to say, but to me lost paperwork means something to hide.

[Nickp82]

If it was a Mondeo for £1k I wouldn’t sweat it but one for £11k is a different matter. It would need to be suitably cheaper than similar examples for me.

[Shoxt3r]

Is there any sort of check that would bring that type of history to light? All I can see from the likes of RAC etc is MOT history - no mention of servicing.
The car has a clean MOT history with no advisories which is a positive...

[pigeyman]

Give Ford a ring and find out if it's been to a Main dealer at any point. Failing that, don't buy it.

That'd be my advise anyway.

[Shoxt3r]

Nickp82 said:

If it was a Mondeo for £1k I wouldn’t sweat it but one for £11k is a different matter. It would need to be suitably cheaper than similar examples for me.

Yeah that's my thought as well.
Similar examples tend to go for £11-13k but I've yet to obviously test drive or fully check them out for history etc.

[Shoxt3r]

pigeyman said:

Give Ford a ring and find out if it's been to a Main dealer at any point. Failing that, don't buy it.

That'd be my advise anyway.

Just tried to give them a call but they say "we do not hold any past service history for vehicles, please contact your point of sale for further information". Looks like it will be a no-go in that case

[joropug]

I bought a Mondeo ST220 in 2008, was 4.5 years old with 31k for £5,500. Same catch , no history.

But I phoned up ford and they said it had 3 ford services. Just had to drive to original dealer to pick them up. If I remember right I contacted that dealer directly on an absolute punt from the number plate and it was an original plate from new. Try that rather than ford direct.

[anonymous-user]

Won’t there be paperwork work for each service also ? Not just the stamp in the book. Garage lost my service book for our civic but we still have the paper receipts for each service.

[ClaphamGT3]

Agree with the don't buy it advice - there'll be thousands of identical ones that do have the service history.

Slightly O/T but are 5 year-old Mondeo's really £11k??!! I'm gobsmacked - I would have guessed half that

[ChrisH72]

I just bought a 2017 fiesta and that also has no service book. Instead there’s every receipt from Ford main dealer since new and on them it mentions DSR or digital service record. I googled it and it says that the service history is on a main database to do away with the need for a physical service book.

To be honest I don’t know if I should have a book or not but as all the records are there I just assumed it never had one.

[anonymous-user]

I'd still consider buying it, but for the right price. (much cheaper than any other similar car with FSH)

[DoubleD]

ClaphamGT3 said:

Slightly O/T but are 5 year-old Mondeo's really £11k??!! I'm gobsmacked - I would have guessed half that

£11k seems like a lot, but then its only on 25k miles.

[raspy]

ClaphamGT3 said:

Agree with the don't buy it advice - there'll be thousands of identical ones that do have the service history.

Slightly O/T but are 5 year-old Mondeo's really £11k??!! I'm gobsmacked - I would have guessed half that

Yeah that is crazy money when 1 year old Mondeos with 12k miles are on sale for around 15k.

[steveo3002]

145point check = almost worthless , 4 tyres yep , 16 wheel nuts yes sir and so on

too much for a car with no history ...keep looking

[Shoxt3r]

DoubleD said:

£11k seems like a lot, but then its only on 25k miles.

Yeah I must admit at first glance I thought it was a lot for the age but then most examples for around that price are either diesel (not suitable for my low mileage), automatic or worse have mileages in the region of 60k+

steveo3002 said:

145point check = almost worthless , 4 tyres yep , 16 wheel nuts yes sir and so on

too much for a car with no history ...keep looking

I wondered what the 145-point check was to be honest. The local dealer offers 160... haha


Update: I've given the dealer a chance and said if they can find the full details of when and where each service took place then I might be inclined to buy - otherwise I'm basically not interested. They're going to chase their buyer for the outstanding history and get back to me sometime early next week, so we shall see. We're not talking a small back-street dealer here by the way, this is a Ford dealership; all the more reason I'm puzzled it hasn't been picked up.

[Jag_NE]

If it’s genuinely cheap I’d consider it. 20k mile service intervals are common now.

[Shoxt3r]

Jag_NE said:

If it’s genuinely cheap I’d consider it. 20k mile service intervals are common now.

It's difficult to determine what's actually done at the lower intervals - presumably things like oil changes etc.

I don't think I've ever had a car with completely full service history but then I've only usually spent a few thousand and I usually had the book itself, albeit with only a handful of stamps.

[stevemcs]

Stick the details in wbac, first time with full service history, next time with no service history. See what the difference is and go from there.

[Shoxt3r]

stevemcs said:

Stick the details in wbac, first time with full service history, next time with no service history. See what the difference is and go from there.

Thanks! Just gave that a go and there's only a £175 difference between full and no service history weirdly (£100 off if I put "Some") but either way the valuation is about £1,500 off what they're asking which I guess is to be expected for a service like WBAC as they did the same with my Focus valuation.