Buying from a Trader/Secondhand dealer

[vacant-100]

I'm looking at buying a car from an independent secondhand car garage, the type you see allover the place- my question is if I'm buying cash (not finance) is there usually any barrier to taking the car away the same day or day after?

Do these kind of places usually make you wait a week for them to prep the cars or are they happy to see the back of them asap?

[steve-5snwi]

If you mean Cash as in Debit card or bank transfer then payment is not normally the issue. Just call ahead and see if the car is ready to go, that its been prepped and has a valid MOT.

Just bare in mind some dealers are a bit hit or miss when it comes to what is ready to go.

[HasToBeV8]

Personally, I have driven away the next day on my most recent purposes, but I see no reason why I couldn't have taken it the same day from the dealer's perspective. Your main constraints will be does it have a valid MOT (you can check this online), you need to have valid insurance and tax (can be normally be sorted on the phone but you should sort your insurance first as they will check this, or at a main post office if your car has some special condition e.g. changing from disabled to regular tax class)

[ilikejam]

In my experience when changing cars on my insurance, even though the policy has been updated instantly it still takes a while (4 hours or so) before a certificate will appear in my email. Guess it depends how particular (or otherwise) the dealer is about seeing the cert.

[GreatGranny]

Drove away same day with the last car bought for my wife.

Saw it advertised, went to see it. Test drove it, liked it, discussed and agreed on a price.

Asked if it was ok to drive away, dealer said yes.

Transferred money through bank app on phone. While waiting for money to transfer sorted out tax and insurance (1 day insurance for simplicity). Money into his bank account with 30 mins.

Shook hand, drove home :-)

[TXG399]

ilikejam said:

In my experience when changing cars on my insurance, even though the policy has been updated instantly it still takes a while (4 hours or so) before a certificate will appear in my email. Guess it depends how particular (or otherwise) the dealer is about seeing the cert.

There is not requirement for a dealer to see proof of insurance. Most dealers will have a pre-prepared waiver to sign to confirm you are insured but they've not seen proof.