Honest John (The Daily Telegraph): Your Views?

[MZ]

For those of you who are not familiar, 'Honest John' is a kind of motoring agony uncle that has a column each Saturday in the Daily Telegraph motoring section, and the Honest John website. On many occasions his replies to Telegraph readers car related questions have made my blood boil. The guy sets himself up as the self styled 'dealer you can trust'. He has apparently been a car dealer; I really do wonder though.

His latest howler (in todays Telegraph) is this one; reader writes in with the following question: 'I'm looking at a 2001 VW Lupo E for my 17 year old daughter. The asking price is £2000, it has 72000 miles on the clock and is being sold through a private dealership that specialises in cut-price cars. It looks very clean, has had only one owner and I'd love to think this was a good deal. Should I be wary?'

HJ's quite staggering reply was "He does'nt specialise in cut-price cars - he wants at least £1,000 too much" - WTF???? Having just checked prices on Autotrader, I would say this was a normal price for such a car!! How can he possibly expect anyone to be able to find cars like this for at least a grand less. The trade will gladly pay top money for decent examples of such cars at the moment.

A couple of other examples of his crazy recommendations to other members of the public are these two here:

1) Univeristy Student writes in asking something like 'should I buy a £1000 - £1500 W126 S-Class?' (for occasional use). HJ's response went something like 'don't touch it with a barge pole, if the engine goes pop, it's £15k for a brand new one and if the ABS unit fails it's £1500'. I'm quite sure I do not need to point out to fellow PHers the the rank stupidity of the man's reply.
2) Punter writes in saying something like this: 'I've just spent £5k at a dealer on a used Citroen C5, that was MOT'd by the dealer for 12 months. After taking delivery I noticed an MOT advisory notice stating that the front tyres were getting low on tread, but were passable. What should I do?'
HJ's reply was something like: 'Replace the tyres, then send the dealer an invoice saying that you will sue him if this is not reimbursed as the car is not of satisfactory quality'. The basic point here is that an MOT tester has decided the tyres are road legal. If this ever got to court, it would be thrown out because as they are road legal, they are of satisfactory quality. At the end of the day, they are used tyres on a used car. Also in law, the customer would have to obtain authorisation from the dealer before changing the tyres and expecting the dealer to pay.

I cannot believe that this person is being paid by the DT to offer such ill thought out twaddle as advice to the public at large. What do the rest of you think, because he really does rile me! Do any of you know who he is or have had any dealings with him. I seriously wonder about the guy's credentials for the job he's doing.

Cheers Folks, rant over!!

Edited by MZ on Sunday 7th September 21:10

[MZ]

I'm not sure I do see the 'rank stupidity' in this one. At least when I was on a student budget, the last thing I wanted to do was treat my transport as disposable and/or maintain an oops fund. OK, nobody with a £1500 S-class is going to buy a new engine, but you could easily put one in for servicing, find out the electrickery was buggered, and get a very scary bill.

Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of bks
[/quote]


Depends what you want to do with your money really. But if said student asked me for advice on the matter I would have advised him to go for it, but do his homework beforehand. He will find a sound example for that money. I've owned loads of Mercs of that vintage and a bad one is fairly obvious. There are plenty of decent breakers out vthere that can supply used parts (incl. engines and ABS units!) for very reasonable money. If you're not going to do lot's of miles, it could make a good car to use through university.

[MZ]

bimsb6 said:

MZ said:

I'm not sure I do see the 'rank stupidity' in this one. At least when I was on a student budget, the last thing I wanted to do was treat my transport as disposable and/or maintain an oops fund. OK, nobody with a £1500 S-class is going to buy a new engine, but you could easily put one in for servicing, find out the electrickery was buggered, and get a very scary bill.

Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of bks

Depends what you want to do with your money really. But if said student asked me for advice on the matter I would have advised him to go for it, but do his homework beforehand. He will find a sound example for that money. I've owned loads of Mercs of that vintage and a bad one is fairly obvious. There are plenty of decent breakers out vthere that can supply used parts (incl. engines and ABS units!) for very reasonable money. If you're not going to do lot's of miles, it could make a good car to use through university.

a student running an s class sensible ?

If run on a Bangernomics type of regime they can be. Service parts are not that expensive brand new. If you need something more substantial there are plenty of used parts around. To work on, the cars are fairly straightforward but well engineered at the same time and are not full of ott electrics like more modern versions. Insurance is also reasonable. Could be a surprisingly sensible choice for a student, yes.

[MZ]

Deva Link said:

Many of his replies in the newspaper column are random, to say the least.

The HJ forum is amusing - you're not allowed to disagree with the small number of things he contributes. If you do, the insanely aggressive and touchy mods delete your post.

I've noticed that, and they don't seem to like links to threads on Pistonheads either!

[MZ]

Whitney-Paine said:

I asked advice re selling on a top end car.

He replied personally, recommending a well known father and son dealer. When I got right royally had over and said so on the HJ forum, I was sent a very aggressive e-mail by HJ himself and banned.

I cannot express how much I dislike HJ and hope to meet him one day to tell him how I feel. Not physically, but verbally.

Anyway, he did not beat me as I just re-registered as a different name to get the info I occasionally need from the people that post there ------whats the betting I am banned again today!!!?

Bloody Hell!!

[MZ]

Dogwatch said:

When Japanese cars became established in this country there were stories of ex-POW's (captured in the Far East)who swore they would never have anything to do with them.

This was especially prevalent in the North West in the 70's as the Cheshire Regiment really suffered at the hands of the Japs during WW2.

[MZ]

[quote=Fiddlemesticks]
He isnt a experienced dealer but took it up once leaving journalism. And also uses a lot of other knowledge to pass himself off as a knowledgable.

quote]


This is exactly what I have suspected.

[MZ]

BAHN-STORMA said:

I stopped reading a couple of years ago, when his recommended 'solution' to every motoring need involved a Skoda...

Not that I have anything specific against Skodas, just didn't seem particularly impartial.

I'd noticed that as well.