Hello folks, and a Happy New Year.
I am looking at buying a smaller car as a more econimical runabout/workhorse and fancy a B Max. My budget will limit me to an earlier car, 2012 or 2013. I have read a little and now decided to avoid an auto. There's one I've seen low miles, a 2012 1.6 TDCI with the sunroof, just wondered if there's any advice on what to avoid, what questions to ask.
We are based in France, secondhand cars are very expensive here, so I'm thinking maybe do what we've done before and get one from UK then register it over here. Only problem being that the last car we got from a garage in Preston, a nice looking low miles Fiat Panda -with FSH from Fiat - that turned out to have a silly bit of plastic broken that works the heater flap - a £1300 plus repair as it needs the whole heater box replacing and half the car dismantling. The aircon works fine ...
So, we have been very badly burned once, and we want to replace this disaster with something that works and is going to be reliable - NOT Fiat I hasten to add...
Any guarantee is pretty much worthless once we leave the UK with the car, but from experience I have little confidence that most car from France will have been properly serviced, they seem to think an oil change is a 'service' and most have very high miles. Quandary.
That said, I have a Mitsubishi Shogun which I bought used from UK and that's been a great car. I'm keeping that one, I've been a Pajero / Shogun owner since 2002 and a member on their forum since 2004..
I am looking at buying a smaller car as a more econimical runabout/workhorse and fancy a B Max. My budget will limit me to an earlier car, 2012 or 2013. I have read a little and now decided to avoid an auto. There's one I've seen low miles, a 2012 1.6 TDCI with the sunroof, just wondered if there's any advice on what to avoid, what questions to ask.
We are based in France, secondhand cars are very expensive here, so I'm thinking maybe do what we've done before and get one from UK then register it over here. Only problem being that the last car we got from a garage in Preston, a nice looking low miles Fiat Panda -with FSH from Fiat - that turned out to have a silly bit of plastic broken that works the heater flap - a £1300 plus repair as it needs the whole heater box replacing and half the car dismantling. The aircon works fine ...
So, we have been very badly burned once, and we want to replace this disaster with something that works and is going to be reliable - NOT Fiat I hasten to add...
Any guarantee is pretty much worthless once we leave the UK with the car, but from experience I have little confidence that most car from France will have been properly serviced, they seem to think an oil change is a 'service' and most have very high miles. Quandary.
That said, I have a Mitsubishi Shogun which I bought used from UK and that's been a great car. I'm keeping that one, I've been a Pajero / Shogun owner since 2002 and a member on their forum since 2004..
