What do you guys think about buying ex taxis?
I'm looking at a 1.6L TDI 105CV seat toledo from 2013 with 270.000 km's, the guy wants 3800€ for it and according to him it has absolutely no issues. This would be a first car of my own, as I've had my licence for nearly a year now and driven a shared 2005 Berlingo for the entire time, no accidents, scrapes, or anything like that.
https://www.milanuncios.com/seat-de-segunda-mano/seat-toledo-263785800.htm
It's 2 hours drive away so I don't think any local mechanics will be willing to waste 5 hours of their day to go look at it, nor do I think I could afford to pay them for that.
Also, what would be some good questions to ask and check? This is my first time buying a new car.
see how rusty it is, check the exhaust if its got any leaks, take it for a drive and see if the CV joints are making a grinding sound when you turn the wheel, ask about any repair logs, take it for a drive if he'll let you and see how it runs. if you're not familiar with diesels though you might want to look at common issues for them. check tire wear, the tread should not be completely worn off
I don't really know how it is in europe but 270,000 km for what he wants seems excessive. here in the states a 45,00$ car will usually be a bit newer with less miles.
Rust will likely be ok, it's spain after all, but living here in the south I've never ever had to check a car for rust, where would I look?
How do I check the exhaust for holes? Do I listen for a whistling sound or am I looking for big obvious holes? The car looks pretty clean
What are the CV joins? And what does it mean if they grind? Is that a deal breaker or a "can you knock 100€ off to fix that"?
He said he'd let me test it be I've only been driving for a year so I still don't know what to test other than listen for weird noises.
The problem is here in the south all I've found are trashed cars for anywhere near that price, it's quite a poor part of the country so people don't change cars often, I'm unlikely to find a better deal
I wouldn't buy an ex-taxi. They are run very hard for hundreds of thousands of miles (and have excessive idle hours) by people who don't really give a shit about them and get retired when they get too expensive to fix. If the taxi company doesn't want to deal with it anymore, neither do you.
Here in spain (most?) taxis are privately owned, so idk I'd think the owner world care more for it if they were solely responsible for it.
Keep in mind it's 270,000km, so 167000 miles.
Being privately owned still doesn't necessarily mean they care about them.
If they figure out it's going to last X km for purchase price Y + operational cost Z, you calculate Y+Z per kilometer and charge that to your customers. After it's paid itself back, you don't have to care about it. Then you can sell the car if someone agrees to buy it, and get a new one.
You're going to want to have every single piece of paper documenting the service on that heap you possibly can. Taxis are notoriously uncared for and ridden hard at all times.
Yeah, I asked him about service history from the previous owner, the taxi driver, and his answer was that he didn't have anything. Welp
Big red flag there.
No service history, no buy. I dunno how it works where you live but in the UK if it were a private taxi then they'd have every single piece of paperwork possible so that they could claim back the tax at the end of every tax year. Not having that is a big sign that there may well be something wrong with it that he doesn't want to tell you about.
One thing you can always do is ask them why they want to sell the car in the first place.
If it's a taxi car with no issues, why bother selling it? Seems kinda pointless to get a new car just to put it into taxi service.
Yeah, though this is the second owner who bought it from the original taxi driver, but I'm surprised he didn't request the receipts. I'll search around for something else but for this price range at a 2012+ year all I'm finding on milanuncios is write-off's for parts and scams
Is there anything about the 2012 model year that you need? Generally newer cars are more expensive to maintain and worse, so unless you really need that model year for some official reason or something, there's no reason not to go with an older car.
Lowball him and get out if he doesn't go for it really...
I guess not, I just want something with atleast 100HP and 5 seats. I don't want something more than 18 years old. I'd kind of like for it not to be a seat ibiza either.
There are cars that match my criteria, but none are down here in andalucia. I can't drive more than 3 hours to go to see it
Unless you're going for a sports car, power doesn't really matter. I've had a 78 Kadett with 65 HP (when it was new) for the past 2 years and I've never really had too little power. You've only had your license for a year now, so it's wise to get something cheap.
I'm currently driving 5 people every day in a shared 05 berlingo with about 68HP and it really struggles on hills, especially with the weight. I have to go dangerously slow, dropping down to 3rd gear to get up one of the many hills on my commute, I just need a little bit more power.
Personally I don't see the big deal when the price is that low, unless the engine is on it's last legs or some shit it'd almost always be worth fixing it here.
What about this then?
https://www.milanuncios.com/volvo-de-segunda-mano/volvo-s60-d5-momentum-267223061.htm
A 2005 volvo s60, 2.4D with 253,000km for only 3250€, the problem is it's up by barcelona but I guess I could take a train ride up and then either drive it back or pay 150€ to have a company transport it.
The guy on the advert says it has all the maintenance up to date and he seems to have more of an idea about the car than the other guy.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/218870/d66a12eb-06ad-4bf2-bc01-e69084f1325b/image.png
I don't know anything about Diesel Volvos, but I can tell you it will be a comfy ride with a great stereo and climate control system. 157k miles is not bad, especially if he did keep up on the maintenance.
Post interior pics and an underbody shot
There's some interior pics on the ad page.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/218870/b2ae6fd3-684a-4eb5-92c3-4d208fe95a33/image.png
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/218870/e02a2098-c270-462c-bd5a-1454ae849752/image.png
I'll ask him for an underbody shot
That car looks like it's in absolutely impeccable condition tbh
That car looks like it has been cleaned, which any good seller would do. The seats are extremely worn.
That's just what black leather does when exposed to sunlight, though.
Volvo s60 is an excellent car, I have an 2001 model. And it's the best choice i made
So an 2005 is even better! Test it before you choose.
I disagree, you can clearly see the leather being worn on the outside, while the inside is still smooth. It's a typical wearmark from getting in and out.
If a 2013 car has 270k KM and the guy is asking for anything more than €1,000, he's kidding himself massively, that's a massive mileage for a relatively short space of time, if he doesn't have any documents for service history, I wouldn't even take it off him for free.
That 2005 one though, that seems fairly decent.
'02 V70 2.4t owner here (think older wagon version of that car): The leather may be cracked, chipped, missing bits, etc, but that shit will always be c o m f o r t a b l e a s f u ck.
Seriously though, I've never found a car with seats as good as this, and never once have I said "wow this really fucking hurts".
Fuck it's starting to sound so good yet now he says he has someone coming to look at it tomorrow. I'll ask a local mechanic for advice and if the other person doesn't get it I'll probably just buy it and have it transported over if possible. I likely won't be able to drive it down myself due to insurance issues and I don't want to spend 140€ on a train ride just to spend another 150€ to have it transported. Everything seems good with it so far
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