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Anybody bought an ex-learner vehicle?


Wezbid

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I'm after a new car, budget max £2k and saw a nice looking car for my budget but then the kicker came with the milage. I guess it was someone's livelihood so they probably took good care of it but at the same time, it doesn't mean that those miles don't count.

With it being an ex dual control, the clutch doesn't worry me as much as when I first read it. Anybody else had experience of this or any advice. 

The newest plate I've ever had is 03 so whilst this probably doesn't seem much to most, it's a big step up to my usual cars!

This is the car for those interested...

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I work for a leasing company and we aren’t allowed to touch driving schools, because according to our asset valuation/remarketing  teams, they are basically a bag of nails once the instructor is done with the car. 
 

It’s one of them, it could be absolutely fine and you get a few years of trouble free motoring out of it, but equally with that kind of mileage on it, if you get a major failure it’s likely to cost a fortune and you’ll be looking at paying 50%+ of the value to get it back on the road. The other issue is, with a car having covered that amount of mileage, major repairs tend to lead to other issues and it can be a right nightmare when that happens. 
 

I’d ask if they can send you photos of the service history, but also ask if they have the full repair history too (warranty items, major repairs, brake changes, clutch replacement MOT history, etc etc) 

 

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I wouldn't even consider it. The mileage is only part of the problem. It's all stop-start traffic. I'd take a motorway cruiser with high mileage over a city car, this is the worst of both worlds. 

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Add to that, it's a Peugeot 208, pretty much bottom of the reliability league anyway

Along with the odd electrics that seem to go hand in hand with every French car, it also has peculiar braking and clutch problems. Oh and the locks have a habit of breaking too

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High mileage, small engine, lots of stop/starts and learners crunching through the gears. How many clutches and gearboxes would it have gone through?

Its a risk, but every car is. For me though, I wouldn't consider it unless you deemed the offer was so good it was worth a punt. 

How much cheaper is it than a regular 208 from the same year with average mileage?

 

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41 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

I work for a leasing company and we aren’t allowed to touch driving schools, because according to our asset valuation/remarketing  teams, they are basically a bag of nails once the instructor is done with the car. 

 

How about couriers? A lot of van hire businesses I deal with don't allow courier businesses to rent from them for the same reasons. They'll be started 100 times a day! 

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11 minutes ago, Xela said:

How about couriers? A lot of van hire businesses I deal with don't allow courier businesses to rent from them for the same reasons. They'll be started 100 times a day! 

Yeah we do them on exception, LCV’s so bit different - usually taken over 5 years so they get written down to 50p and a bag of crisps. 

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Thanks for the replies. Stresses me out this car lark. I've got no idea what are generally reliable and what is trouble in the making. Now I know how Lange and Purslow feel. 

I won't be going after this one. 

What sort of cars would people recommend? Seem to be a lot of corsas around which would make spare parts cheap I guess. 

I guess I could fix up my current MOT failure but trying to source a new fuel tank is a faff with it being a less common diesel, plus the other work needed means it might not be cost effective. 

 

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