Purchasing second hand cars in Spain experiencies

 

Hi
here is a letter that i hope will be in the local papers within the next week or so, and i hope through my experiences, this will help some people that are looking to purchase a second hand car in Spain.

Dear Sir

I would like to help some expats with my experience of buying second hand cars here in Spain and to let them make their own minds up having read of my experiences.

My first used car that I bought here in Spain was a Citroen Saxo purchased from International Cars Torrevieja, in March 2003, we were told that the price of the vehicle was the all in price, well being new and green when you are first here in Spain, we assumed that having paid the money in cash, that was it, oh no it wasn’t, when we had to return to International cars for the paperwork some 2 months later, we were told that we had to pay another 400€ for the said paperwork, and that we should have been told that when we agreed the price of the car, however the salesperson had left so we had no option but to pay this extra amount. When the Saxo was due for ITV 2 years later, we found out that we did not have all the correct papers for this vehicle so we had to go back to International Cars to get the missing paperwork, much to both their and our annoyance.
Our second used car purchase was from Auto Roig Orihuela Costa, in May 2006, the vehicle was a Citroen Xsara Estate, and they took the Saxo in as part exchange, the only problem we had with them was that they did not register that they had taken the Saxo as part exchange and we kept getting the Suma bills for the Saxo, which meant that I had to take them to Auto Roig to get sorted which did happen eventually.
On 31st October 2007 our third purchase was from a company in La Marina, who has now moved to Guardamar, the company is Chris’s Cars of Confidence or more like cars of Con-U-Dunce. The vehicle that we were interested in was a Renault Scenic and having noted some faults with it, one major one, the light on the speedometer was not working so you could not see what mileage the vehicle had done, we were assured that it had only done 118,000 Km, and being assured that these faults would be rectified promptly, and a good part exchange figure for our old Xsara Estate, we decided to purchase the Renault Scenic for a price of 8,000€ including 5000€ part exchange, and being expressly told that all the paperwork would be done properly, we went on our way. November 2007 came and went no repairs on Scenic, December came again no repairs, numerous excuses Christmas etc, will be repaired in January 2008. On the 9th January I returned to La Marina to find out when the repairs would take place and it was arranged for January 16th 2008, so I duly returned yet again, only to find out that the boos was not available (off Sick) and no one knew anything about the repairs to this vehicle, so I left my telephone number and told them to give me a call when they knew it was going to be repaired, guess what to date no phone call, and having found out that the vehicle has done 188,000Km, we were not at all happy. We certainly did not leave their premises as a friend as their advert says you will.
I have had 2 independent valuations done on this vehicle, and they both say that it is not worth more than 4000€, and I have been getting the Suma bills for the Xsara Estate with the last Suma bill threatening Embargo on my bank account, for which I have written to the above company telling them to sort this matter urgently, or I will have no option but to take legal proceedings against them.
In June this year I traded in the Scenic and purchased a Renault Kangoo from Les at Ace Motors Villamartin, who I found very helpful and courteous, and he quoted us a fee for doing the paperwork, which was very reasonable, and within 10 days the paperwork was all done correctly for a fee of 140€, 10€ less than the original quote. I would recommend Les at Ace Motors to anyone wanting to purchase a second hand car here in Spain
My last point is Buyer Beware, especially of companies in Guardamar advertising confidence; don’t end up as a Con-U-Dunce like me.



Regards

Alex Lightbody

I hope other people that are looking to purchase second hand cars will take notice of my experiences, and don't end up with the same problems as I had.

 

Interesting....not sure I'd be naming names online like this though.

 

Answer
I thought that naming names would be the right thing to do, because if not then how would people know which company to use or not as the case may be!!

 

Yes, I agree with you but life isn't that simple I'm afraid.. What you have written is your experience and it may be that the named garages will turn up in court with hundreds of happy customers (and I'm not saying they can) and pull your memory of events to pieces...
I'd be very surprised if a newspaper publishes your letter due to possible legal action against them if they did.

 

hi just wanted to say thanks for nameing all them DODGY car sales out there you are right to name the fraudsters..............how eles are we ment to no THANKS

 

Around 6 months ago a forum website was held responsible for the defamation a company, on a forum thread and was made responsible for the damages. So naming names is a no no.
John

 

i thought we r all ment to be feind and on this site.......and thats wat freind do is WARN u and advise u against useing these dodgy back street dealers......and in deed nameing and shameing ....

 

Thats all very well but it only takes someone to inform the defamed company owner of what is written on the forum and the forum owner would be in trouble!

 

We had an incident on here over a year or so ago, where I had a run in with a builder and developer in the Almeria province.

There had been a television program on the BBC showing the company and exposing their practises. Remember this was a TV program broadcast on UK prime time TV. So it was not some back street rumour or member making allegations.

I had a copy of the tv program on here.

The builder contacted me, asking for the video to be removed, plus altering a members blog to remove their name. Plus the offer of legal action was made if I refused to comply with their kind request.

They used the lines of "if the information was to stay in place, it would be putting peoples jobs at risk" I still have a copy of the original email somewhere.

The same company had, at an earlier date done the same to another forum in Arboleas. When the forum owner refused to agree to their way of thinking and not being a resident in Spain not being bound by the Spanish laws, they offered to take the moderators and admin who lived in Spain to court.

At the time, there was very little mention of that company on the internet other than how good their homes were.

So, yes naming and shaming company's on the internet can be a bad thing for forum owners.

At the same time you can normally judge the difference between a cowboy set up that will have a new phone number and trade each week and a fully legal company that just makes the odd screw up from time to time.

A lot of the time people will post on internet forums asking if anyone knows x y or z company and if people know anything about them, send them a private message with a warning rather than post on an open forum.