Clocked Car

ta2kev

Hey all,
Just a heads up for anyone looking for a bargain Vectra. This one http://carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=750678 is on carzone, seems like a real bargain, but it's clocked. The photos don't show the reg plate, but you can be sure it's 05-D-xxxx, this is an ex-garda car. The garage where I work, bought around 6 of these a few months ago, none of them had mileage under 100k, all the white (marked) garda cars required a full re-spray, due to the cars having marks all over them and holes everywhere from lights and ariels. If you look closely at the interior picture, you'll see 3 holes in the dash on the left of the radio, also there's a hole beside the cigarette lighter, some of my ones still had a toggle switch here. If you look in the boot of this, behind the seats, you'll probably find a big mess of wires too. I rang the guy, he had a foreign accent, said he was selling it for his "brother" who's "out of the country" at the moment. It's a private sale so I don't thing anything can be done about it, but if any of you guys or girls are looking at a '05 Vectra, Astra, Mondeo or Focus with holes in the dash and fresh paintwork, if the mleage is under 70K, walk away.

Gary ITR

Only 22k on it now :eek:
Thats somebody gonna be seriously stung if what you say is true

2stageturbo

nice one 4 the heads up.there might b a few donuts rollin around under the seats !:D

bazz26

I think another thing is that he is only looking for €9,950 for a 2005 Vectra with 22k miles on the clock. That is too cheap even for a Vectra plus it's white so I'd be a bit wary straight away. Average Joe Public might not though.

milltown

Maybe I'm too cynical, but why would a garage buy half a dozen cars with over a century on the clock? Especially white ones!
Anyone who didn't expect them to get a haircut pretty soon is very, very naive in my opinion. Too much money to be made for too little effort for some people to resist.

Bear in mind too that the guy selling this one may not be the clocker. He could have bought it off some Maddening type who will never show on the log book.

craichoe

Those cars are absolutely thrashed to bits,

They either get rid of them when:

A. 2 years is up
B. 100 - 120k depending on how many times its been in for repairs
C. They crash it.

Think about it, those cars cars are going all day every day, sitting in traffic. Also the gardai dont give a fly f*ck and drive them mostly in third gear.

ta2kev

These cars, when repaired and painted, offer good value. These are government cars so the service history with them is excellent, anyone who drives a company car will know that if the car is doe a service or needs tyres, it's not the driver who has to pay for it so all mechanical work is kept up to date. We've sold a few of these, with the original mileage, and warrantied them, we've had very little in the lines of problems. If you have someone who wants a fairly new car that looks expensive, but they can buy for €60 a week, they'll buy it. Only the owner has to know what the mileage is, everyone else will think he's got a nice new car, worth a nice few quid.

craichoe

ta2kev wrote:

These cars, when repaired and painted, offer good value. These are government cars so the service history with them is excellent, anyone who drives a company car will know that if the car is doe a service or needs tyres, it's not the driver who has to pay for it so all mechanical work is kept up to date. We've sold a few of these, with the original mileage, and warrantied them, we've had very little in the lines of problems. If you have someone who wants a fairly new car that looks expensive, but they can buy for €60 a week, they'll buy it. Only the owner has to know what the mileage is, everyone else will think he's got a nice new car, worth a nice few quid.

I tend to disagree here,
A fleet car has been driven somewhat normally, with high mileage and frequent servicing.

An ex garda car has been driving almost 24 hours a day in third gear. If a warning light comes on they'll keep going until they can get to a garage.

So unless you replace, the gearbox, engine and clutch their a terrible buy, and thats if you ignore all the wires and holes drilled in the dash, worn / torn seats and electrical problems.

Ex fleet car / company car - sometimes a good buy
Ex Garda car - STEER WELL CLEAR

smash

these cars were selling for between 500 - 2500 at the auctions a few months ago.

louie

looking at the prices for a 2005 same model car there must some questions that needs answers.

miju

ta2kev wrote:

Hey all,
Just a heads up for anyone looking for a bargain Vectra. This one http://carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=750678 is on carzone, seems like a real bargain, but it's clocked. The photos don't show the reg plate, but you can be sure it's 05-D-xxxx

How do you know the reg???? PM me the reg and I can tell you for defo if it was a Garda car or not. And btw the toggle switch isn't beside the cigarette lighter the controls for lights / sirens are called a dashmaster for a reason

craichoe wrote:

Those cars are absolutely thrashed to bits, They either get rid of them when:

A. 2 years is up

B. 100 - 120k depending on how many times its been in for repairs

C. They crash it.

eh noooo, the Garda fleet has many cars older than 2 years in it. Alot of the cars are actually in quite good nick and looked after and if you go to the auctions you can actually pick up a relatively new car for next to a bargain

craichoe wrote:

I tend to disagree here,

A fleet car has been driven somewhat normally, with high mileage and frequent servicing.

An ex garda car has been driving almost 24 hours a day in third gear. If a warning light comes on they'll keep going until they can get to a garage.

So unless you replace, the gearbox, engine and clutch their a terrible buy, and thats if you ignore all the wires and holes drilled in the dash, worn / torn seats and electrical problems.

you might think that was the case but the Garda have no more any interest in driving a faulty car especially at high speeds than anyone else. please think or dont post if you dont know what your talking about. only thing you might have to replace on an ex-garda car is the clutch due to the pursuit driving technique so €500-600 quid for a new one just to put your mind at ease and you've still bagged yourself a great bargain.

whippet

as for the cars being changed every two years!!! I recently saw a '98 Isuzu Trooper Commercial farily battered ... stick on the blue lights behind the grill and over take a line of traffic!

miju

whippet wrote:

as for the cars being changed every two years!!! I recently saw a '98 Isuzu Trooper Commercial farily battered ... stick on the blue lights behind the grill and over take a line of traffic!

aye, I know for fact theres still '92 cars in the fleet

MercMad

I used to work for an Opel dealer and we did all the cars on the Northside at one point. The cars recieved a full service every 2-3 weeks and they got whatever they needed, pads,discs,shocks, clutches and we replaced the automatic transmissions (which were shot) at 100k under warranty !!

They were still dog rough to drive and I wouldn't buy one at any price !

miju

have never found em that rough to drive myself to be honest