Adivce needed. Buying car privately.

karangka

Hi guys,

I'm looking into buying a E90 BMW 2005 (Auto) privately 50K. The price offered is €21,000.

I viewed the car this afternoon (the owner drove to meet me) and liked it very much. It needs a service as the service indicator is up and maybe needs new brake pads. He did mention this to me before.

Yer man has been advertising it for about 2 3 weeks now. He said that he is going to put it in car auction tomorrow morning. If I want it I could ring him tomorrow and he'll sell the car for me. I then went on to cartell.ie and got the report from them. Everything ok including HP check except for one thing that caught my eye.

The number of previous owner is 1 but in the date of last sale section its written as 8 Jan 2008. I asked yer man and he said that he took it off as he didnt want to pay tax anymore as he was not using it.

He did mention to me that the car is not taxed since December 2007 (he still drove it to meet me!).

Can you 'deregister' your car like he did? Do you think if there is something fishy about the whole thing? I'm not too worried about the car condition but I'm concern about the ownership and legal status,etc.

Any advice is highly appreciated!

Thanks.

Scottie99

I would get a full AA once over check done on the car.
Once a car is registered its always registered until its scrapped

He brought the car to you? They always say you should always visit the car at the address of the owner

21k is a lot of money to loose...if in doubt "pull out!"

Jimbo

Something dosen't add up there. AFAIK, you can inform the Dept. if you have your car parked up to avoid paying tax. This dosen't involve change of ownership. Get the full check done as Scottie99 says

karangka

Thanks for the replies. I planned to go to his place last weekend but something came up at home so had to stay home. As I'll be at work during the day and he is willing to travel so I didn't mind. I'm planning to come and view the car again at his place before handing over any money. I'm planning to pay a deposit first and pay the remaining after the car is taxed.

Extract from the report from cartell.

NUMBER OFPREVIOUSOWNERS 0

NUMBER OFOWNERS 1

LASTDATE OFSALE8-Jan-2008
TAXEXPIRYDATE30-Nov-2007
DATE OF FIRST REGISTRATION20-May-2005
DATE OF FIRST REGISTRATION IN IRELAND 20-May-2005
TAXEXPIRYDATESTAXEXPIRYDATE30-Nov-200731-May-200731-May-2006

bazz26

Anyone else think that €21k is very cheap for a 2005 E90 3 Series even in a private sale?

The thing about the one owner also doesn't add up.

Anan1

What does the VLC say? If the current owner bought the car new, then his name will be in the VLC, which will have been issued in May 2005.

seasam

I'd contact cartell and ask them what the story is how can their be only one owner if it was registered in May 05 and sold in Jan 08. It could be a mistake by them it definitly dosen't add up