Most cars with towbars are used for luggage trailers or in the case of larger cars, horse boxes and caravans.

Sorry thought we were discussing the seaside areas and I just wished to add some useful info.

Well, I managed easily for years with a very similar car and witnessed many others doing same quite efficiently.

Edited by nailit on 29/01/2016 at 22:10

I just spoke to the owner of the car.

He has had the car for 20 months. He leaves about 1.5 miles from the coast.

Before that the car was owned by a person living in Peterborough.

The car is low mileage (35000 miles).

All said and done I think that it is an acceptable risk, because of the limited amount of time it has spent near the coast and because if I was buying from a dealer, i would be unlikely to know at the time of purchase if one of the previous owners had kept the car near the sea.

The car is also priced about £500 less than equivalent cars being sold through dealers.

Does this sound reasoable?

<< Buying privately means NO comeback. (You have done your own HPI check? If not, why not . You MUST. The risk of teh owner having finance /not owning the car is too great). So you need to buy your own (decent, worthwhile) warranty. >>

Yes. Maybe. And No. It is 50+ years since I bought my first car. I have bought quite a few privately, and a similar number from dealers. I have never even thought of adding the cost of a warranty to a private purchase, and have never had reason to regret it. If I want a warrantied car I'll get one from an appropriate source.

Much of the reasoning for a private purchase is to save money - not much sense in giving the saving to a profit-seeking outfit which I am not likely to need.

If corrosion is a worry, i'd be more concerned if close to the sea meant somewhere that gets waves, Southampton is hardly pounded by crashing rollers sending plumes of spray hundreds of yards inland in the wind.

Further South (within reason Cornwall gets sea spray) the car has lived the less road salt should have been a problem, cars from Scotland will have seen more salt.

Would also argue that road salt is worse option, it gets into all the underside nooks mixed in with general dirt and stays put, permanently damp all winter, then given the general lack of care of the average owner doesn't get washed off underside and bakes in over summer doing its worse unless the car happens by luck to be driven through enough heavy spring rains.

I live one and a half miles from the sea and regularly drive along the seafront - it's one of the pleasures of being here. If there's salt in the air, you see it straightaway because it appears on the windscreen. I've seen it less than 6 times since 2002. It only happens when the tide is in and the sea is really rough.

I'd be more concerned about a car that had regularly been put, after rain, into a poorly ventilated garage. And how can you tell? Where rust is concerned, you've just got to look carefully. There's always a large element of luck in buying used cars, wherever they come from. You win some, you lose some. I think I've won on 8 out of 12 since 1968.