I bought my Fiat Marea Weekend 2.4 turbo diesel unseen from ebay. I did check out the seller had not sold any other cars as he had a rating in the teens, hence not a dealer. He had a phone number in the listing, so I called and had a long chat with him. He told me what work he had done to the car during the time he had owned the car and all seemed well. One of the major things was a cam belt change. He said if the description did not match on the day of collection then I could walk away.
The car changed hands for £2150 (1998 R with 75,000 2 years ago) from a start price of £2000. Why did I bid? This is the largest diesel engine and is very scarce compared to the petrol or lower powered diesels. Originally sold new for about £18,000, so a good powerful car for a bargain price - especially compared to a large engined Focus, which were making £4,000.
Just after I bought it I needed a new battery (£60), probably because it had not been used much for the previous 6 weeks. After a service and MOT (3 new tyres £150) everything seemed OK. A couple of months later I felt the clutch starting to slip, I drove carefully for another couple of months and then had it replaced (£800 - ouch). Since then I have had to replace the disks and pads (£200), new glow plugs (£60 but fitted myself), injectors serviced (£360) and fitted a second hand rear wiper motor (£25). Overall it has cost less than most people loose in depreciation on new cars over the same period.
Am I pleased with the car? A definite yes and plan to keep it for several years more (mileage now only 93,000). Would I use ebay again, more than likely.
The main thing is to decide on which car is right for you and then watch ebay for some weeks to see what cars are offered and how much they make. In 3 months of watching this was the first 2.4 turbo listed out of over 30 Fiat Marea Weekends, but 2 more were listed in the next 2 months.
You will soon learn which cars to avoid due to the way the listing is written and how the photos are taken. I hate seeing spelling and grammatical errors and automatically think the seller is not interested in the vehicle as he cannot be bothered the run the text through a spell checker.
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Roger
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
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I was taking the Forester in for a service last Feb, and there was a distresssed looking couple at the service counter.
They'd bought an Isuzu Trooper for a couple of grand off Ebay a couple of days previously - new MOT and all that.
It had broken down and it had been towed to this dealer - the thing was a right-off and too dangerous to drive away (even if it would start)
I guess the same rules apply as to any private sale, where you have no rights once you hand over the money, that's it!
From a sellers point of view, Ebay was a pain in the neck - the person who had "won" suddenly had to leave the country for a holiday that day, never to be heard of again.
The second highest bidder came round, then only wanted to pay half what he had offered in his last bid.
Finally sold it to a decent sort of guy, who only reduced his bid by £100 once he'd seen the car.
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