KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile

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Mon 10 May 2010 02:24
KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile - eustace

The car costs £ 3500. Its a 2005/55 registration and has run 42000 miles. It's a Cerato 1.5 CRDi GS

My concerns about this car:-

1) Is the price right? The price is is £325 above the what car valuation for this car.

2) For a 5 year old car, its run only 42000 miles. Thats an annual mileage of a little over 8000 miles. Could this indicate short trips and in-town driving on a cold engine? Could this have potentially caused damage to the diesel engine?

I am considering either buying this car or going for a used petrol corolla, 2003/53 registration done 70,000 miles, 1.4 vvt-i T3 model available for £3500. (selling at £300 less than whatcar valuation). Considering that the diesel Cerato (and later model) is just £300 more expensive than the petrol corolla, would this be a wise buy?

Any advice would be appreciated. I know that this is the third question I am asking regarding car comparisons. Apologies for that.

Edited by Avant on 10/05/2010 at 21:27

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Mon 10 May 2010 21:31
KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile - Avant

If it's a 55 it's only 4.5 years old, so that's a perfectly reasonable mileage. The 70k-mile Toyota may be OK, but it's an older car and age contributes to deterioration, if anything, more than mileage.

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Wed 12 May 2010 01:39
KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile - primeradriver

No, that is too expensive IMO.

I very nearly bought a Kia Cerato -- 06 plate -- for £2500 recently. And I wish I had, now that my Primera has sprung a coolant leak (which means probably a new car given its age/mileage).

Granted it was a petrol model, and had 66K on the clock but I am looking back on that now and thinking I'm a numpty.

All that said I can't see it being a problem car. Too new and decent reliability.

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Wed 12 May 2010 01:45
KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile - primeradriver

Get yourself down to your local Mitsubishi dealer and have a look at a 55/06 plate Mitsubishi Lancer 1.6. Engine as reliable as the day is long, drives better than the Kia, Skoda etc and not that expensive -- about four grand for a 40K miler.

Alright they ain't pretty but it sounds to me like you're after Japanese reliability on the cheap (and who can blame you). This, IMHO, represents one of the best value Jap cars available at the moment in this price range.

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Thu 13 May 2010 19:39
KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile - eustace

Hi Primeradriver,

Thanks for your advice. Priceless as always. :-). I checked the lancer. I wanted a hatch back model, as I will be needing to make several trips to ikea to buy furniture, as we are just in the process of furnishing our house. The hatchback models all seem to be pretty recent and the prices all start at £ 10,000. :-(

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Thu 13 May 2010 19:40
KIA Cerato Diesel - - Is this car a good buy?-£3.8K, 2005/55 -42K mile - eustace

I intend to start a new post about an Elantra I am considering. Your advice would be espescially welcome.

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Our honest used car pricing is a little bit different to all the others. You can get to our values through make or model - you don’t have to follow a prescribed route. Plus, it’s live, which means we can react to changes in the market quicker than any printed price guide.

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