Buying a used Audi... first UK car purchase for me

[moosepants]

Hi All,

I am a New Zealander who is over here working for a couple of years.

When I was back in NZ, I never owned a car worth more than £300 and as such am fairly savvy at keeping cars on the road, passing WOF (our MOT) and such forth (rebuilt more engines than I can remember, auto manual conversions, motor swaps, general car fun :)

I am looking to buy a car over here, and I think I have found one. It's a 2000 Audi A3 Quattro (I really like the look of them) with around 113k miles on the clock.

I don't know too much about buying used cars over here; I am quite happy to check the car over mechanically myself, but many websites seems to caution a lot about used cars from private sellers. There is a lot of talk about cloned cars and the like ("Cut and shut"?!).

Also, I ran a history check on the car, which indicated that a couple of years ago it had been written off by an insurance company ("Class D Vehicle Damaged") although the pictures look fine and the seller claims it has gone through MOTs fine also. The engine light is on, and he's had the error codes checked - if he's not lying then its just the oxygen sensor broken, and a dirt in the throttle body from when he ran it out of petrol once. Easy to fix.

Apart from making sure the guy who is selling the car owns the car (presumably the only way is through the V5C certificate?) is there much more I need to be really careful of?

The car is going for £3k and he claims he is leaving the country, is this ridiculously cheap?

Well if anyone can be bothered, what do you think? Good idea? Bad idea?

Thoughts would be appreciated,

Cheers
Seamus

[zollaf]

my advice would be to not purchase a car with the engine warning light on. it may only need what hes told you, so why doesnt he fix it himself? it may end up needing a cat or a lot more. theres a lot of cars in that price range out there, so i would say keep looking. an hpi check is always a good idea, as is a call to the police to check they have no interest in it. check the chassis and engine numbers match the sticker in the boot and log book, and look underneath for any signs of welding. its also worth paying for a vehicle check from the AA or RAC as that can save a lot of grief in the long run. theres a lot of dodgy cars out there waiting to sting you, but lots more genuine cars that will be a delight.