Anyone fancy looking over an S211 in Brighton for me?

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Timster

Timster

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Scottish Borders
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Currently Merc' Less.
Hi. (Sorry for the duplicate post from my other thread.)

Mercedes-Benz E Class E320 CDi Classic 5dr Tip Auto Diesel Estate 3.2 2005

This S211 sounds good. Just spoken to the seller, here's the story:

he bought it in Jan last year, it's and ex police car so no service history. MOT till June 2014, Tax runs out 08.13, reason fro sale - owner is returning to Turkey end of September. Body work, some minor blemishes, but no deep scratches, and no rust.

Sounds good. It's at the top of my price, but that's ok.

Is there anyone in Brighton who might be willing to take a wee look for me? I wil of course repay your time with suitable beer tokens!!

Cheers.

Tim.
 
Sorry; too far for me to look at however I am sure you are aware of the SBC issue on this generation of car. We have one too and expect it to go at some point and are prepared to source a refurbed unit when it goes.

Are you prepared for this extra cost and factoring it in to your calcs as it will go at some point?

From what I have read of your other posts regarding a replacement vehicle I would ask the forum members to find you a good 210 with the 300TD engine
 
Have you checked with old MOT's to verifiy the mileage otherwise 132K is at best an estimate :)
 
Not yet - but good point.

Will get onto the seller to see if he'll give me V% number or MOT cert number.
 
Done - looks genuine, getting a good feeling about this car, risk of SBC problem, but that's life!

See MOT record here:
 
Timster said:
it's and ex police car so no service history.
Click to expand...

Do the police not bother servicing their cars then? And did they run it for the whole of the time until the vendor bought it (so their non-servicing lasted for about 7 years??). Or have subsequent/previous owners to the police also negleected to service it and/or record the fact?

I'd be inclined to check with a MB dealer to see what if any service record they have, and if you haven't already, I would run an HPI check.
 
It's very cheap. Hard not to take a punt if it's okay on the face of it although the police can run their cars to bigger miles than this themselves.
 
Try here for MOT details.

Looks good to me, very tempted!
 

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Not sure when the MOTs started to be recorded and available to see online,but there are a few missing from this list - earliest is 2010, when the car would have been first due an MOT in February 2008....but what is striking is that it has failed all four MOTs on record, and had to be retested each time. The current owner has owned it for a year....how many other owners has it had (apart from the police)? There seem to be a few gaps in the story for me; and the owner saying he is about to emigrate gives me some concern, as you will have no recourse at all (not that there is much recourse on a private sale anyway).

Have you HPId it? Given the known four MOT failures and the absence of service history, I would be looking for a mechanical inspection off RAC or similar. RAC would charge £163 for a non member for this vehicle, and the peace of mind would be worth every penny. The car may be cheap, but there may be a reason for that.
 
Be very careful.

That story is the same as someone on a BMW forum buying a 5 series estate.
Ex Police car so missing history, guy needs to sell it cheap as moving home.

3 months after he bought it, repo man turns up, has a log book loan on it.

The guy had taken out a loan on it a couple of days before hand after applying for a new logbook as his was 'lost'.
The buyer paid £8000 for it, a 58 plate 530d touring, and the loan company wanted 'their' car back or the loan repaid in full. £18000!!!
It was at 427% apr!!!!!

He his the car up and has been negotiating with them, a few weeks later he has paid them £4000 so he can keep the car. He is gutted.


Logbook loans do not have to register with HPI, they issue a bill of sale as you would with a horse and cart, it is a massive problem and something needs to be done about it and quickly.
 
Hmm. Interesting story about the bmw.

Re the mot, I assumed the electronic records only went back to 2010, perhaps wrongly, can anyone set me straight on this?

The mot failures were not concerning as on minor things such as head light alignment but fair point.

Does anyone else fancy ringing him to enquire and see what story they get?
 
No, been going longer than that. Edit: MOT database I mean.


Spoke to my contact at Lombard and even they have been caught out a few times, as have a few of the dealers that he does finance for. It is becoming a real issue.

I think that if these Logbook Loan companies don't register their interest in the vehicle they should waiver all rights to try and collect the debt from the new owner.

It stinks as you can do all the necessary homework with full HPI checks etc. and still get caught out.
 
Last edited:
Never heard of these logbook loans. Don't sound very nice to me!

I'm becoming tempted to wait for something to come up through the forum ..
 
Timster said:
Hmm. Interesting story about the bmw.

Re the mot, I assumed the electronic records only went back to 2010, perhaps wrongly, can anyone set me straight on this?

The mot failures were not concerning as on minor things such as head light alignment but fair point.

Does anyone else fancy ringing him to enquire and see what story they get?
Click to expand...

There were also a number of failures due to suspension components....

Look, not trying to be unduly negative here, but if this was my purchase I would have seen enough warning signs to be moving rapidly in the other direction by now. I know from experience it is all too easy to get the "wheels goggles" on...but this is not a rare car, and you would easily find other examples with more history etc. At this age and mileage, I think history becomes more rather than less important. It's fine to take a risk, but we always need to ask ourselves if we can afford the outcome of the downside happening. If we can't then we are not taking a risk, we are making a gamble.
 
I use my contact at Lombard, as I don't pay.

All the decent ones that include finance checks are expensive, and if they can't cover the Logbook Loans it sort of makes them pointless anyway.

If you ever get someone knocking on your door saying regulr finance was on the vehicle you simply say 'finance was never even considered' they can't then persue you.
 
I think the only attraction here is the cheap price........deep down you know that you should walk away....
 
Pulled over in a speed trap many years ago,a very puffed policeman came running up and said "Thank goodness you stopped ,sir,you came through so fast we didn't get your number". Moreinformation than I wanted at the time.
Had the pleasure of following two policemen back to their station and remonstrating with them about their appalling driving a few years ago, Cut across 3 lanes of traffic on a motorway with no signals at high speed because they nearly missed their junction. As I worked in the court in the station complex I was not exactly unknown there and the Duty Inspector had a few hard words to say to the driver.
 
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