First off I must say that I didn't end up buying a car from Available Car, as they didn't have the model I decided to buy, but they impressed me so much I thought I'd write about my experiences with them.
When I first heard of Available Car, the name put me off as I thought it would be another of these places more interested in the finance than the car. However after reading some reviews on Ciao, we decided to visit.
First impressions were good - the showroom looks small from the front, but most of the cars are outside at the back. Everything was clean and tidy. We picked up a stock list from the front desk and went browsing cars.
This is the strength of Available Car - in one afternoon we were able to look at a huge range of cars that would have taken days visiting different dealers. All the cars are open, so you can sit in them, adjust the seats, and examine them as much as you want.
We finally chose two cars to test drive, and went to find a salesman who arranged things. The test drive was brief, but at least gave a chance to get them up to a decent speed. He answered all our questions, and back at the showroom was able to find out a bit more about the individual cars.
The salesmen make no secret of why the cars are reasonably priced - they're nearly all ex-fleet cars. So look with care - as they're mostly nearly new, there won't be too many faults, but we did find one car with evidence of an accident repair. As ever with cars, if you're not too good yourself, take a friend who knows about them. Some other cars had interior catches that didn't work properly, and quite a lot had only one key with them, the spare having been lost.
None of this should put you off - it just explains why the cars are at such reasonable prices. The biggest thing to watch out for is service history - if the car is well past its due service, either time or mileage wise, you may find it doesn't have the balance of manufacturer's warranty on it that it should.
About the only negative comment was that the salesman promised us a courtesy call that week, which actually came over a month later!
I found the low-pressure selling techniques refreshing, so provided you take a critical look at the cars you're interested in, Available Car is definitely well worth a visit. When I next buy a car, I'll definitely visit them again.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) loads of cars, great choice, friendly helpful staff no pressure, fantastic prices. (-) can get very busy on the weekend, we had to wait to be served, best to get there early.
Nov 30th, 2004
very helpful by (14%):
helpful by (86%):
