What is a reasonable low offer for this car?

[graemeX5]

If you want to buy this car and he has no service history but says a local garage did the work then find out name and address and ring them up.

Most garages will have their records and should be able to conform when it was service and what was done.

But as the others have said it may be worth looking at other cars as when they go wrong they do cost a lot to fix so you want to know it's been maintained.

If 16k is your max budget it may be worth being patient as prices are dropping each month and X5's are usually cheaper in the summer as no one needs a 4x4 then.

[Raj]

[quote="u751920"]
In fact that's the other thing that concerns me, the level of local driving my wife will be doing, 7 one mile journeys per day every day.
[/quote]

Then I would worry about looking at a Diesel. It will never get up to temp in one mile and you are asking from problems with things like DPF's etc as they need to be up to temp and speed to.

[Imy]

As Raj mentioned above, pointless looking at a diesel if this is the main use... also X5 uses a large charge when starting and needs to be driven more than a mile for the battery to recharge.

[u751920]

[quote="graemeX5"]
If you want to buy this car and he has no service history but says a local garage did the work then find out name and address and ring them up.
[/quote]

  Yes I might do this when I see it again, my view is he only did things when problems came up - I don't think he had it serviced regularly as such.  It's not that I want this car it's the first I've seen it was just around the corner, I will be seeing other ones.

  I have read about the issues regarding the DPF and battery.  As I have calculated it the car will do 300 miles a month max.  The time it will be driven per week is on average 4 hours - there will be the odd excursion I'm sure.  I guess there is problems with all cars driven in this fashion - atleast with the X5 the problems have been identified and some solutions worked out - ie. removal of DPF.

  If I understand it correctly the general concensus is, it's worth making a low offer which he is likely to reject - therefore nothing to loose.

[X5Sport]

If you remove the DPF or DCAT you will fail the MOT.  New regs from April.  It also makes the car illegal - would your wife be best pleased with you for letting her drive an illegal (and uninsurable) car with your kids?

Mine would slaughter me!

R

[Imy]

If your only going to do 3600 miles a year max wouldnt you be better off with petrol? Diesels are not very economical on short runs - especially a mile down the road...