Do you digging folks...

[oryx3dr]

Casual reminder to always do your digging when buying used cars.

I'd just put a deposit down on a perfect spec TCR. 3dr grey, performance pack and just ticked over 30k miles! All seemed well, until this morning when I'd managed to track down the owner who had informed me that the car had actually been stolen and recovered.

Despite doing a HPI check and CarVertical check that both indicated that the car was never stolen or written off etc.

Thankfully able to get a full refund on the deposit and found all of this out before going too far.

[P6GTD]

This is what stopped me from going down the used R or S3 road.

[Exonian]

Sorry, misread the title as dogging.
Nothing further to add here…

Oh, ok, while I’m here, not a huge amount of time ago I saw a very tidy looking up! GTI advertised for sale at a dealer an hour or so away from me. It had lots of nice photos, a well written advert and decent spec, but it looked a tiny bit cheap and was at a small “family run” independent dealership of the type that put question marks in my head as to why they’d have a car like that at that price.
Literally two minutes of searching threw up a post on an owners forum from a while ago saying that car had been written off. No mention of that fact in the ad funnily enough.

[oryx3dr]

Sorry, misread the title as dogging.
Nothing further to add here…

Oh, ok, while I’m here, not a huge amount of time ago I saw a very tidy looking up! GTI advertised for sale at a dealer an hour or so away from me. It had lots of nice photos, a well written advert and decent spec, but it looked a tiny bit cheap and was at a small “family run” independent dealership of the type that put question marks in my head as to why they’d have a car like that at that price.
Literally two minutes of searching threw up a post on an owners forum from a while ago saying that car had been written off. No mention of that fact in the ad funnily enough.

Yeah very scary - it was searching for the private plate that actually lead me to the owner. Such a shame as well because the spec was great, car drove really well. All in all the damage wasn't substantial but sadly the money didn't reflect this fact.

Not in any rush to change my PP with all of that being said, I think I might just stick it out and swap the wheels out for something a bit more interesting.

[fredgroves]

Yes Stolen Recovered doesn't show up on HPI.

[david25]

Casual reminder to always do your digging when buying used cars.

I'd just put a deposit down on a perfect spec TCR. 3dr grey, performance pack and just ticked over 30k miles! All seemed well, until this morning when I'd managed to track down the owner who had informed me that the car had actually been stolen and recovered.

Despite doing a HPI check and CarVertical check that both indicated that the car was never stolen or written off etc.

Thankfully able to get a full refund on the deposit and found all of this out before going too far.

Thanks for the warning, any other databases to check? I used Vcheck just last night!

[2007GTI]

What the issue with buying a stolen recovered car?

If it's good spec and has no damage and is not recorded on HPI, I really don't see the issue?

Casual reminder to always do your digging when buying used cars.

I'd just put a deposit down on a perfect spec TCR. 3dr grey, performance pack and just ticked over 30k miles! All seemed well, until this morning when I'd managed to track down the owner who had informed me that the car had actually been stolen and recovered.

Despite doing a HPI check and CarVertical check that both indicated that the car was never stolen or written off etc.

Thankfully able to get a full refund on the deposit and found all of this out before going too far.

[AGB]

What the issue with buying a stolen recovered car?

If it's good spec and has no damage and is not recorded on HPI, I really don't see the issue?

If I found out about anything like this with a sale and it wasn't openly disclosed, I'd walk away. You don't know what you're getting into. Maybe there isn't obvious damage but I'd be concerned about the engine and the things I couldn't see or which had been patched up.

[Adam T7]

I’d also walk, you’ve no idea what the car went through whilst in the hands of the scrotes, but I bet they didn’t give it an interim service just to make sure all was ok.

[SRGTD]

I think there’s a legal obligation to declare the status of a stolen and recovered car when selling it.

I personally wouldn’t knowingly buy a stolen and recovered car; as @Adam T7 has said, how it was treated when in the hands of the perpetrators is a big unknown and it almost certainly wouldn’t have been treated with any degree of mechanical sympathy. Hidden damage as pointed out by @AGB would also be a concern to me.

It may also cost more to insure a stolen / recovered car; insurance companies usually view these vehicles to be a higher risk than one that hasn’t been stolen / recovered. Additionally, when the time comes to sell the car, an owner might find it difficult to sell as the potential buyer pool will be (much?) smaller than it is for a ‘normal’ car for the reasons highlighted in this discussion topic.