Hi guys, I'd like to enquire if there's anyone who bought an ex-demo car before? What's your view on it?
I'm looking at the Suzuki Alto right now on:
http://www.drive.com.au/used-cars/suzuki/alto/sydney/detail.…
Ex-Demo Car: Suzuki Alto
delusioned on 24/03/2013 - 01:27
Comments
For that price, you could get a brand new Chery, not a well known brand, but it's gaining traction in AU. They are sold in nsw and qld
Neither the Alto or particularly a Cherry are quality vehicles.
+1 for Sonu1111 recommending Getz
Alto in my opinion, is not suitable car to drive on Australian roads. Why not consider Hyundai? Getz is in mentioned price range and has a 1.4L engine. Mileage would be little bit less than Alto but safety features and driving pleasure would be more.
OR
Holden Barina Spark, covered few kilometers, would come around that price and to be true, this car has very good interior. Although interior space is very limited.
It depends on your preference, whether you need
Mileage
Safety and Power
Stylish exterior and interior
Low Maintenance
Best resale value car
Hope this will help you making your decision.
Thanks. Is the Getz you mentioned the i20?
No. Getz is slightly cheaper with almost similar specs. i20 is pretty decent in terms of look. If you don't have problem in investing a little bit more in car, you should go for i20.
I never owned Hyundai but few of my friends got Hyundai and I always find Hyundai - value for money car.
Holden do look good, have good features but it comes with high maintenance and I hate that part. If you buying a car considering mileage, do some research on maintenance and problems faced by other customers before buying one.
ultra-compacts doesn't seem to be a cost-effective solution unless you only do urban short distance driving and/or want a new car feel for a fraction of the price. 2-3 year old compacts like corolla/focus/civic is reliable, cheap (to buy and service) and also offers greater safety in terms of bigger crumple zone. apart from the new car warranty and feel i'd be interested to know what people buy ultra-compacts for
I'm on a low budget and do mostly short distanced trips. Mainly looking for fuel efficiency, which this hits the checklists. But I see where you're coming from. Any recommendations?
it's hard to go wrong with a corolla with a good service history. it's quite boring and drab though.. good (or should i say, safe choice) if you don't have the time to research everything about cars, and just want to find something which is economic and does the job. not the most fuel-efficient but if you take into account new car depreciation and servicing costs, it'll even out unless you do taxiesque kms
Buying a demo car is usually not too risky - generally the sales person goes out on the test drive with you so its unlikely to be used as a race car on the test drive. On the other hand, the demo car is often the drive car for one of the sales people so it depends on how the sales person has been treating it..
Just check if it is being sold as a new car or used car with respect to the warranty - if it is a new car the warranty will be from the day your purchase it. If its a used car it will be from the day it was first registered, so you may be losing out on a few months of the warranty cover.
As for the car itself - I drove an alto quite a few times as the company I worked for used GoGet cars and the closest one to our office was an Alto. It was an ok car to drive around Sydney - easy to drive, easy to park and reasonably comfortable. I wouldn't want to go on a road trip in it because you would need to work it pretty hard on the open road but for purely metro use it was fine.
Suzuki makes great cars - they may not be madly exciting but generally they are very well built and very reliable. We just bought a 2005 Suzuki Liana with about 286,000 klms on it and it still looks and drives like a new car - no squeaks or rattles, paintwork is great (apart from some paint chips) but the quality of the paint is great. Interior has also worn remarkably well for what has obviously been a family car with young kids and dogs. If you don't look at the odometer you would easily think it had done under 100k's.
As for some of the recommendations above, I strongly disagree with the Chery recommendation - these cars are not sold in some states because they do not meet safety requirements. Reviews from other parts of the world are pretty scathing. I would stay away from Chinese cars for at least 10 years. The current generation of Korean cars are finally meeting world class standards and it will take the Chinese manufacturers many years and many product cycles before they do the same.
The Getz has a pretty good name for reliability and being cheap to run.
New cars depreciate most within the first 2 years so if it doesn't have to be a brand new car maybe have a look around for what you might get for the same budget in a car thats a few years old?
Mate that i knew years ago had a family connection to a dealership…
so thats where i based my comment on makes a good racecar.
So your right i was only basing it on one experience…your dealer likely would not allow such
shinanigans.
They make great race cars those demonstrators ;)
(hint: they are NOT a new car…you would want to be saving heaps to buy.)
Uses Pulp too…Expensive