Buying a used car tomorrow, cant remember what happens about tax/insurance etc

[soupfiend]

I may be buying a used car tomorrow, need to phone to check its still there and its 3 hours away

I will do the various checks you can do and have a bit of a test drive

If I buy it, what is the situation with tax/insurance. I last bought a car about 5 years ago and cannot remember for the life of me what you do.

Im insured on my current car so will obviously phone them and cancel that and OH will need to insure himself on that one

And, (I couldnt find a car section, is there one?), it has had 6 owners and its 13 years old which on average is 1 every 2 years, would that worry anyone?

Not seen a car with that many owners before

You have to tax it as soon as you buy as the tax is with owner not car now. Insurance the same. Most are done in minutes online so shouldn't be an issue.

I recently bought a new vehicle. I have not yet sold the previous one, so bought a 24 hour policy to enable me to drive the new vehicle home. I taxed it when I bought it, and then parked it on the drive until I could sort out it's permanent policy.

It may help to get a go compare/compare the market quote for the car done now. Choose the policy you'd like of you did buy, and then it gets saved online so it's a few clicks away while sat in the lot!
Tax is really easily done online too so no issues there.
I wouldn't necessarily be concerned about owners. It could be absolutely anything! Perhaps someone had it for years and then sold it to their friend, who gave it to their child, who then sold it on within the family ... it isn't necessarily an issue with the car.
What I'd be keen to check is the MOT history. If it has fails every time (not just your tyres and breaks) then it's likely a little troublesome.
If it mostly sails through I wouldn't be so worried.
Honestly though, used cars are sadly a gamble! The most reliable car I had, bar my new one, was a £100 Agila I bought off someone's driveway, lots of previous owners, that had been sorn for 18 months. Never a problem and as far as I know, still going. It was my first car and a total dream.
The least reliable was my 2 owner 2008 car (bought in 2016) that crapped out monumentally almost immediately.
Hope all goes well!

Oh ok, so once I buy it, I then tax it online and then insure online in the same way

Have you done the full mechanical check with the RAC or AA yet?

Thanks yes once I know its still available I will do those checks

I will stay with my current insurance company as its got breakdown cover included and all my no claims history etc etc.

No Ive just seen the car tonight and its 3 hours away from us, if its available and I can test drive it I will probably get it tomorrow, theres no time for that

The last car I got I dispensed with the check to be honest. A gamble I know but most of these seem to have checks now.

Good luck. You may need it.....

The one car I managed to do this with (it wasn't a thing when buying previous cars, or at least, not that I knew) was the one that crapped out. It was also the only one I bought with a brand new MOT!

But yes, the other stuff is very easily done online after the purchase, but before you drive away.

Sorry, just to add, while it's often easier in a way to stay with a current company, it may still be worth doing the go compare for insurance! You can tailor whether you want breakdown cover etc and all your no claims bonus follows you anyway.
It's saved me a bloody fortune!

I viewed mine then bought it online. They taxed it. Insurance I had to send over my insurance certificate and I picked it up a couple of days later. There was a wait whilst my deposit cleared.

Ive only just renewed a few weeks ago with my current insurance and I always do comparisons and it was still cheapest with the insurance I had last year so I stuck with them. I'll do a quick sweep tomorrow perhaps but quite honestly I dont have the head space for lots of chopping and changing

Ive checked the MOT history, 2 fails in 13 years, on things that my own car usually fails on to be honest, suspension and bearings. This years advisories they say have been fixed, I'll obviously have a look to see what paperwork they hav from a garage and try to look up who they are

The checks they get are usually AA or RAC anyway Ive found in terms of the mechanical check.

My sister puts a lot of store on the MOT history but my car fails most years, I just get it fixed whatever it is. But then I run my cars into the ground so Im not bothered about selling it on.

Well just having a fiddle about with my policy, if I replace my own car with the new car its £93 more a year, that seems a lot, consdering the car is 13 years old! Its only worth 4k or whatever

My car is 14 years old and worth 2500, perhaps thats why?

Insurance costs are related to various other factors like how easy it is to get parts, the power/acceleration and how much it will cost to repair, so not just age and current value.

As for MOT history, some people have repairs done at other times of year or have 'pre MOTs' which identify everything that would cause the car to fail the MOT so a clean MOT history isn't necessarily an indication that the car isn't going to need money spending on it.

A lot of owners isn't necessarily a red flag, people change cars for all sorts of reasons unrelated the to how reliable it is or how nice it is to drive so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Not everyone buys a newish car and 'runs it into the ground' like most of MN seem to do.

Yeah, I was in a similar position. If I hadn't done the RAC check I'd have bought a car with serious and expensive issues. Had sailed through the MOT............

My daughter bought a second hand car a couple of weeks ago. She had to pay the dealer for the road tax and he sorted it all out online.

The insurance was also sorted out online but the dealer had nothing to do with that. She stayed with the same insurance company and they confirmed that the old car and new one would both be covered all day on the date of purchase (the dealer was taking the old car in part exchange).