2002 75 CDT 7k miles from new
 

I have am tempted by a 2002 75 2.0 CDT which has covered just 7000 miles (seven thousand) from new. One owner with service history. Emerald green with beige leather.
The car looks as new without a mark, the asking price is £7500.

I would welcome members comments and opinions as whether to buy it or not?

Happy new year to all.

Do you have pictures or a link to the car?

Sorry I dont have any photos or a link, the vendor does not wish to advertise the car for the moment, I heard of it by word of mouth.

My first reaction was that £7500 is clearly a lot of cash for a 75, but on reflection it seems good value for what is almost a new car.

Just a word of caution but inactivity can mean low mileage cars can be problematic with parts ceasing and wheels becoming oval if stood for too long.
It's a lot of money to part with for a 20 year old car and you have no guarantee it will be trouble free.

It's your call but to put it in to perspective I recently purchased a 10 year old mint Jaguar XF top spec for £7k. You can buy an awful lot of car for this budget. I hope I'm not putting you off, it's your money and I'm sure you will make the decision that is right for you. Good luck

It is strong money, but given your location, prices are always higher than here in the UK.

No-one can do anything except express our opinions from our perspective. I won't do that here because I'm not you.:xmas-smiley-008:

If you know you don't have the technical assessment abilities to the extent that you'd be sure beyond reasonable doubt it's the car for you, take someone with you who has. Then either with your own or their assessment, you can take that into account in deciding whether you should buy it or not.

As I'm sure you know, the value of anything is what someone will pay for it. If it's an amazing car, and you can afford it, and you consider the price acceptable either because you reasonably assess you'll get your money back or if not, you don't care - then buy it and enjoy it. Or negotiate.

Those are the main elements I use to make my assessments. You also have the added element of living in Brittany so that also may influence your decision-making.

This opportunity probably won't come by again.
Having just bought an excellent MGR car from Europe the price doesn't sound out of line. Is the car LHD?
Just make sure you give it a careful inspection, and plan on investing on a major service unless supporting documents show it has been done recently.

To find such a low mileage, perfect condition diesel nowadays is possibly unique, so deep down you probably know already what you want to do.

I never get too worried about replacing age related items, after all, a new set of tyres can be fitted in a tyre shop in about an hour - with absolutely no effort from you, and you then have the benefit of nice new rubber for many years to come. You could buy a worn out 150k Fiesta and it'll need the same...

Equally, there may be other odds & ends to replace, but at that mileage I can't see it being excessive and you'll be left with possibly one of, if not the, lowest mileage diesels still in existence.

Yes, you could spend your money elsewhere on something half it's age, but we all know how incredibly complicated and expensive more modern cars are, with ridiculous electronic/electric systems that end up being the very reason the car gets scrapped far too early, whereas everything you could possibly want to know about 75's is documented here and nothing is truly expensive on these cars.

So my opinion would be to check the bodywork over very carefully for any previous repairs (always nice to know), drive it and make sure everything is as it should be, check service history, keys, tools, spare, etc etc. and then have a chat about price (if it needs a set of tyres, etc.)

Good luck !

It is always going to be a balance between age and mileage. I would be more prepared to spend £7.5k on a 75 CDT with 7000 miles than a 10 year old XF with 100k+ miles for the simple reason that the former would be equally special but is likely to prove far cheaper to run per mile over the next 10 years and 100k miles.

Given the accumulated knowledge, the 75 CDT is a very cheap car to run and maintain by the standard of modern cars yet is rather special.

Looking at the car market as it is at the moment I would say its about right if it is as good as it sounds. The day of the £1500 car with 12months MOT and less than 30k miles on it are gone or are over at the moment. £3k is Fiesta money with 100k on the clock and £5k is boring Eurobox with 50k on it.
On the downside Diesels are bad news in some places at the moment so depending on where you live and places you visit might be a problem.