Last week I had to do an inspection on a Volvo car that was in a garage for sale at 15000 euro. The buyer was from Cork and had seen and approved it, but he was suspicious of the very low mileage: a diesel, 2011, with only 20,000 miles. The car was in mint condition. I went to the car and started it but, it started on 3 cylinders only. I immediately stopped the engine and went back to the salesman and I asked him to come over and start the car himself which he did. The car was still on 3 cylinders. He said there was nothing wrong with it. I took it for a test drive. The car was totally gutless, but after I took it for about a half an hour of driving it started to run reasonably ok. The car was such a stunning example of a car otherwise that it was worth tryings to find a solution for the rough running. In total I spent about an hour and a half trying to sort out the problem. However, the garage insisted that there was nothing wrong with the car. This is an example of the type of things that garages try to get away with. They would have been very happy to sell the  car in its current condition knowing full well that it was not running right. It seems obvious now that the reason the 6 year old car only had 20000 miles was because it wasn’t running right. This is not the first time I’ve come across this type of thing and buyers should be aware that just because they are buying a car from a garage it does not mean it’s a perfect car. Anybody buying a used car should have the car independently checked. By doing so the potential buyer of the above car saved themselves a lot of grief and torment. A warranty is not much use in this case my client did not buy it, but somebody else did.