All,

As always thank you for the great advice found here—really invaluable.

So, I have a conundrum (in a good way). I’m looking to purchase another Aston and have found two cars that fit the bill. One is at an Aston dealership, the other (same make/model and nearly identical miles) at a non-Aston but exotic car dealership that does service (relatively close by . . . maybe 45 minutes away from the Aston dealer). Both are in the Northeast US.

How would the group’s wisdom approach pre-purchase inspections? I’d think an Aston service department would provide the best PPI but there’s also an obvious conflict of interest in a) evaluating their own cars and b) evaluating a near-by competitor’s car knowing they have a similar model for sale too.

Does anyone have recommendations for a PPI that is more of a third party that has some knowledge or expertise in these cars? And could examine both cars without any obvious conflicts?



Again, many thanks for everyone's input.

 

Let each evaluate the other party's car. The results should be fascinating.

 

Have a third party evaluate both cars. They should be able to give you an independent comparison of the two. Don't discount your own opinion. Your writing the check !
Good luck!

 

TorqueChap,

Indeed--I thought of that purely for the entertainment value of watching things descend quickly into chaos!! Unfortunately, I really like both cars but don't want to purchase without some sort of expert opinion (nor burn a whole bunch of bridges in the process!).

If anyone has recommendations for a third party in the Philadelphia/NYC area I'd appreciate it.

 

So what are the cars you found? Model, year, options etc. just curious but may help on decision.

 

Hi V12V.

There's two V12Vs at Miller Motorsports--a 2011 Carbon Black with 2K miles and a silver one with 9K miles. The silver one has a branded title (Aston bought the car back and replaced engine) but that just seems like trouble waiting to happen so I'm not seriously considering that unless the price was incredible. Miller is asking $135K which I think is insane given the car's history (12-pages of service issues beyond the engine issue) and mileage.

There's also a silver 2012 V12V (also with 2K miles) at Interstate Motorsports.

I haven't looked at either car yet but will probably do so this week.

I currently have a 2011 N420 V8V manual (4K miles) which I'll likely sell privately. It's in great shape so I don't think it's worth trading given dealer trade-in values.

 

The problem is that I've heard too many stories of PPI's done by dealers that miss important things, and the certainly they don't guarantee anything, so I'm afraid that they are nothing more than a false sense of security.

Ideally, an independent mechanic that actually knows these cars would be best, but I don't know of any in this area. Alternately, you just have to go by the history and make sure you get a full coverage warranty in case there's any issues you discover after getting the car.

 

Very true. Pieter at Aston Martin of Washington DC sold me a car with a leaking timing cover. Called them the next day to report the problem but they refused to fix it. So much for their PPI.

Don't trust anyone in this business.