What price a 1998 30,000 mile 20VT?

I've seen one advertised. 1 owner, Genuine 30,000 miles with recent cambelt and clutch. It has AC and leather.
Any idea what the going price should be for this as the garage is asking £4,500.
Thanks

imho that's about £1k too much. i know it's low mileage and all that and it appears to be properly maintained. for less than half that i'd go either for porkypauls well-sorted 20vt or the red le that's just been put on for £4k

disclaimer - i'm the worst judge of cars in the history of mankind, my bank will testify to this

Hmm 12 years of never warming up stop start little trips? Hence the need for a clutch I expect.

Mileage is irrelevant really. Condition and history is everything. For that price it needs to be absolutely mint in every way, including every service invoice and old MoT. And that really should be the third cambelt since new that's just been fitted.

Glad to see we agree as I think it's about £1000 too much. It is a garage mind so that increases the price.

If it's local ie by the sea, not used much, then hidden rust might be a real issue.

Check the bolt-on panel that runs under the radiator: if it's solid and rustfree then the car's a goodun.

And I'll eat my hat.

Is that the yellow one from the Channel Islands by any chance?

No it's Portofino Blue one for sale in Leatherhead.

Reckon about 1.5k too much. As others have said don't get drawn in just because the miles are low. What has been replaced is more important as age is just as hard as use.

I wouldnt say 1.5K too much, maybe 1K too much, at the most.
I remember seeing pics of this on another thread and the interior looked brand new!
Regardless of how many new cambelts it should of had, at least it has a new one now, plus a new clutch.

Definately worth a look and test drive, then let him smell 3.5K cash, wave it under his nose.

I wouldn't pay that much for a standard 20VT if it came with free porn..........correct me if I'm wrong but the average mileage for coops on this site is probably around 100,000 and if you buy a 20VT from a forum memebr who's looked after it, it will be better than something thats only done 30,000.

Decent well looked after 20VT's on this forum go for around £3k which in my opinion is a much better investment.

Your wrong as...
you're presuming that;
(a)Just because the owner isn't on the forum
and
(b)Just because it's low milage,
that the car hasn't been looked after.

This coupe could well have been looked after with the upmost care (warmed up,well serviced,oil changed every year,belts done etc).
To discount it without knowlage of it's past would be a mistake.
It could be a little gem .
The coupe can handle low annual milage without any problems.All that is needed is some basic care.
My current annual milage is 1100 Miles.
As more owners use the coupe as a second car(and fuel prices keep rising) this will become more the norm.

Second hand values will always continue be affected by milage and condition.
I do however agree that ,for a coupe, low milage would add very little in cash value and thats what makes it worth a look .

Anyway the porn stash my be in the spare wheel well !!!Again....worth a look


If the stash is included £3000 about right

So it seems that the concensus is around £3000 - £3500?
I can't imagine he'd drop 50% but maybe £3500 is worth an ask.
I guess you have to take into account that it has had cambelt / clutch so these shouuldn't need doing for quite a while.
I agree that PorkyPauls would be a better bet but that went pretty sharpish!

The point I was actually making is that a sorted 100,000 mile cope from this forum that has been looked after correctly is a better investement than a car thats done 30000 and hasn;t been. I'm not suggesting this one hasn;t been looked after, obviously the person buying would investigate this.

Dont presume to presume what other people are presuming

Just because a coupe is sold via this forum from a member, doesnt mean it will be better than a non-forum owned coupe.

I wouldn't presume to presume what presumptions you are making, as that would just mean I was being presumptuous.
And I'm the last person you would presume is acting presumptuously.
At least thats what I think you presume.

Anyway I just think many on here are too quick to presume that low milage coupes have somehow been badly maintained.
And that the coupe somehow suffers from lack of use.

Driving the coupe after a few weeks away makes it such fun and is the cheapest way of making your car feel faster.

A well looked after 30,000 mile coupe will always be worth more than a similar 100,000 mile car.
And the hidden porn stash would just be the icing on the cake, what ever the milage

Amen to that

Also just to confirm...I'm not saying that a coupe from the forum will always be better than a coupe outside of the forum.....I'm actually agreeing with the main point that mileage doesnt matter...its all about how the car has been looked after. We dont know if this 30000 mile car has been well maintained or badly maintained. If its been well maintained then its still way overpriced....if it doesnt have much history then I would go back to my original OPINION (Which I believe i'm entitled to) I would rather have a 100000 mile coop from a forum member who has lovingly looked after the car and has a working knowledge of how to properly maintain the car, rather than a 30000 mile coop that I dont know much about.

OK. DJMOBI, What do you think is the going rate for a Well Maintained 30,000 Mile 20VT in Portofino Blue?, remembering this is from a garage and has had a recent cambelt and clutch?

A well looked after 30,000 mile Coupe is a better bet and more valuable than a well looked after 100,000 mile Coupe. Whether it's on it's 2nd or 3rd set of belts is irrelevant in my view.

If it's mint in every way I would say £4000.

mines coming up to 16,000 and i can tell you this much...

you ll still have to spend on it,and lots !

For the record, the only reason I mentioned that it should be on it's 3rd belt is because IF it had its second belts at the right time, 6 yrs ago, that proves it's been maintained 'money no object' which counts towards mintness in my book.

If it's been left for 12 years until that 1st belt change then it hasn't been maintained how I'd like it to have been anyway.

Anyway, impossible to value until you jack it up, get underneath and check for rust like I also said.

Could be anywhere 2-4.5k depending on all this.

This now appears to be on ebay.

http://tinyurl.com/32pdnka

If it's been in a garage and driven for pleasure on sunny days I'd go close to 4K, if I was buying.

If it's been used for driving to work half a mile away every morning, I'd not value it more than a 130k car.

The fact the clutch has been done does suggest the latter imo. If it had a picture of thre drivers bolster you'd get a better idea of which it was - short journeys rag it getting in and out just as much as long journeys.

WOW, This is a one owner car with 30,000 miles on the clock.
Plus is STANDARD spec

It looks a minter and the owner must have been a coupe fan to keep it for so long.

Still it is a lot of cash,so its for someone who really, really,really wants a clean standard car.

Also it is Porto-pinko

it does look mint but still not worth £4.5k IMO......may £3.5k

buy a turbo you know you would like one really

Thats a great picture in your sig

I was going to view and offer £3.5K but on speaking to the garage they say they have changed the belt and clutch but not the water pump !(penny pinching?).
Perhaps more importantly, they haven't got the red key but said they keep meaning to chase the previous owner for it.
At this sort of money I'd expect both of these do be addressed

I've been watching that one too, seeing as it's closeish to me and I like Porto blue.
But I think it's overpriced as well, I'm waiting for it to come back on the market at a more reasonable price after the dealer realises it's too much too..

Red key is usually, and I stress *usually* unimportant for a coupé, but you are correct it is a great bargaining tool. You can argue that to get Fiat to replace the system involved can cost well over £1k. Of course, the cheaper option, if it really bothered you, is to buy the system from one of our breakers for a maximum of a couple of hundred pounds.

What would concern me far more is the water pump not being replaced. They do fail, maybe not as often as other models (I'm thing VWs here!) but it isn't unknown, and of course, it's a full belt off job with the associated costs......

Makes you wonder why they did that, for the sake of saving £30-ish!!

Exactly what I was thinking.
Saving £30 and not putting a water pump on is crazy when trying to sell a car for that price.
When you say, A couple of hundred to fix the red key problem, I take it you just need the key and code box?

Keys, lock barrels, code box, ECU, is the usual package. Or, and possibly cheaper, not sure, is to get someone to recode it. I think TopT on here can do that sort of black magic stuff!

Because most people dont ask...

Well... Having sold a few Silly low milage bits over the years on e-bay personlay i think it would do between £4000-£5000 on there,

Just my opinion mind you but if it went down to £3000-3500 i would be tempted to buy it just to re-sell

Oh and a Mk2 Xr2 one owner E reg with 62k on it i had sold for £2600 just to put the "its only worth £3000" brigade back in line

Why, thank you very much!. It's my old steel grey under a tree in sunny weather.

I tried to buy Mr Fox's old coop, but got beaten to it!

It really is amazing how low coop prices have gotten. You can get such a nice example for 3k now - no wonder so many are just being broken. Shame really!