Nine out of 10 motorists said they do not bother checking a used car’s history before buying in a survey of RAC customers.
This lackadaisical attitude towards car history could potentially end up costing customers in the long run as, according to the RAC, approximately one in eight (12.6%) used cars that it checked had outstanding finance.
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A sample of 21,000 RAC Car Passport checks found that almost one quarter of used cars had something which used car buyers should know about.
The most common piece of history was a number plate change, which a quarter of all cars checked had received, while almost 10% (9.4%) had an insurance write off in their history. 24 cars were recorded as having been scrapped, while 10 of the 21,000 were stolen vehicles.
The RAC said 2.8m used cars were sold privately in 2014, at an average value of £2,465. The company extrapolated its figures to say that in 2014 £6.1bn worth of cars were bought with no history check.
In a separate survey, 33% of respondents said they decided not to purchase a car they were looking at based on information they received in their RAC Car Passport data check.
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By GlobalDataRAC Car Passport managing director Robert Diamond said: "These figures reveal the risks used-car buyers are taking by not obtaining a simple car data check to uncover any suspect history their intended purchase may be hiding. Buying a car can be a stressful experience because of the sums of money involved so it makes sense to find out as much as you can about a car’s history as it may just save you thousands of pounds."
