I bought Kia Rio for £350 thinking I couldn’t lose… but it was disaster & cost me £100s – how to avoid same mistake
A MOTORS expert who bought a Kia Rio for £350 but ended up costing him hundreds has told drivers how to avoid the same mistake.
Matthew Goodwin from High Peak Autos has made a living off of buying cars cheap, doing them up and selling for a profit – but sometimes things don’t always go to plan.
In his most recent video on the High Peak Autos YouTube channel, Matt revealed to viewers that he’d bought a second-hand Kia Rio for just £350.
Averaging a market price of £2,776 and having racked up just 77,000 miles, the 1.4l South Korean motor looked to be an absolute bargain buy.
“I always get excited by this stuff because I can’t really go wrong,” Matt said.
“At £350, if it’s a complete nail I can scrap it and get close to my money back, or if there’s a little bit of life left in it, I can sell it for profit.
“So there’s really very little risk – I’ve got nothing to lose.”
He added: “On paper, it just sounds too good to scrap.”
Upon first glance, Matt instantly noticed it was a 2 Spec model due to its alloys and the vehicle in general appeared to be in good condition.
One of the wingmirrors had cracked glass, the other was being held together with a clamp and there was even a dent in the bonnet – yet there was nothing major that couldn’t be fixed.
Even after giving it a test drive, Matt was fairly confident on the condition of his brand new purchase.
“I’m going to try and save this one, I think, unless it’s completely beyond repair,” he said.
But as soon as Matt took the five-door hatchback down to his mechanic, it was bad news.
The motors expect had previously shown viewers the MOT history of the vehicle and although it wasn’t great, he still didn’t expect things to be quite so bad.
Upon further testing, the Kia Rio came back with at least five major defects and was advised not to be driven until it was repaired.
The door mirror, brake discs, service brake, brake pipes and suspension arm all needed to be fixed immediately.
Furthermore, the MOT also picked up on issues with a defective exhaust mounting, a rear exhaust heat shield, under body corrosion and split pin missing bottom ball joints.
It was clear the vehicle needed a lot of work done to it but having brought it for such little money, there wasn’t a chance Matt would make any profit on it.
With this in mind, he was forced to sell it for scrap – receiving a measly £210 in the process.
Having bought the vehicle for £350, Matt was in the minus by £140.
However, it motivated the motors expert to get rid of three of his other cars in the meantime, taking his scrap money total to £1,060
“This might not sound like good business,” Matt conceded, “but you can’t win them all – and you’ve got to have a clear out.
“It’s no good me just stacking all these cars up, I’m not going to do anything with them.
“I’d rather get the money back in and if I’m going to get a thousand pounds in, I can spend it on something else that will make two thousand pounds – and then I’ve broken even.”