Now the spotlight’s on ex-driving school cars

Question why would a car used by a driving school be presumed to have been abused? The obvious perception is that because it has been used by many different learners it must be in pretty poor shape. But hold on, does this mean that learner drivers are taking these cars without any supervision and thrashing them around town centres music blaring, doing donuts and running them into the ground? Of course it doesn’t. It must have been quiet for news lately because, according to the Daily Telegraph yesterday, buyers are now being ripped off not only by dealers selling ex-rental cars at inflated prices, but now ex-driving school cars as well. The point is that, presumably any driving instructor will be responsible for ensuring that the car he trains his pupils in is fit for purpose, because firstly it needs to perform its duties and secondly if it breaks down or is substandard he won’t get many clients. So if you think about your average learner driver out trying to pass their test they are hardly going to be thrashing the car and even if they are a bit hard on the clutch, the instructor always has dual control of the car.

Why is it that just when there is a feel good factor around the trade does someone see fit to assume that dealers are able to rip people off by charging a premium for anything other than privately owned car. Clearly as long as a used car – and remember they are all totally unique – is sold exactly as the dealer states then where is the problem? The fact that a car that may have been used by a driving school may not even have been made aware to the selling dealer, if the car is bought at auction they won’t say before they put the car on sale that it is an ex-rental or ex-driving school car they will just say how many owners are in the log book. Because the buyer buys the car on the strength of the information produced about the car including servicing, mileage verification and condition report and these are ultimately the only things that matter.

So if the car is exactly as the dealer described it to a customer it is worth exactly the same as a privately owned car.