New Nissan Primera owner...soon

Hello mate and welcome along.

P12 dCi buying watchouts:
Careful if there is anything suspicious about the idle, especially when cold, e.g. hunting, rising and falling without touching anything. Can indicate dodgy SCV which is about £200 fitted.

Turbos are a known problem area. Not really much early warning, although things like loss of power around 3000-4000 rpms especially in 3rd or 4th is an indication something isnt right. It will whistle from cold but if its still really loud when hot then its probably worth getting it checked out.

Very important! Anything wrong with the display make sure you get it in writing that they will sort it out before you pay for it! The same goes for the audio and the sat nav. It can all be very expensive to put right - a display unit is in the region of £1500 from Nissan, cd player is £150 and I don't wanna guess on the sat nav. Bear in mind the display unit also controls the aircon, radio, satnav etc so its vital to the working of the car.

I'd expect decent service history on something as young as a 54 reg. Regular oil changes (less than 8K miles) is a good thing as turbos like clean oil.

Make sure you get a test drive, there will be a little bit of lag but should get smooth power after that all the way up to about 4000 when it starts to drop off.

Then theres all the usual stuff with any used car.

If I think of any more I'll add them on but those are the main scary points to watch out for.

Edit - Damn pipped to the post by a moderator As Shaun says they petrol ones are pretty bomb proof but then you do have the higher tax to worry about (2L one is gonna be £400 next year!). For the record in my dCi I get a solid 45mpg on day to day driving and that includes a regular thrash on the motorway slip roads.

Thanks for the info, I have now been and seen a few and have put a deposit on an dark grey/silver 05 plate DCi in SVE spec with full leather. I pick it up on Thursday so am well excited. I paid 6200 plus put in my old L reg passat, think I  got a good deal, let me know what you think.

welcome along and nice to see another p12 owner on its way in here