Car Scams and fraudulent delaers
A cautionary tale. Please to all ex pats or anyone not familiar with buying cars in Qatar. There are 3 brothers (Jordanians) selling Jeep Cherokees and very attractive prices. The come across as kind and friendly but they are not. They will sell you a lemon of a car with more faults that you could imagine. I was foolish enough to trust them, even the technical center was in on it. Only bought the car 45 days ago and i have had to replace so many things and spent in excess of QAR 10,000. No help no assistance from the sellers and no acknowledgment of responsibility.
Please stay clear of them, i wont post their names on here even though i am tempted to but if you think you may be engaging with them to buy a car and i will provide physical descriptions.
Last point. please please avoid the German technical centre,i have since been to 3 different service centre including Jeep and Fahes (were it failed with 8 Major issues) and everyone of them have commented on German Centre, these issues should have been found.
Since moving to Qatar three years, I had been under the impressions that the German Computer Centers were reliable for getting used cars comprehensively checked out prior to purchasing. I am not so sure anymore.
I went to a German Computer Center (industrial area location) a month ago to have my own 2004 vehicle checked to see what I should get fixed/replaced to ensure I can get a few more years of reliable operation out of the vehicle, as I just have a feeling it is time to start replacing certain parts(water pump, oil pump, belt pulleys, etc.). The original alternator had just started faltering, and I had managed to replace it preemptively before a tow-truck would have been needed. This made me start thinking about other preemptive repairs.
I have a few reliable-enough garages I use for actual repairs, but when I have asked them to make a comprehensive check, there was never a need for anything out of the ordinary. I thought German Technical Center might do a better job at making a comprehensive check. They did suggest some things that made sense, things that none of the other garages had mentioned (mainly replacement of seals and gaskets). But they first wanted to charge me 750 QR to do the check, which made me question their integrity. They finally did the check for 250 QR, but I don't think I will ever be returning to German Technical Center for anything, as they did seem rather sketchy.
Are there certain garages recommended for comprehensive checks prior to buying used vehicles? I had thought that German Computer Center was the place to go, but no more.
Sadly the seller was driving, we went to one of the German Technical centers on the Salwa road, also on reflection after all this realized one of the brothers was already at the centre i didn't think of anything at the time.But i recognized him after all was agreed. I asked the centre multiple times is there any Major issues and they said no only minor things about QAR500 of repair. I am not going to pretend that i am a car specialist but paying for a technical centre report and expecting a well know centre like the German company to be legit cannot be asking to much. hence why i am sharing my experience. And you are right in this country they dont care and have zero wish to regulate this. I am not the only one. The best advice i have been given so far is when buying a used car only buy cars owned from western ex-pats. While this type of profiling disgusts me it seems that the majority that have been conned have been conned by Egyptians or Jordanian.
Did you choose the shop that did the pre-sale inspection or did the seller? If the seller, i would have walked away then. Anyone familiar with buying a used car anywhere in the world knows there is no recourse to the seller under the circumstances you described.