If you happen to have seen and got through my long-winded 'introduce yourself' post you will know that I am planning to buy a Skoda Octavia Vrs (and am concerned about the business with the ESP/ABS).

There's one at the local garage: 2006, 43k mile, about £9k asking price. But as far as I could see it has had just 2 services (one at 19k, the other at 35k). Is that usual? Others I have seen were serviced at 10k or yearly intervals as I would expect. The dealer is servicing it before sale, including changing the cambelt, so perhaps it's all fine.

The other concern is that the previous owner had lost the V5 doc. There was also one quite ancient tyre and another that didn't match the others (different make and tread style). And a suggestion that the car sat around for 6 months of the year while the previous owner was abroad. All of this makes me wonder whether it has been cared for in the way it should have been. Given that it's at a Franchised dealer, with warranty and checks and so on, does any of this matter?

Whichever car I buy, I plan to keep it for several years, so I'd like to get a decent one if I can. On the other hand, I'd just like to get one and get out driving it, even if it's not perfect.

Being a franchised dealer means very little really, if you have suspicions (and it seems you have a few!) then unless the car is really cheap to reflect any less than perfect care, then walk away and find another.

I looked at a few Fabia vRS's but detached myself as I know I can get carried away - I used to work in the trade years ago and I was very good helping other people buy cars but got carried away myself. Anyway, I found a few cars with good history, but perhaps needing some paintwork correction which could have been perfectly decent cars, but only at the right price. This time I managed not to get swept along and when the dealers didn't want to see sense and have a deal, I walked away.

The servicing intervals seem about right for the car being on variable servicing intervals so this should not be an issue. Just check with the dealer to make sure it is on the variable servicing regime (this is every 2 years or upto 19k depending on driving style/type).

Thanks for the replies.

Excuse my ignorance, but is servicing interval a feature of an individual car (like parking sensors, say)? I mean, is it the case that two cars of the same model and age could be on different servicing intervals, one variable and another not? If so, I wasn't expecting that: I assumed that all cars of a given model and age would be on the same service schedule.

They could be set to variable or fixed (10k or 1 year). I believe a different oil is used for variable servicing. Which your car was set too when bought new would depend on the intended use and also the dealer. A lot got set to fixed due to people distrusting the potential long period between services. I have had both mine set to fixed.

The service schedule sounds correct for a car on variable service intervals. A new car can be set at PDI stage to either a fixed annual or variable mileage schedule. On variable schedule, long-life synthetic oil is used and the car determines the interval to the next service, taking into account things like the use the car is getting and the quality of the oil. As I do plenty of motorway miles, I've chosen to have my car on variable service, so would expect to have it serviced every 15-19k miles.

I'd be more interested in why the dealer does not have the V5 - it's simple to apply for a replacement. Always suspicious if a dealer won't show the V5 - did it have 28 owners, or was it a hire car?!

I don't think there's anything suspicious regarding the missing v5: a replacement has been ordered, I'm told. The car was taken in part-ex and the seller simply couldn't find it.

However, it is a piece of evidence to suggest that the car has not been in safe hands. The last car we bought was a private sale from a retirement age gent who had every receipt and document and a list of when every item had been replaced. It's been faultless so far. Now that I understand the variable servicing better, it would appear that the opportunity exists to chose variable servicing without fulfilling the requirements, so that a careless or neglectful person could opt for variable to save money without realising or bothering to use the right oil and so on.

Maybe it doesn't matter that much but since there is really no need for me to take the first or nearest car that comes along, I'll give it some thought.