Mmm… not to my mind.
Offering a car for sale, which is known to need a new clutch… and refusing to do that until a Buyer is found… is not normal at all…
A Prospective Buyer/Interested Person… should be able to take a vehicle for a Test Drive.
This sounds as if the Seller is not prepared (or able) to spend money/time until a Buyer is hooked… which warns me well away from the Seller.
It would make me think twice as well.
I just think the whole thing is weird, how can it be révisé, require aucun frais and have a new CT if it needs a new clutch?
Just talked with OH… he says… insist on a Test Drive and see how the car feels to you…
If it is impossible to Test Drive… walk away… better still… run… 
Edit: he’s just come back in the room, saying… no, keep away, it all smells “off”
It seems to me that the poster has already convinced himself to buy this vehicle and is looking for confirmation from others. You have been warned, now it’s up to you. The idea that a vehicle will only be made roadworthy if a buyer steps forward is nonsense and no reputable garage should behave in such a way…IMHO of course.
No I haven’t convinced myself to buy it I am looking for info from people who may have knowledge of buying a car in France I am just unsure if that was the norm for a garage to say that I don’t know
Hi Mark
Plenty of people using words like… not normal… odd… risky… walk away… weird… odd…
I would listen to them if I was you. There must be other cars available. Why take the risk?
This thread reminds me of this:
I would suggest you agree to purchase subject to test driving once the clutch has been repaired. If is has an automatic gearbox ask to see invoices as proof of gearbox oil changes etc. as a lot of people don’t realise that automatic gearboxes require servicing. If in any doubt walk away.
Hi Richard and welcome to SF. Automatic cars don’t have a clutch, in the conventional sense. They have a torque converter.
Well I am normally quite suspicious and risk averse but I have to say I don’t see anything weird or particularly dodgy here.
Maybe you could check out the dealer’s other for sale ads but a likely explanation is that he buys cars at auction, does them up and sells them on. He probably has quite a wide stock and rapid turnover, so adopts a policy of fixing each vehicle as and when he finds a buyer, rather than guessing which car will sell next because sods law whichever car he mends first will sit on the forecourt for six months, and it will always be the car he hasn’t got round to yet that someone wants to buy. Seems a sensible way of prioritising your work and keeping your cash flowing, no?
I don’t see anything weird in the wording of the ad, he is saying that when the buyer collects it will have had a new clutch, a new CT and a service and will be ready to drive away, with a 3 month guarantee if required. Véronique is determined to ignore the word “vendu” but it seems perfectly clear to me that what he is saying is that this is how it will be when it is vendu, he is telling you what work needs to be done before it is sold.
So if I was interested in this car I would go and have a chat.
But I realise I am swimming against the tide on this one.
Well how about he agrees to buy it if it passes its CT? Presumably it won’t pass the CT unless it has the clutch changed and he will have all the other stuff on the CT checked too.
“Vendu revisé: embrayage neuf” to a normal Fr person means that the revision HAS BEEN done and that the clutch is new, it doesn’t mean it WILL BE yadda yadda.
Seeing I am a littéraire and not up on car salesperson’s jargon I have checked with other Fr people by asking the question " Tu vois cette annonce, qu’est-ce que ça veut dire à ton avis?" so not a leading question… and got the answer I put above, along with a ‘why are you asking, you must be a bit dim’ shrug and eye-roll.
Hi Richard and welcome to the forum…
Could you please amend your Registration page to show your full name… or put it here and I will amend it for you…
cheers
Hello Stella,
I thought I had put my full name in, it is Richard Eakin.
Kind regards
OK, but still, I beg to differ. Why put “vendu” in that case, why not just put revisé, embrayage neuf etc.
I’ve seen this many times on ads on leboncoin, especially with the CT - how can they promise it will be a new CT at the time of sale, if they’ve already had it done and they don’t know how long it will be before it sells? if it doesn’t sell for a month the CT would be a month old.
I am not particularly up on car sales jargon either but I have always trawled the cheaper end of the car ads, and that is where this tends to crop up. And I have bought cars on this basis - the last one I bought, it needed new tyres and the upholstery was ratty, and the dealer agreed he would put on new tyres and replace the front seats and get it tested. He was as good as his word and the car has served me well for 4 years now, for the princely sum of 1,500€.
HI Anna
I’m glad you got a good deal.
Many of us do have experience in the car sales jargon
In the end… it is up to any Buyer to make a decision… we have been asked what we think of the situation and we have replied… 
I agree with Anna that this advert rings no alarm bells. If you google KARL ASSELOT SARL N° SIREN 513071035 you will see that it’s an independent repair and servicing garage, established in 2011, with an associated body shop, which also deals in second hand vehicles.
Many people buying a twelve year old car are prepared to do some work on it themselve, so giving them an option to replace the clutch themselves and save €500 is fair.
The clutch is maybe only just beginning to slip so it might still be drivable enough to be road tested. But if the seller is prepared to offer a three month guarantee after a new clutch has been fitted, its likely that the rest of the mechanics are OK.
I think it could well be worth a look. IMHO you could haggle the clutch price but you shouldn’t buy it without a guarantee.
It might be legit but you could equally flip it and suggest that if the vendor isn’t willing to sort the issue before a test drive he might know something about the vehicle that he’d rather you didn’t and wants to get someone firmly hooked into buying it before investing any time and/or money himself.
Or, as Anna says he could just have a lot of things on the boil and wants to prioritise his time.
However the last time I bought a car with something the vendor promised to fix before I picked it up the work wasn’t done properly and ultimately never got done so I would be pretty wary in this situation.
He’s an established business. He’s prepared to put a guarantee on the car. Unlike when you buy a car from a private individual there are strict laws to protect customers from rogue car dealers and also from substandard repair work. Arfur Daley wouldn’t stay in business long in France. In my experience, garages here really do want happy customers, they care about their reputation and giving good service and the image of their profession. I can’t imagine any garage expecting a customer to buy a car without taking it for a test drive first, where on earth did that notion come from??? He’s been in business for 8 years, he must have sold hundreds of cars, he knows what customers expect and he surely knows they don’t buy cars without driving them first. Don’t forget there has to be trust on both sides not just the customer’s. He has to believe that you are in good faith, you’re not a tyre kicker or a time waster and you do genuinely intend to buy the car after he has fixed it. You have to believe that he is an honest person and a competent mechanic. If you’re not prepared to trust him then there’s no point following it up.
Sorry for the rant but to me the guy has been clear and honest and professional in the ad, he’s even giving the option of paying an extra 500€ for the peace of mind of a 3 month guarantee on a 12 year old car with 174k on it, and if I was him and I read some of the comments above I would be disheartened/angry/sad/take your pick. Most business people have professional pride and it can’t be nice when people who know nothing at all about you, decide that you should be avoided like a bad smell.
Of course it’s up to the OP to decide. Although TBH I’m rather hoping that the car has been sold already.
If he’s a dealer he bought the vehicle expecting to sell it - either knowing or discovering that it needed a new clutch to pass the CT. If he didn’t think that he would sell the vehicle he would not have bought it.
So, he knows he will sell it, he knows he needs to put the clutch in, it’s not that much money and we’re only talking about timing - he’s not, as far as I can see offering to sell it without a new clutch (just without a warranty, if you don’t want to cough up for that).
Why not just get on with the work you know will be inevitable anyway?