Buying a car

RaymondLin

Not to be pessimistic but I am seeing old habit creeping in and this sentence earlier today has already going on the window

”no longer care.  I will pick the closest standard car - focus, fiesta, golf, whatever, that's under two grand and get it regardless of colour etc.  I will get it today.  I just need wheels - of any description.  As long as it's got a long MOT and doesn't stink of fags, I'm getting it”

the MX5 ticked every box in the criteria?

Preferably private seller (lost all faith in the trade), under two grand (2.5 tops), long MOT, within ten miles of SA4 3AB / Swansea.  Don't care what it is but I would like a reasonable chance of selling it on at some point.

i know it’s a 2 seater and it’s small but it can carry more than taking the bus.

do you need 4 seats? If so, please state your criteria and please stick to it, because it would be a waste of time for us to find something if you keep changing the rules.

Besides, the pool is tiny, only 15 cars left.

Revolting1

Emp_Fab said:

I've spent a total of £110 on train fares.  The MX5 premium is ten times that!, so it's the other way around actually. 

I don't want a two-seater sports car - it's utterly useless for carrying gear to gigs in for one thing.  Besides, that particular one has been on Autotrader for at least 3 or 4 weeks now.  If it's so good, why hasn't it sold in that time ?

I know you all love the MX5 but - I need a normal car.  That Volvo is tempting - I've done a bit of digging and the CAT problem is often down to a faulty O2 sensor (about £40).  I would prefer something I don't need to get underneath straight away though, but at £250, I might take a look.

I've just LOLd at an ad that says "(Peugeot 206 CC) Needs new home......  and clutch and gearbox."  

Emp_Fab

WTF is going on here ?.....

This car is £300, 160,000 miles and for sale by Stacey...
https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volvo-quick-sale-/1346693879

The exact same car, same registration.... is also for sale by Ashley, except now it's £100 dearer and seems to have lost 60,000 miles !! https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volvo-s40-/1347831448

Revolting1

Comiserations Emp,I'd haveve been very angry with that dealer too in your position..

 

Re the volvo

   If a blocked cat is the problem I've seen them sucessfully cleared in the past with a very high volume compressor

 (blown from the back after being removed)

  Symptoms of a blocked cat- car very slow -won't rev out in higher gears,otherwise very similar to limp mode.

   

    Hope this helps.

Revolting1

Sorry Emp post got bysected

Emp_Fab

RaymondLin said:

do you need 4 seats? If so, please state your criteria and please stick to it, because it would be a waste of time for us to find something if you keep changing the rules.

Awww come on - making a single change, once, to my requirements is hardly "keep changing the rules" is it ?

OK - my requirements are:-

A normal* hatchback / saloon
3 or 5 door (prefer 5, but won't reject 3 if it's a decent car)
£2.5K max
Must have at least 6 months MOT (and not have a impending list of advisories for corrosion)
Must not smell of fags or kippers
Must be working and not in need of any immediate repairs.
Anything else is a bonus.

*Normal: No Boy Racer hot hatches with lowered suspension and stickers, no 3.5L V8's, monster trucks, Mazda MX5's, 45 year old Porsches, Rolls-Royces or Jensen Interceptors.

Just a normal car like 95% of them.

That's not an unreasonable list of requirements is it ?

Fretwired

A 434K Skoda ... watch the vids .. there are more

TTony

Emp_Fab said:

WTF is going on here ?.....

This car is £300, 160,000 miles and for sale by Stacey...
https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volvo-quick-sale-/1346693879

The exact same car, same registration.... is also for sale by Ashley, except now it's £100 dearer and seems to have lost 60,000 miles !! https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volvo-s40-/1347831448

Jeez Emp, it’s obvious, surely?

Ashley invested some £££s, got the mileage adjusted, and so has increased the price to cover that cost.  Sounds perfectly reasonable.

Shock, horror, ads on Gumtree can be as misleading as approved dealers.  


I get the impression that you didn’t bother reading my last post and that you’re still completely internet focussed.  

Thats OK, your call.  Good luck.  I’d maybe do just the same if I wanted to waste my time,  If I wanted to buy a car, I’d get OFFline and go talk to some dealers, look at some cars, drive a few ... and pick one.

cm01

I would have snapped that MX5 up if I was in Wales instead of Oz ... mind you, the Fiesta I bought back on page 5 of this thread is going great 

gubble

Fretwired said:

My neighbour had a new Audi - just as bad. His car was off the road for over week at one point - he's just traded it in for a new car.

Only a week? That's not bad my 2018 Audi is currently in the garage, took them a week to diagnose the problem, another week to try and fix it, and now it's going to take a further two weeks to get the parts they think they need to fix it.

I'm working my way through their courtesy cars. They initially gave me an A4 that only did 25mpg which isn't much use when my Audi is a PHEV so i now have a Q3 Diesel until they need that back and give me something different.

This is the fourth problem needing fixing under warranty in less than 12 months. It's put me off the brand completely

RaymondLin

gubble said:

Fretwired said:

My neighbour had a new Audi - just as bad. His car was off the road for over week at one point - he's just traded it in for a new car.

Only a week? That's not bad my 2018 Audi is currently in the garage, took them a week to diagnose the problem, another week to try and fix it, and now it's going to take a further two weeks to get the parts they think they need to fix it.

I'm working my way through their courtesy cars. They initially gave me an A4 that only did 25mpg which isn't much use when my Audi is a PHEV so i now have a Q3 Diesel until they need that back and give me something different.

This is the fourth problem needing fixing under warranty in less than 12 months. It's put me off the brand completely

These stories are one reason why sometimes getting barely used cars are the way to go.

1 - The worst depreciation has already happened
2 - All these little niggle problems should have been ironed out under warranty

Emp_Fab

TTony said:

Emp_Fab said:

WTF is going on here ?.....

This car is £300, 160,000 miles and for sale by Stacey...
https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volvo-quick-sale-/1346693879

The exact same car, same registration.... is also for sale by Ashley, except now it's £100 dearer and seems to have lost 60,000 miles !! https://www.gumtree.com/p/volvo/volvo-s40-/1347831448

Jeez Emp, it’s obvious, surely?

Ashley invested some £££s, got the mileage adjusted, and so has increased the price to cover that cost.  Sounds perfectly reasonable.

Shock, horror, ads on Gumtree can be as misleading as approved dealers.  


I get the impression that you didn’t bother reading my last post and that you’re still completely internet focussed.  

Thats OK, your call.  Good luck.  I’d maybe do just the same if I wanted to waste my time,  If I wanted to buy a car, I’d get OFFline and go talk to some dealers, look at some cars, drive a few ... and pick one.

Whoaa.... don't be so quick to turn on me mate.....  I have a (very) full-time job.  It's only been 38 hours since I got off the train from Cornwall and I was ill with stress yesterday.  I'm in work right now too.

I'm "still completely internet focused" because that's ALL I HAVE right now !!  How exactly do you expect me to have done what you expect in the time window so far eh ?  Jesus.....  One minute you're all sympathy and hugs and then you're slagging me off for wasting time.  Besides - fuck the dealers - they're all crooks.  I've already said I'm buying privately.

RaymondLin

Seriously that MX-5 ticks every box and then some.  You were looking at a CR-Z or an SLK before, which doesn’t really hold much more than the MX-5 really.  With the roof down you can fit quite a bit in!

Bring a guitar and amp with you to see it and see if it fits.  Forget it’s been on sale for 4 weeks and not sold, it’s in Swansea, the end of the world for everyone else in the country, so perhaps they found one closer to home, except that one is 5miles from your house.

Also, being just on the market really doesn’t automatically mean it is better…remember how that one turned out in Cornwall.  

You can't apply some logic to car buying and not others.  The stress essentially comes from not being able to find a car, because of the very strict criteria, if you truly don't care what car then there really won't be any stress.  It's easy.

I don't find car buying stressful at all because both times I bought the 1st car I saw, first one lasted almost 6 years, 2nd one is over 3 years now.

digitalscream

To be fair...I was looking at cars under £2.5k in the Swansea area last night out of curiosity, and the choice really is pretty shit.

The solution, @Emp_Fab, is clearly to move somewhere closer to civilisation

Fretwired

RaymondLin said:

These stories are one reason why sometimes getting barely used cars are the way to go.

1 - The worst depreciation has already happened
2 - All these little niggle problems should have been ironed out under warranty

Mine was barely used. It was a showroom demo model - 9 months old. Immaculate and a lot cheaper than new. The problem is the complicated tech.

I now have a new problem - I have a new battery .. it's dead. I have a fault draining the battery. Back to the garage.

LastMantra

Should have got the bike. 

joneve

RaymondLin said:

gubble said:

Fretwired said:

My neighbour had a new Audi - just as bad. His car was off the road for over week at one point - he's just traded it in for a new car.

Only a week? That's not bad my 2018 Audi is currently in the garage, took them a week to diagnose the problem, another week to try and fix it, and now it's going to take a further two weeks to get the parts they think they need to fix it.

I'm working my way through their courtesy cars. They initially gave me an A4 that only did 25mpg which isn't much use when my Audi is a PHEV so i now have a Q3 Diesel until they need that back and give me something different.

This is the fourth problem needing fixing under warranty in less than 12 months. It's put me off the brand completely

These stories are one reason why sometimes getting barely used cars are the way to go.

1 - The worst depreciation has already happened
2 - All these little niggle problems should have been ironed out under warranty

Audi sound a lot like Nissan. We bought our X-Trail "nearly new" (18 months old ish), and had problems with it from day one basically. Start/Stop never worked for more than a day or two and had been back to various Nissan dealers twice to be sorted. 

We eventually took the decision to cut our losses and get rid (which ended up costing us money in the short term) before it fell out of warranty and we ran the risk of continued problems that would end up costing us money (and time, more importantly. I'd already lost at least 3 days pay because of breakdowns and having to arrange for the car to be taken into the main dealer)

As I've said, we've replaced with a Skoda, which is brand new. We got a good deal (nearly 6k off the list price of the car), which removes the VAT depreciation straight away. We'll still lose some depreciation, but we plan on it being a long-term car, so I'm not really too concerned with that at this point. 

If it's reliable as skoda have the reputation for (which I'm hoping!), we should have less headaches than we did with the X-Trail. 

TimmyO

....and the thread is back on track :-) 

RaymondLin

joneve said:

RaymondLin said:

gubble said:

Fretwired said:

My neighbour had a new Audi - just as bad. His car was off the road for over week at one point - he's just traded it in for a new car.

Only a week? That's not bad my 2018 Audi is currently in the garage, took them a week to diagnose the problem, another week to try and fix it, and now it's going to take a further two weeks to get the parts they think they need to fix it.

I'm working my way through their courtesy cars. They initially gave me an A4 that only did 25mpg which isn't much use when my Audi is a PHEV so i now have a Q3 Diesel until they need that back and give me something different.

This is the fourth problem needing fixing under warranty in less than 12 months. It's put me off the brand completely

These stories are one reason why sometimes getting barely used cars are the way to go.

1 - The worst depreciation has already happened
2 - All these little niggle problems should have been ironed out under warranty

Audi sound a lot like Nissan. We bought our X-Trail "nearly new" (18 months old ish), and had problems with it from day one basically. Start/Stop never worked for more than a day or two and had been back to various Nissan dealers twice to be sorted. 

We eventually took the decision to cut our losses and get rid (which ended up costing us money in the short term) before it fell out of warranty and we ran the risk of continued problems that would end up costing us money (and time, more importantly. I'd already lost at least 3 days pay because of breakdowns and having to arrange for the car to be taken into the main dealer)

As I've said, we've replaced with a Skoda, which is brand new. We got a good deal (nearly 6k off the list price of the car), which removes the VAT depreciation straight away. We'll still lose some depreciation, but we plan on it being a long-term car, so I'm not really too concerned with that at this point. 

If it's reliable as skoda have the reputation for (which I'm hoping!), we should have less headaches than we did with the X-Trail. 

Ironically a Skoda underneath is pretty much a lot of Audi !

joneve

RaymondLin said:

joneve said:

RaymondLin said:

gubble said:

Fretwired said:

My neighbour had a new Audi - just as bad. His car was off the road for over week at one point - he's just traded it in for a new car.

Only a week? That's not bad my 2018 Audi is currently in the garage, took them a week to diagnose the problem, another week to try and fix it, and now it's going to take a further two weeks to get the parts they think they need to fix it.

I'm working my way through their courtesy cars. They initially gave me an A4 that only did 25mpg which isn't much use when my Audi is a PHEV so i now have a Q3 Diesel until they need that back and give me something different.

This is the fourth problem needing fixing under warranty in less than 12 months. It's put me off the brand completely

These stories are one reason why sometimes getting barely used cars are the way to go.

1 - The worst depreciation has already happened
2 - All these little niggle problems should have been ironed out under warranty

Audi sound a lot like Nissan. We bought our X-Trail "nearly new" (18 months old ish), and had problems with it from day one basically. Start/Stop never worked for more than a day or two and had been back to various Nissan dealers twice to be sorted. 

We eventually took the decision to cut our losses and get rid (which ended up costing us money in the short term) before it fell out of warranty and we ran the risk of continued problems that would end up costing us money (and time, more importantly. I'd already lost at least 3 days pay because of breakdowns and having to arrange for the car to be taken into the main dealer)

As I've said, we've replaced with a Skoda, which is brand new. We got a good deal (nearly 6k off the list price of the car), which removes the VAT depreciation straight away. We'll still lose some depreciation, but we plan on it being a long-term car, so I'm not really too concerned with that at this point. 

If it's reliable as skoda have the reputation for (which I'm hoping!), we should have less headaches than we did with the X-Trail. 

Ironically a Skoda underneath is pretty much a lot of Audi !

Indeed! I don't get how VW and Audi can come so low down in reliability scores but Skoda are much nearer the top of the pops. Makes absolutely no sense!