I dislike looking for cars

My car is screwed, and the repair bill to unscrewify it is most the the actual value of the vehicle, so it's uneconomical to do so, so I'm not. I've secured funding to purchase a replacement, however this means one thing...

...finding a replacement...

I dislike shopping for cars. Ideally for me, there'd just be one type in slightly different sizes, or I could have some kind of car personal shopper, but alas, my Saturday was taken up by walking round forecourts, at first with some enthusiasm, but by the end... I'd say more defeatism.

I never knew how hard finding a 1.4 diesel car was, there's not many and they're more expensive than you'd think, the recession has made these cars highly desirable and the price is going up on them. I quite liked a Ford Fusion:

Until I test drove a £3.5k (reduced) 2004 one and it was like driving a mid/late 90s Ka, with little in the way of breaks and quite basic inside, not impressed. £3,295 for a 2005 Peugot 307 SW... nice colour, size of a bus, expensive to fix, very likely to need fixing, I'll pass.

Eventually (after watching a 54 plate go for £4,300 at auction) I found, drove, liked and put a deposit on a 2003 Fiesta in a little garage in Caerphilly:

Obviously not the real one, not going to give 'the internet' my reg no.

Priced at £3,000, after the typical salesman price swapping eventually acquired for £2,500. It's nice to drive and I like it very much, also looks more goldy than the one in the picture.

One of the main reasons I dislike shopping for cars is the salesmen, they do my bastard head in. You can't just wander round and look, as soon as you step into a 1/4 mile radius of their garage, they start to hone in on you, then try some of the weirdest sales patter in the world.

Picture this, I'm in the always classy Merthyr branch of Trade Centre Wales, no Trevor didn't send me. The billboard says:

"Cars £999 to £3999"

There's no cars for £999 for a start, and there's many many over £3999. I look at a couple of fusions, priced around the £4k mark, a nice older but spec'd up mondeo and go to shuffle off, when the salesman, targets and moves in. We tell him what we're looking for and he takes us to a Nissan Note priced at a £3,999 busting £4,495.

I point out that, it destroys the budget we have and without a moments hesitation, he didn't 'speak to a manager' or 'check the paperwork' or any of the usuall bull, just went, "Well what if I can do it for £3,000?"

Didn't want or like it anyway, but you can't just drop the price by 33% on the spur of the moment. It says one thing and one alone, the original price was a rip off, designed to give the salesman some leg room or was intended to catch people out. Who knows hey, but careful anyone going there to buy!

So now my car shopping is done for a good few years, I'm a happy boy, my 'new' car will be ready this evening but I doubt I'll be able to pick it up sadly. Anyone want to give me a lift Cardiff ---> Caerphilly at 4:45 let me know lol.

 Next one'll be about tennis, there's more Brits going down in Oz today than there were at Rorke's Drift.