I still hate looking for cars

I may have mentioned this before:

http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/i-dislike-looking-for-cars.html

But the job of looking for a car has re-reared it's annoying head, the Fiesta I bought, hopelessly broken and returned to the garage a few weeks ago. Nothing against Jackson's in Caerphilly really, after the first annoying bloke they were nice to deal with and gave a refund with no quibbles when it became apparent the car was a prize box of bombs.

The weirdest part, they've clearly passed/sold the car on and as if by magic:

http://www.wbrees.co.uk/used-cars/ford-fiesta-1-4-tdci-zetec-5dr-bridgend-201213460430908

Here it is back for sale in Bridgend, be warned anyone wanting to buy YR03 WWZ... Don't! It'll fall apart in seconds!

Anyway, the search is back on, I'm off Fiestas after that little debacle and so am really down to 2 types of car I like.

The peugeot 307:

Nice car, looks nice the 1.4 diesel is cheap to tax, same as the fiesta was, but that model is next to impossible to find, especially on my kind of budget. The one above is a 2003 model, which is about the age I'd be looking at.

The rival is the Audi A3:

I saw one of these, a little over budget and with a chav'd out exhaust yesterday. Loved the red colour, the inside space and the layout. Downside was higher tax, the aforementioned chav'd up exhaust and they're generally originally company cars to the mileage is through the roof, but Audi engines were built to last so that's not bothering me.

I did see it in Trade Centre Wales, so chances are it was overpriced, but if I can find one... and it was a straight choice, I'd go for the audi in a heartbeat, such a nice car, and let's face it, the only time I'll ever own an Audi.

But now I can visits to forecourts and pushy salesmen ahead again. Can't wait.

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.

Top Gear

I see Top Gear are in trouble again. This time a car manufacturer, Tesla, are pissed off with how their car got treated on the show. Feeling it was made to look deliberately bad.

First up, I like Top Gear, it's good fun, Sunday night entertainment. But that's exactly what it is entertainment. It may get nominated in best factual program categories every year, but its basis in fact is a tricky one. The cars they test are generally done for comedic value, or to demonstrate models that let's face it, watching them on the program is the closest many people will actually ever get to one.

Top Gear is entertaining, and that's the main issue, I don't know all that many people who use it to help judge their next purchase, infact I can't think of one. People watch the program to see fast cars driven well and the presenters take on stupid challenges and take the piss out of anything and anyone they can, particularly themselves and each other.

One of Teslas main issues is that their electric car was depicted to only have a range of about 55 miles, They say this is as it was driven 'aggressivley'. Aggressively? On Top Gear? In a race? Round the test track? You say? The bastards. If they'd driven it like grandmas and got 250+ miles out of it, 1) nobody would have watched it and b) they would have complained they're misrepresenting the car as slow, when it was capable of keeping up with the Lotus it was racing against.

I'm not saying the presenters are warm to electric cars such as the tesla, they are generally old school petrol head types, but looking at it, the tesla was driven like any other car they are given, and they found a weakness. Not a weakness the everyday person would find, but one right up their street! I'd imagine they look the piss quite badly out of it, but that's top gear.

Personally I'd forgotten about the episode, no doubt I would have seen it on Dave at some point, but thank you tesla for bringing it into sharp focus once again!

I've noticed many electric car enthusiasts can be quite defensive and critical of any negative press or criticism their vehicles get. But sorry, that's life. People are not to like what you do, some people will cling on to what they know and struggle to accept you. Taking each one of these people with enough public profile to court wont but you respect, make a car they can't argue with, that impresses them... then you'll start winning them over.

Now I'm awaiting the next series,maybe Clarkson and May will have to make a flying car out of a mid 90s corsa with only £675 to spend in total, then drive it off a something to prove it flys. That'd be funny to watch, but tragic too.

Also please mind my spelling, the spell check on here appears to be buggered!