I'm really after some general opinions/advice..
I'm looking to buy a 325i Coupe Sport along the following lines

Manual gearbox, leather interior
up to 1.5 years old
up to £23k

Any reasons why buying such a car is a bad idea eg resale value etc. Any suggestions as to where to buy such a car, is a BMW main dealer a good idea or simply over priced..

I have been offered a mystic blue manual 325i coupe sport with black leather (BMW head office car) through a main dealer which was registered in Dec 2003 and has 7k miles on for £24k. Seems like a reasonable deal to me although they wont negotiate down further, just wondered if other people agree.

All opinions gratefully received..
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Any experience please of the 307 2.0 HDI, 02 onwards thanks Read more

Yesterday evening I took delivery of my first ever new car, a Citroen C8 with the 130bhp HDi engine and 6-speed box. It's lovely but I won't ramble on about the car; its features are well enough documented elsewhere. And, having test driven a C8 for a couple of hours, I have put my reservations about centrally placed instruments firmly to bed. What may interest you is a sketch of the buying process.

My starting point was wanting an MPV with more than 5 seats, heavy enought to tow our caravan and having an 8-year old Citroen Synergie and a 3-year old Mercedes c180 to part-ex and about £4K in cash. Reactions from dealers of other makes ranged from incredulity that I should be so difficult to deal with as to have 2 vehicles to part-ex, to complete indifference. So Fiat, Kia, Hyundai and Fiat ruled themselves out on the phone. This left Ford and Peugeot. The C8 seemed to offer more kit for your pound than Peugeot so they dropped down the list. I even got as far as a test drive in a new Galaxy but I didn't feel at home in it; the driving position didn't suit me, I would have preferred rear sliding doors and the part-ex offer on the Synergie was so poor it was almost an insult. I was expecting it; the same garage hadn't wanted my Citroen XM 7 years ago and a salesman had tried to studiously ignore me and Mrs H when we were looking for a car for her in 2002.

And so, due diligence thankfully done, I was able to give my dosh and cars to the local Citroen dealer and come away with my 18th Citroen (not all from them) and what a pleasant, painless experience it has all been, so far. In fact I got as far as ordering the car, specifying the extras and having a tow-bar fitted without even placing a deposit.

In the middle of this, my father-in-law happened to mention that he wanted to change his Xantia for a C3 sensodrive and the local dealer had the brass neck to take £100 off his credit card for the privilege of having a test drive. Is this normal nowadays? I suggested he claim his money back forthwith and deal with a more old-fashioned establishment. The upshot was that he collected his new car from our local dealer yesterday too. New tin and big grins all round.

Sorry for the long post; any comments anyone?

Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land Read more

Hello
for the past few days the orange engine warning light has been coming on intermitantly,(it pulses) after a few miles it goes out, sometimes coming on again.There seems to be no loss of power and no warnings showing on the computer screen.
The car is a 1999 with 106K on the clock with full history
Any ideas?
Cheers.
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Hi Folks,

Question is, ive seen an Audi (52plate) 1.9TDi Sport at a dealers website going for £13,995, 50k on the clock (id presume thats mostly motorway mileage). Within the space of a few days via email (strange i know) his knocked it down by £500 as im offering no part-ex and thats without me seeing it. What price should i realstically look at paying, keeping in mind ive seen all the book prices etc, just wanted some expert opinions out in the car trade who might think otherwise or might think of better ways of acquiring this type of car at a cheaper price? All opinions welcome to give me some idea?

Thanks Read more