November 2005
How do you get to them? I have never been stumped like this before on a car! (Omega 02, 2.2). There is no Haynes manual for this car and a trawl of the net has not produced much. Could anyone advise?
Apologies if this sounds an ignorant request!
Yoby Read more
With my impending redundnacy, I plan on visiting a few auctions in my spare time (lots of) to look at getting a new car once I have secured myself a new job.
There are 3 near me who seem to deal with decent vehicles, Motability, Direct from Lease companies etc. I am looking at a diesel, probably about 3 years old.
Now looking atthe prices that these cars seem to go for, it seems to be silly to go to a dealer or back street garage - surely it must be better to buy from the auction where they are saying the mileage is guaranteed and full service print out available? These are proabably the same cars that will go to the back street garages via a third party and subsequent reduced mileage!
(Examples on www.smag.co.uk )
I have read HJ's advices on the subject, I would see me doing dry runs for a few weeks to get a feel of the process and prices. Will prices be low in Dec in run up to Xmas or are the auction prices not affected by this time of year?
I am thinking of maybe a Laguna, Focus, 307 etc. Seem to have a good range available at circa £6k.
Any thoughts / advice / insider information that would be useful?
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HJ, that was a real eye opener - struggling to find a car within £1k of the Cargiant price, some are as much as £2.5k cheaper. Don't know if there is negotiating available at cargiant but that is a helluva price for 6 months warranty!
eg
Scenic Fidji 1.4 52reg 20k miles
auction - £4480, Cargiant £6499
Fiesta 1.4 Ghia, 52 reg, 31k miles
auction £4400, Cargiant £5999 for 23k miles
Astra 1.6 Envoy 52 reg 1.6 Auto 30k miles
auction £3310, Cargiant £4699
Focus 1.6 Zetec 52 Reg 23k miles
auction £4530, cargiant £5599 for 35k miles
As you can see, due to there being a lot of Motability cars, there weren't a lot of diesels, especially in the models I was looking for, but still an eye opener to prices!
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Thanks everyone you've all been very helpful :0)
Insurance is always top of my list when booking a hol as I'm a bit of a paranoid person! More so for this type of hol!
I'm going to start RPM spinning classes this week and will probably also start swimming regularly, (although I always seem to end up with a cold after using my local pool....nice!), not only to get my fitness/stamina levels up but also to avoid spending the first 3 days unable to move due to muscle aches!
I also tend to go for the '2 socks are better than 1' thing! On that note I have to say that those 1000 mile socks are pretty rubbish...save your money!
Nice to hear good reports about Serre Chevalier! Always good to know that off piste is as good as on!!!! ;0)
Thanks again!
--
If at first you do succeed, try not to look astonished
Wot is going on with these idiots who don't indicate when changing lanes, turning right on roundabouts, etc? It seems to be generally accepted that when you're going straight ahead at a roundabout, it's not crucial to signal - which is fine; it's been the case for years. But failing to indicate when turning right? That's madness! Time and again I approach a roundabout, there's a vehicle coming from the opposite direction already on the roundabout and not indicating. The natural conclusion is that he's going straight ahead, i.e. in the direction I've just come from, so it seems reasonable for me to enter the roundabout. Wrong! The guy is actually turning to his right, thus I'm likely to enter the RB right into his path. And who will get the blame? Presumably me, for 'failing to give way to a vehicle already on the RB'!
Trouble is, if there's a steady stream of oncoming traffic, you could theoretically sit there for hours waiting for a suitable gap, for fear of pulling into the path of some pink fluffy dice who can't be pink fluffy dice to indicate. I guess when you're holding a mobile in one hand, coffee in the other and steering with your knees, it is a bit of a struggle to show which direction you intend to take. Or maybe it's becoming unfashionable to indicate - that it's perceived as a sign of weakness?
Anyone else feel the same?
{mikem, suggest you read the sticky entitled "swearing...." at the top of the page. As you're new here I've removed the swearwords - next time I won't be so generous and will simply delete your whole post. DD, BR Moderator.}
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Any lack of indicating tends to make other drivers more alert to your presence, is that a bad thing ?
(within reason)
Someone mentioned that it is not a battle out there
Is buying a 6 year old Focus 1.8 petrol with 100K a risky thing to do? It's immaculate and has FFSH. What big bills might be looming around the corner, or are these very reliable?
Adam, how many miles has yours done?
(it's not for me BTW)
X Read more
X,
Mine is about to hit 73k.
What to watch out for (comomon faults I've found):
Wheel bearings. It eats them. Not a difficult job but if it starts groaning, that's what it is.
Gear lever return spring. Basically the springiness of the gearlever is gone when this snaps. £3 spring from Ford and I changed the spring in 5 minutes! Yes - me! Common fault but thankfully, very cheap to fix.
Erm....really struggling to think now. I don't think anything else has gone wrong. I needed new discs but that says more about my driving style more than anything else. Oh - the pollen filter/passenger water leak problem. Leave the pollen filter alone and you'll be fine!
And I really think that is it. Nothing's jumping out at me. As you already know, the Focus wins hands down. Not only do I wish I had a friend like you, I think your mate will thank you when he gets one and sees how good it is for himself. Just make sure that the tops of the doors when you open them aren't rusty. There aren't many cars affected by this - I think it was a dodgy batch of doors or something so thankfully that problem is quite rare. If they look ok then they'll be fine.
(P.S. - Cambelt change - easy peasy. Got my car serviced with the belt change for 140 quid I think. Job Done)
Good luck
any suggestions on where to find a good saving on the above. Prepared to travel - i've heard they can be sourced at considerable savings on Germany but don't know of any reputable companies.
Doesn't have to be a Landie: Budget upto 30k, must be diesel and have 7 seats and be a left hooker- will eventualy reside in Portugal.
Many thanks for nay help Read more
There was a comment on a site somewhere saying that given so many Brits are doing the same as you ie buying an overseas property and wanting to get a car suitable to use at said property that the price of LHD cars in the UK has bumped up alot.
Check on Autotrader or find a specialist LHD dealer?
Is there anywhere I can check on the history of a car being sold (tomorrow) at a household auction? It is young enough to have a year manufactor warranty left but don't know what protection I have for outstanding finance, if there is any. Am buying for son (18) as it was going to cost £3,000 to put him on the insurance for his sisters Proton Compact!! Read more
Many thanks - now fingers crossed for the auction tomorrow!!
Due to personal problems too complicated to explain here, I had some insurance cancelled on my 2nd car (sold now, but it was an Isuzu Piazza).
I have a company car as my main car, so it's not an immediate concern, but were I to go down the self-insuring route again, would it cause me massive problems? The co. in question (Adrian Flux) have been relatively sympathetic and indeed refunded me promptly and all that, but I am still a bit worried. Any thoughts? Read more
just to be clear in answering the question - if your case is one where you misrepresented the risk or the situation to the insurer to attempt to get cover which they subsequently cancelled then that is a very serious issue and is what other insurers will be extremely wary of.
If it was an admin error or slowness and all that happened is the insurer came off cover then you should not be rejudiced. However you need to make sure you have evidence eg from your intermediary that there was no fraud or misrepresentation.
Another "how long?" thread! (This particular question doesn't show up in a forum search)
I need to be at Stansted to collect a friend at 19:00 on Thursday.
Although I use Stansted several times a month to fly to Sweden and several times a year to fly to the Czech republic, my finely honed outbound journey of exactly one hour from Aylesbury is conducted in the wee small hours on cruise control. I have no idea what to expect on a typical Thursday evening rush hour during term time.
I can guesstimate how long it will take me to get from Aylesbury to M25 J20 (A41/Watford) but would appreciate some guesstimates from regular users for the remainder of the journey to Stansted, please (say in two segments; M25 J20(A41) to J27(M11) and then M11 to Stansted). Pressure of work is going to make time very tight on Thursday and I don't want to leave sooner than I have to. Equally, I don't want to be late.
TVM
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The obvious problem with the M25 j25 (A10) is that whereas there are three lanes anti-clockwise, there are only two clockwise. This forces traffic in the inside lane to filter to the right if staying on the M25 at the same time as traffic in the middle lane is filtering left to turn off, causing the massive hold-ups. If you look as you pass through the tunnel, you will see that by removing the grass central reservation and replacing with a single concrete barrier as is being done between junctions 12-15 right now, and then removing the space behind the hard shoulder and pushing that back, a third lane could be provided relatively cheaply. It was done for the anti-clockwise carriageway, why not the clockwise one?
If a car is 2 hours away from you, description seems good, car APPEARS to be in order, but you can't get up to see it before the auction ends, how to bid?
Do sellers normally agree to winning bidder stating in advance that final balance is subject to results of RAC inspection report?
Do you ask seller to fax details of previous bills etc? Read more
A friend was selling a Landrover on ebay and someone cloned the ad.Same person had cars for sale in Glasgow and Southampton,all on one day sale,presume they would have taken a hefty deposit and disappeared.
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I thought that the torx screws were hiding something, but was worried about upsetting the wrong thing. Many thanks - will give it a go!
Y