About 12 years ago I was all set to buy an Approved Used BMW from a big BMW dealer chain. I'd paid a deposit. The following day the salesman called me and very apologetically told me that they'd 'mispriced' the car and given its specification it should be about £1000 more, so they were cancelling the sale. I argued with them for four days and eventually we agreed I would pay an extra £250 over the original price.

I was initially delighted with the car, but things went sour pretty quickly. About three weeks later I was in a traffic queue and the head gasket suddenly failed in a big way, forcing water and steam out of the system. The car was recovered and repaired but a few months after that the camshaft started knocking horribly. It was repaired under warranty but I'd had enough and traded it for a new Octavia VRS.