Yes, that's a good point and I have thought about that. I'm not sure it would be any worse travelling by bus in winter than by car though. The bus stop is less than 5 minutes walk from my house and they come every 10 minutes (it was every half hour until they upgraded it this year).
My major concern is that the busses are not usually very full, so the bus company may decide to reduce the service frequency, which would be a blow.
You really notice the savings in not having a car though. Since selling the QX I have received insurance and tax renewal notifications for it. That's about £500-600 I have not had to pay already, which is about what my total annual bus travel bill would be! Without even counting depreciation I will save £1000 a year on petrol, a few £100's on servicing and so on. We are doing more miles in my wife's car, but not as much as I expected, we are probably spending an extra £15-20 a month on petrol for it. It does less than 12,000 miles a year so will not affect servicing costs and I don't think it will affect its depreciation much either.
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Its very simple
As you have now proven that public transport is so good and reliable and cheap, when your new scooby arrives, you sell her car and let her use public transport.
problem solved
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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{repeated quote deleted - PU}
This thought had crossed my mind and was even raised (timidly!) in a discussion, it was met with a horrified reaction. Unfortunately my wife has to carry lots of books and papers between home and work (she is a teacher) and so she says she must have a car for that reason!
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Sell the wife & keep the scooby, it will work out cheaper in the long run!!!!!
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Have you spoke to the dealer about it?
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Was going to suggest the same, if its a factory order and its already been delayed, maybe a chance that someone else is waiting for or wanting the same car?
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Yes, I spoke to the dealer - a car supermarket. Its an 'EU import' to UK specification - rather a bizarre system in that the supermarket take my order and then send it to Subaru Malta who order me a 'UK Spec' car from Japan, which gets shipped to UK! This bypasses the huge mark-up applied by the Subaru UK importer and I also get pan-European warranty etc. I know a couple of people who have bought cars from this company and they have been very happy.
Anyway, they ordered this car specifically for me and I paid a deposit. I asked them about cancelling the order but they were understandably not keen. They have been extremely helpful and polite throughout and I am not the kind of person to welch on a deal so I have no intention of not taking the car. The car is not really 'delayed' as such, they gave me a delivery window of about 6 weeks and its right at the end of that window, so I asked them to hold on to it another 3-4 weeks after delivery to register it as a 57-plate.
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So is there a possibility then of selling it at the cost you got it for which will still be substantially cheaper (I assume) than getting it from UK dealer?
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Wish I could afford it. It's obviously a bargain and qxman has done all the tiresome work.
Aprilia approves of these I gather. He and others here have sold me on the idea of fairly modestly-dressed but substantial Subarus. Don't think I've ever been in one myself, but my sister in New Zealand and her husband, both doctors, have had lots of them and still have one (or two).
Of course we have all heard of, and heard, and seen, those Impreza turbos in blue and gold. Bluebottle paper if you ask me.
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Wish I could afford it. It's obviously a bargain and qxman has done all the tiresome work.
to be honest there was no tiresome work to do. The company were very helpful. They did actually have some cars in stock, but they were either silver or grey (which I feel is a bit passe now - I want the Garnet Red Pearl finish which looks really good) or they had others without the side airbag option (which I obviously wanted).
If anyone wants to know more then please e-mail me. The address is the same as for when I sold my QX - i.e. qxman2007 (at) safe-mail (dot) net
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So is there a possibility then of selling it at the cost you got it for which will still be substantially cheaper (I assume) than getting it from UK dealer?
Yes, dealer list price was something crazy (over £17k with metallic paint and on the road). Mine is £12200 OTR with met paint - and I don't mind knocking a bit off that.
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Very nice little motors. The new 2.0 engine that Subaru introduced at the end of 2005 is really good. Very smooth and quite pokey (160 bhp). They use it in the Legacy and Forester too. I think the WRX Impreza is a bit too Over the Top for the average person and they can be difficult to insure, they are also Band G tax - £400 next year - and they get nicked a lot. So the non-turbos are a good balance of performance and running costs. I think if it were me I would keep the car, even if only using it at the weekend, although I suppose that makes for an expensive hobby.
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Interested to read your experience qxman.
I had looked at a car supermarket towards the end of last year and was very interested in an Imprezza WRX price I was quoted was c.£16k on the road. The saleman at the time told me the car was sourced from Cyprus, same idea as yours, they would then order direct from Japan. Time I was quoted was order in October collect in early February though I was told this could slip (suppose just covering themselves).
What put me off was the fact when I enquired if I could specify my own options, as it was a factory order, I was told no.
I'm not a fan of Japanese cars but that one nearly got me.
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What does your wife drive, QXman? If you find, after the winter, one car really is enough, could you sell hers and share the Sccoby when you're not on the bus?
Though my next door neighbours tried that and ended up with a Scoob apiece...
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this post surely isnt for real!
I could cycle to work for zilch but id rather pay £100 a month in fuel to get up when i choose without worrying about the weather/showering at work/missing the bus (if i took it) listening to what music i like etc etc
you didnt purchase a brand new scooby simply for transport to work did you? isnt half the fun taking it out when you chose,looking at it,cleaning and caring for it..
get a grip man! you only live once
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Yes my post is for real. I guess that not having a car for the last couple of months has made me realise how much I was spending. Its not just the £100 a month on petrol, its the depreciation, thinking about getting is scratched in the carpark while I'm in work, servicing costs and so on. With all costs factored in it must cost me £3000-4000 a year. In a wierd kind of way its liberating, not having to think about it.
I'm very lucky in that although I live about 15 miles from where I work there is a good regular bus service (I didn't realise this until I had to use it). There is a bus every 10 minutes and the stops are convenient to home and office. I have borrowed my daughters MP3 player which has a radio in it. So I read the Metro free paper and listen to the radio. The journey goes very quickly, partly because the bus has a dedicated bus lane in town and so shoots past all the stationary traffic - kind of makes up for all the stops. I can daydream and don't get wound up by having to sit in a queue for ages. I'm one of those people that hates crawling traffic.
I must admit I may have a different perspective come the winter, we will have to see. But my message to others is give it try, you may be pleasantly surprised.
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Welcome to the club QXMAN, I parted wih my wheels officially 12mths ago, never regret the deciscion,
I now actually walk to the paper-shop and save hundreds of pounds a year".
Billy
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Well I have to admit as a result of this thread I had a look at the train timetable. I have never bothered with trains before as I live in a smallish village and the trains are few and far between and seem to stop at every bend.
However I was pleasantly surprised to see that at 8am every morning there is an express train which takes me into Glasgow in 20 mins, and both my home and work are, at the most, 10 mins from the respective stations.
Now I usually use my car at work to visit some of my shops but I hate stop start city centre driving. So after my holidays going to see if I can plan my diary accordingly to have 2 train days a week whereby I will do most of the office type work.
Just hope I don't get to like it too much!!
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I think you'll find the 'timetable' and reality are not exactly so the same thing!!
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