Be Excellent To Each Other

Do not buy a car that's pony for a pony. For a monkey I'd expect to pay peanuts. For a monkey.

Ask to speak to Dave.

Tell them Big Tony sent you.

"How's about (offer=£asking - 20%), I'll drive it away today, and I'll personally come around and tell your kids why they aren't going on holiday this year?"

Whatever car they show you act offended, ask them if you look like a fucking mug then demand that they show you where they keep the good stuff.

Don't expect to be taken seriously without a sheepskin jacket on.

Remove the oil filler cap, dip your finger in the oil, wipe it across your front teeth and nod sagely.

Climb out from the drivers side window of each car before sliding across the bonnet to the next.

"How fast does it go, mista? Cor!"

Ask the dealer to get in the boot and shout as loud as he can when you close it.

Most importantly, remember to kick the tyres and push the bonnet to bounce the suspension.

Don't take the baby or the wife.

Take EBG.

Get a 12 month MOT on it, and as much tax as possible. Check spare wheel is there, along with jack and wheel removing thingy. Start the car and rev the tits off it from cold, if it doesn't rattle or explode, it might be ok. If it is a grand or less, buy on condition and MOT, and don't worry too much about service history, just check for cam belts/chains what have you, as these are expensive.

EU directive 710 on vehicle emmissions is important for road tax, too, so ask about the "710 level"

Ask if it has 2 sets of keys too. Spare set (which you will need at some point) can be £

Sadly I need the car to be in my possession by the 25th, but I shall try to haggle as hard as I can.

Actually, that's wrong - do take the wife, but make sure she pretends to (or does) really dislike the car you want, and tells you that in front of the salesperson. Stuff like "Well, it's up to you, but I really don't like it." or "It's your car, but it's..." (and then have some things she doesn't like about it).

I think Flis was meaning she wouldn't take Ramsea.

This is very good advice. It's called the "higher authority" negotiating technique. As long as you don't take you wife in with you to haggle -- invent an errand she has to do or something -- then it means you always have a bulletproof excuse to counter any arguments the salesman makes, because she doesn't like it and she's not there to be argued with. Hence any downsides you wish to present have to actually be reflected in the price, rather than deflected with bullshit.

This is a really good point, easy to overlook as well. It's cost us before.

Also check that the log book has the radio security code in it (we found out ours didn't, after we'd had to call roadside assistance for a new battery while we were on a weekend away).

Well you know us. We had a car and wouldn't have needed another car. However, when the at started making a noise on the motorway that suggested we may have to stop moving with a 6 week old in the back, the relative piece of mind of a new car won out.

From a lease perspective too you don't have to go big. We pay £335 a month and you wouldn't necessarily go for big car, and could have been cheaper of we'd actually put mileage nearer our actual of 6k per year currently than the 10k we took it at.

However, we will forever more be paying for a car. On the flipside, said car will always be new.

You're getting fuel with that too, right?

No. But it was an extravagant option.

Also, don't forget you're going to be raped on the insurance living in south east London with no ncb. Going by my first year on the focus, budget at least £800 for anything fully comp.

/mutters something about four-wheel drive...

If you're feeling brave, you can do what Gaywood did when he bought his car on hire-purchase, only didn't. I'll let him tell you as it's probably quite important to get the technique right.

Pretty sure I've told the story before... aha



Edit -- these deals work because normal people get their priorities wrong; they fixate on sticker price and ignore the APR (because compound interest is counter-intuitive), when actually, a good sticker price at a crappy APR makes tons more money for the dealer. If you pretend to be dumb, they'll play along, thinking you're a sucker. There's rarely (I am told) a penalty clause for clearing the finance off early, so it's hard to lose out here (but obviously read the finance contract very carefully just in case).

Probably works legally because under an HP agreement there are two contracts, but only the finance contract between you and the finance company is subject to cooling off. However the cooling off can operate two ways, one by return of goods, the other by cash settlement at full price.

A company trying to take action against you for doing what gaywood did may also be on a highway to nothing. Their complaint would imply what we know, that the sticker price deliberately masks the high apr and cost of purchase, and using that as your opening position as a company isn't going to get you a sympathetic ear.

What action are they going to take? "The law sucks for us, please ignore it"?

You could potentially run an argument that contract A (The car) was entered into on the basis that contract B (the HP) would be fulfilled in the normal manner, but I'm no legal eagle.

I'm no legal eagle either, far from it, but I'd personally seriously doubt that such a line of argument would hold water if there was an early redemption clause(s) within the finance agreement, signed at the time of the sale.

In any event, there are basic statutory rights applicable to early loan redemptions which presumably cannot be written out via a specific contract (assuming that said credit agreement is regulated under the Consumer Credit Act 1974?)

http://www.oft.gov.uk/about-the-oft/leg ... settlement

So, all in all I'd say it's likely to be a pretty good wheeze, and not one that I'd thought of previously, either.

The Clio is here!

It isn't too bad a drive, quite pokey and handles well enough, but i'm struggling to get excited about it

Needs a fair amount of tidying up really, all cheap little jobs that i'll keep doing until I get bored and leave the rest. (Steering wheel replacement, driver side door replacement, needs a good t-cut and polish, new sensor for the auto rain wipers, missing piece of trim etc...) Mechanically it seems sound though. Kate is happy with it, that's the main thing

I'm quite enjoying this, all the little bits of trim needed and new sensor etc..., with a combination of it being a mainstream car and ebay, everything is basically a tenner and can be replaced in under a minute.

New gear stick gaitor? £10
Replacement passenger door trim panel? £10
Replacement alloy wheel centre? £10
New rain sensor? £15... damn.

Steering wheel hasn't turned up yet, I might get a full service done at a local independent and ask them to swap the steering wheel at the same time, to save any faff.

It appears to have a Nokia phone system added at some point, but helpfully they have cut some of the wires when it was taken out, so I think i'm just going to have to rip out the visible bits and ignore that it was ever there.

Not sure what to do about the driver side door. It isn't obviously damaged unless you go looking specifically, but I know the dent is there and it makes my teeth itch a bit.

5ick

New wheel centre turned up, only ordered it yesterday
I don't have the special key for the centre cap bolt good job I found that out now rather than in the rain with a punctured tyre I guess. Another fiver off eBay for one of those

Rain sensor replaced. Now the wipers don't sense any water and just work as normal intermittent on that setting. Having had auto wipers on other cars, I'm classing that as a win

Well, not quite so good for the bloke who got duped and is personally out of pocket as a result.

Just have to hope he didn't need the money to pay the mortgage that month, I guess.

I thought that, but I had auto-wipers on the Corolla and they were chuffing awesome, far better than any others I've had. Kinda miss them actually.

Bought the ugliest, slowest, most practical car I could find.

Negotiated like a boss, though.

I thought that everyone already did the 'take the car out on finance and then pay it off before/soon after the first payment.'
I've only done it over the phone though as my deal was then with the finance company, not the garage I bought the car from.

I had them on the Phaeton and the M5, both times I found them infuriating. They only set the right speed when it was full on raining, in drizzle or very light rain, they were either way too fast and screeching and juddering across the glass, or too slow and not clearing the water in time. Plus, you have to turn them on every time you get in the car, they don't just stay on.

Utterly pointless in my experience, especially as when you have the option it usually replaces the manual intermittent setting, so in light rain, the thing they are worst at, you can't use anything else.

The ones on mine are alright, in the right circumstance. If raindrops are just accumulating on the screen and sitting there, they usually won’t activate the wipers, and will eventually build up to a level where it impedes my vision. If it gets a little heavier and the water starts to flow properly, they’ll come on. Then if it gets heavier still, they’ll go slightly too slow, and if it gets ridiculously heavy, they’ll be absolutely fine. So overall: meh, but I’ll keep them turned on until they can’t cope, then manually override them.

Hah I don't even have an intermittent setting, just switch them on and off as needed. But hey it's better than my last car, they didn't even park themselves!

Today I take the sump off the Clio engine to see what's wrong with the big end bearings (if anything) this will get messy...

It's not that I had a problem with in and of itself, but the gleeful description DocG gave whereby he seemed to take particular delight in removing money directly from the 'frantic' salesman's pockets.

Not very nice, IMO, especially since DocG made a big 'dumb' play to get the price lowered off the back of the car being bought on credit, when he had no intention whatsoever of going through with the contract and used the statutory cooling off period to get out of said contract.

Seems like bit of a twat's trick to me, and certainly not something that I would consider doing, especially if I knew I was directly hurting an employee and not a faceless finance company.

The statutory credit cooling off period is there to give people a chance to think twice about a credit agreement they've entered into hours or days later in the 'cold light of day' as it were, and not to give tricksters who've got stacks of cash a chance to game the system.

At the same time, the cooling off period is there specifically to allow people to get out of contacts that they've been duped into by low ticket price with a massive rake on the credit, which is often presented in an intentionally misleading manner.

I'm on the fence on this, I think it's arguably unethical, but against people who are attempting unethical practices against the same person. Hence why I think that although the salesman has a good faith argument on the sale of the car, he couldn't enforce it without demonstrating his own lack of good faith.

I've never got on with automatic wipers, I've owned three cars that have had them and been in plenty more that do - and I've never seen an implementation that works properly all the time, they just can't seem to account for 'certain sorts of rain'.

My personal favourite wiper implementation is the one the Scooby uses (the last car I had that used the same system was a 200SX). There are:

1) Wipers off
2) Wipers intermittent with four manual settings from 'infrequent' to 'nearly as fast as normal', I find that these four settings cover all situations perfectly.
3) Wipers normal
4) Wipers fast

Heh, the chap selling me the car reduced 1.5k off the ticket price, and that was absolutely all he could do.

I subsequently got the finance reduced from 14.9% to 7.9%APR, a two year warranty (699 quid) and some protecto-thing (299) for free. It was only after I actually told him no and walked off that I got the warranty. I felt well cool.

What car was it?

What, I'm supposed to feel sorry for some cunt whose living it is is to dupe people (who likely as not really can't afford it) into paying massively over the odds by buying cars with 20%, 25%, 30% APR loans (or even more), via using totally unethical, high pressure sales techniques combined with a misleading and totally disingenuous low sticker price and the old "it's only £50 per week!1!" spiel? Give me a fucking break. These twats are little better than loan sharks, preying on the poor, gullible and/or desperate. Kudos to people like Doc who get one over on these people, I say.

Besides, for a regulated loan, it is your statutory right to redeem it early if you wish - it's the law of the land. Don't like that? Then tough shit. Them's the rules, and for good reason.

dupe post, gah.

Blimey old chap, you certainly found the wrong side of bed this morning.

Even forgetting the fact that we have no idea if the salesman in question was indeed a cunt, (middle of a recession remember, perhaps the dude just took whatever work he could get to put food on the table), just because something is a statutory right doesn't mean that said statutory right can't be abused.

DocG negotiated the sticker price on the car down as low as he could based on him being entirely dishonest with the salesman, flat out lying to him, in fact. He took out a contract knowing full well he had no intention of fulfilling his end of the contract, and (this is the bit that grinds my gears) seems to be particularly delighted about the fact he's taking money directly out of the salesman's pockets - 'calmly' dealing with the office staff whilst noting that the salesman is 'frantic'.

Each to their own of course, but even if the salesman were a cunt, I don't think it's nice to act like a cunt in return on a basic human level. Eye for an eye and all that.