Be Excellent To Each Other

Crikey, the way the older car just sort of vaporises is quite sobering, the crash test dummy inside it doesn't seem to fare too well.

It's amazing how much safety gubbins modern cars are loaded with, god knows how much it costs to build it all in, and of course you're hoping you'll never need any of it!

There should be an option to forgo it all in favour of a really wicked stereo system, but you're on your own in a crash.

Doesn't the MPG put you off? This would do 15 maybe on a good day??

That just smooshed! I know US cars were fairly unsafe but that's really bad.

I like to think I'd be able to manage 20mpg, which wouldn't be a million miles off what I used to get out of the Scooby.

Mind you it would be ruinous on tax and servicing and all that shit, and even though car insurance is mega-cheap on the IOM I'm sure I'd still get properly whacked with a car like a CL500.

I am coming up to 40 though, so I need a midlife crisis of some sort.

I've been having a poke around on Autotrader and £10K gets you a really nice CL500 from 2004/2005 with under 50K on it and a fully sorted Merc history.

Thats better that I thought, a guy that works for me has an M5 V12 5 litre and only comes to work once a week in it due to the MPG, another guy who works for me has a DB9

I drive a Skoda Octavia something is very wrong here

Tish, pshaw, and all that. I'm lucky if I get 14mpg out of my M5 (V10 by the way, not V12) but it doesn't put me off commuting!

Although, having said that, I've only got a 3.5 mile journey into work in the morning - I guess it'd be a different story if I had to travel a longer distance.

AE: Insurance probably won't be that bad, I'm only paying £600 a year on the M5, and that's with full NCB for a 30 year old.

Don't think I posted this here by the way, new exhaust went on just after the Cott4ge I think, but I didn't get around to making a video until a week or so ago:

Yes the Scooby was under £300 fully comp and that was a Group 40 IIRC, so I suppose there's no reason to assume the CL500 would be more.

I've got full NCB and I'm an old fucker too, and my speeding conviction has lapsed now as well

(Seriously, what kind of dumb fuck gets done for speeding on an island where there's no national speed limit.....)

Hmmm Parkers says the Scooby was Group 42 so maybe the CL500 would actually be cheaper - http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/reviews/f ... 005/32937/

Your neighbours must love you!

I'm strongly favouring a new MkVII Golf. I met with a sales advisor at my local VW dealership on Saturday who gave me the hard sell, of course. Otherwise he was very friendly and knowledgeable and I'm 97% sure I will go with the 1.4 TSI SE five door model.

If I buy the car on finance, is it still appropriate to negotiate on price first or do you think it is not negotiable? What about with personal finance options?

Any other words of wisdom around buying a new car direct from the dealership? I've not done this before. Any help would be gratefully received.

Ace!

In other news, problems with the S6 have started! None too ruinous (although I'm yet to get to Audi to find out) but looks like sender in the fuel tank has gone as the fuel needle is stuck on empty.

Drivers side central locking no longer works, although it'll open with the key.

But the real arse clenchingly scary one is the the engine management light was flashing the other morning on start up. Not come back on yet but I know it's only a matter of time. Should probably get hold of a reader and see if there're some codes I can pull off it. But I'll probably get it in to Audi over the next week and see what they say.

I've had my fun with it anyway so it'll probably end up getting sold in the next few months.

Definitely haggle. Either on the price or the finance rate. The sales guy has some discretion on these two things. Don't be put off by how you're financing it, you're still the customer.

Haggle like Hell - they desperately want you to buy on finance, and you can get some serious discounts. Then, if you can, pay it off straight away. Gaywood did this once, so he's the man to ask.

Annoyingly, Gaywood is the man to ask for almost anything. Other than to get stuff down off the top shelf for you.

Buying cars is one of the last things where it is not only acceptable but pretty much expected for you to haggle over the price.

Yes, you should absolutely negotiate on price. Get a quote from Carfile.net and carwow, and then take them with you and demand they match them. Not all dealers will do so, so be prepared to walk away and buy elsewhere.

Three out of the four skoda dealers I tried weren't playing nicely. The fourth was so I bought from them. Talking of skoda, have a look at the Octavia. You'll get a top spec Elegance for the price of a Golf SE, and it's got more room too.

One last thing - the VAG finance deals end and may change for better or worse with the calendar year, plus the dealer will have a quarterly target to beat so you might find them very keen to deal now.

Ah, so. I wasn't sure if was possible unless buying outright. I like a good haggle and will surely wear my most powerful haggling pants come the day.

Thanks.

The 'on the road' price is £20,135 with the vanilla set of options. What Car list a target price of £18,462, which sounds about where I would have pitched it.

Carfile.net will do you one for under £18k. Skoda have a 12% profit margin for the dealer and on a good day that's the achievable discount, so it looks like VW are the same.

Skoda have a 0% finance offer on at the mo which halves the available discount/margin but no such bargains with VW.

Cheers for that. I have set the carwow thingy in motion and checked Carfile. All good ammo.

I'm not interested in a Skoda but did include them in my initial decision making process.

I also did this.

Just approach it completely straight faced, and play it like you're getting the finance all the way, and get what discounts you can.

Then, after a period that you feel comfortable ring the phone number on the finance documentation and ask for an early settlement quote. Then pay it.

If you're feeling particularly sneaky then say you're paying the deposit by debit card.
Go all the way through the transaction on the computer, then pull out your credit card. The salesman will um and ahh due to the percentage transaction fee they will have to pay, but then you're all like "Oh, I thought I had my debit card. Can I not put in on my credit card anyway? Only I'll have to go and get some cash out, and it's getting late and I'll have to come back next week" (after month end when your sales targets reset).

Then you can collect the cashback deal on your credit card as well.

Haha, score!

Skoda have an offer on with three years free servicing worth about £500 when you buy on finance, so quite a few people have been doing that and then terminating the agreement after a few days. They paid about £20 in interest and got to keep the free services.

Dr Skodaberg, more like.

This will be my third after five years in a Fiat.

Wow, the in-car shot of that crash video is scary - steering column to the face! ( and presumably engine block to the knee ). How quick were those cars going? I can't judge speed like that at all.

Sounds much better now gaz.

A new BMW M135i for £260 a month on a 2 year lease, 10000 miles PA.

That's a bit bloody tempting!

Isn't it just. I've been looking at those, as it's a significantly smaller sum than the loan payment on the M5 and it'd be much better on fuel... but it's only a lease :/

I have no issue with leasing, especially for a new car. It's £6k over 2 years, which will be significantly less than the depreciation I expect...

Good timing on this deal though, as the XJR did the failsafe mode thing yesterday again when I started it, so it might be time to move it on.

/perks up

Even though it may be the start of it dying again

Shit, really?
You got a link for that actual deal please mate?

Love these; how anyone can even think about a bloody Golf GTI when these exist, for this sort of cash, I will never ever know. RWD, proper BMW 6-cyl engine, vastly superior performance and handling... together with the super little Fiesta ST, this is my fave hot hatch.

And you know, apart from all that, it's a BMW.

Here you go

http://www.gateway2lease.com/z_bmw_m135 ... sa2OmRdU0E

Thanks very much mate, awesome.

Stupid question: How does one get the much lower business lease rate, if not putting the payment through a business please mate? You mentioned the lower payment amount. (Or, if putting through a business, does it then become a pool car/company car etc. and thereby attracting tax)

I look forward to factoring that into negotiations. I'll be stripping the engine out anyway.

The personal rate is £260 a month. The business rate is even cheaper at £215 a month

Doh! Soz mate, I'll go back to sleep.

Interesting.

The failsafe mode could be the throttle body again or an air leak I suspect, or just as likely the electronics doing their Jaguar thing So I guess it all depends on what bits of the engine you really want. Is this to go in the tomcat?

I'll most likley bung it on ebay with no reserve if I do get rid, and i'd hope to get around £1500 for it, I expect. But feel free to try and stop that happening

Interesting details on that lease deal. 24 months! £260 a month! Payment profile 6+23 months! So, er, not £260 a month for 24 months then. £1560 + £260 a month for 23 months.

Yeah, it's slightly dodgy Most lease companies do 3 months deposit, not 6.

Even with that it is a cracking deal though.

Yeah, the engine and gearbox should bolt straight onto the power train.

Still one hell of a deal, though.

Delivery in March apparently, and the cost rises quite a bit if you want any options at all, unless you buy the options up front.

I think when I do get rid of the XJR it'll be for something second hand in the £6-8k region.

Don't want a Celica GT-Four do you?

My current thoughts are either L322 Range Rover or E65 7 Series...

Get a later one if you go E65, the earlier ones were notorious for issues and niggles, and the one I had was no exception.

Forester XT. Awd like a gallardo, but classier.

My dad had one a few years back, it was pretty great

Some fucking arse in a chavved up Saxo VTR has just gone into the back of me, my exhaust is now hanging off and the back bumper (whilst mostly undamaged by the looks) is peppered with scratches and shit.

All I fucking need.

Shit, you ok? Did they stop?

Yeh, he stopped. Got photos and his details, and he is insured (police confirmed that for me when they turned up to help get me off the road and clear the debris) so hopefully this'll be relatively painless.