Well, the Cayenne had to be sacrificed to the mortgage approval gods. Bye-bye white whale, you will be missed:
So the hunt was on for a new car for the Mrs to bimble around in till we get through the house buying process and can get her something nice again.
I was thinking Clio, Corsa. she was thinking Aston AMV8, Bentley Conti GT, perhaps slumming it in a Maserati. We met in the middle(ish) with a budget of £4-5k:
2003 3.0 Z4. Its a nice thing. pretty quick, handles well enough. Its not quite as good as the Z4 coupe we had a while back but it should be fun for her.
My word though, what a process to find a decent one. I generally like the safety of a dealer purchase so started there. I can't believe how poor some dealers descriptions of their cars are, and how shitty some of the stock was. I went to see one car that was described as 'immaculate' and I kid you not there was no leather on the seats, and a tree growing in the engine bay. All 5 dealer cars I looked at were horrific dogs with high miles and varying degrees of accident damage- all were top money too. All were displeased to have this pointed out, and responses went from blunt to plain rude. I have enough experience to appraise a car properly, and like to think I can spot a bad car, but I feel sorry for people who turn up at these places with no clue what they are looking at.
In the end I went to the private market and had a pleasant surprise at how much better the cars were. I got this one from a nice old boy who has looked after it perfectly with 64k genuine miles and full franchise history, and paid less (£4k) for it than any of the dealer cars.
Haven't had a convertible for a while so am looking forward to burning my noggin once the sun shows up!
So the hunt was on for a new car for the Mrs to bimble around in till we get through the house buying process and can get her something nice again.
I was thinking Clio, Corsa. she was thinking Aston AMV8, Bentley Conti GT, perhaps slumming it in a Maserati. We met in the middle(ish) with a budget of £4-5k:
2003 3.0 Z4. Its a nice thing. pretty quick, handles well enough. Its not quite as good as the Z4 coupe we had a while back but it should be fun for her.
My word though, what a process to find a decent one. I generally like the safety of a dealer purchase so started there. I can't believe how poor some dealers descriptions of their cars are, and how shitty some of the stock was. I went to see one car that was described as 'immaculate' and I kid you not there was no leather on the seats, and a tree growing in the engine bay. All 5 dealer cars I looked at were horrific dogs with high miles and varying degrees of accident damage- all were top money too. All were displeased to have this pointed out, and responses went from blunt to plain rude. I have enough experience to appraise a car properly, and like to think I can spot a bad car, but I feel sorry for people who turn up at these places with no clue what they are looking at.
In the end I went to the private market and had a pleasant surprise at how much better the cars were. I got this one from a nice old boy who has looked after it perfectly with 64k genuine miles and full franchise history, and paid less (£4k) for it than any of the dealer cars.
Haven't had a convertible for a while so am looking forward to burning my noggin once the sun shows up!