If only this was true.
And you've not had any problems with new?
I always buy secondhand because I can't - or more to the point won't - afford a car of the type I buy new.
A reasonably recent secondhand quality make will carry the same warranty as new, and should also be as near as dammit in new condition - but at a considerable saving. And any 'teething' problems should have been sorted by the previous owner.
You've not read any of the many consumer surveys or check things like the guides for depreciation?
Whilst some French cars may well have their merits, reliability and low
*overall* running costs when bought new aren't among them.
U woz ripped orft my first car was (1973 ?) also a Mini ... I paid £25 for it, sold it 12 months later for ....£25
Those were the days
(I didn't mention that my first job on a car was a Mini rear subframe, did I ?)
In message , IMM writes
Baptism of underseal actually
>The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:
Quite. Let some other sucker carry the depreciation and niggly delivery faults.
My experience has been different.
Even slightly older ones should be ok if you know what to look for when buying, or simply know what models to get and which ones to avoid (i.e. ones that are likely to have problems). I see buying a car with a fair few years and miles on it as a good thing if the owner's had it a long time, as it means that any little teething problems will have been sorted out, and the chances are if nothing's gone wrong in the last several years and several thousand miles, then it's fair to say that as long as things like cambelts are kept up to date, then the chances are nothing will.
My car was 8 years and 100,000 miles old when I bought it, and the previous owner had had it since it was 3 years old, and the first owner was a friend of his. Nothing major had gone wrong in all that time - only significant things were the remote C/L control unit packing up and the electric fan (to do with the rad, and also the a/c system) going wrong, both of which were sorted straight away, and possibly a wheel bearing. Hopefully with regular servicing it'll do me for several more years and a good 100-200k more (at least!) without anything major going wrong.
My van was 6 years and 50,000 miles old when I bought it - the previous owner had owned it from new (my mate's boss) and always driven the thing nicely (he's not the type to rag something about) and got it serviced every
6,000 miles. Nothing's ever gone wrong with it. I'm doing around 25k/year in it, so if I keep it for 6 years and nothing major goes wrong I'll be laughing. Won't be worth much at the end of that, but if it's still in good nick, probably about £500 or so, so that'll be £3k in depreciation over 150,000 miles and 6 years. I can live with that, especially if absolutely bugger all goes wrong in that time.Peter
Since even the worst cars have what would be considered reasonable reliability by the standards of a few years ago, it's possible you've just been lucky. But there's no getting round the economics.
In my teenage innocence/ignorance the one thing I knew about Minis was the propensity of rear subframes to rust. So I bought one with a 100% sound subframe. Pity about the engine, gearbox, brakes, steering rack, ball joints, exhaust, battery, radiator, sills... You get the idea
I think that you have to read these with some caution as ISTM they are comparing original list price with trade-in value.
Citroen, among others, always seems to have deals of one sort or another being advertised so I suspect that no one ever pays list. My Honda Jazz is sought after and discounts are minimal but there's not much on the option list either so you pay list price, more or less. Go to Audi/BMW land and the guide may show that the car cost £24,000 and after 2 years is worth £20,000, but I suspect that the truth is that it's only worth £20K if you paid for the optional metallic paint, alloy wheels, climate control, CD changer ... so the original owner is getting £20K for a car that really cost £28K. Which may still be quite good, but not half as good as the figures would have you believe.
Some time ago I posted about how the odometer on my car matched the date. It's been three years 50,003 miles since then and despite the number of wierd groups on the 'net for obsessives of all kinds, I haven't yet found one for people with an interest in unusual odometer readings.
Anyhew, about four days ago when I filled up with petrol, I zeroed my tripmeter and noticed that the odometer would be coming up to a potential match with the date again. Unfortunately, being slightly obsessive, I couldn't leave it at that. With 122 miles to go until the odometer would read 160807, I realised there was the potential for the odo to match the date *and* the trip to match the time.
I bought a newspaper first thing, and today, at 12:21, my odometer read 160807 and the trip read 122.1. I took a photo because I am even sadder than I sound. I didn't even have to drive around or wait for ages ... I got back to my house at 12:15, popped inside to get my camera, and took the photo while sitting on the drive.
Here it is: Overall:
I just thought there will be a few people out there who might enjoy sharing in my wierdness for a few moments.
Cheers, Al Reynolds
Only an Independent reader....
Will.
Well now you have.
We log every journey (have done for years, don't know why) and always record unusual ones.
:-)
I don't think I'd go that far ...
... but I don't thinnk you're odd because you did.
Mary
Indeed. You may be a barking mad obsessive, but it's quite amusing :-)
cheers, clive
Do we get bonus points for being able to identify the car from the switchgear? ;-)
Some years ago at the end of a day's run I was filling in a tachograph, and the closing reading seemed familiar.
Next morning, filling in a new chart, I realised why. It was showing my phone No.
Doh
Steve
Al Reynolds ( snipped-for-privacy@bat400.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
I'm glad there's a place in our society for people like you.
Just as long as it isn't _too_ near me...
Ah, the switchgear only narrows it down to two manufacturers. The mileage should tell you which one it's more likely to be!
Al
A Nissan of some sort? Switchgear resembles my QX but the speedo is on the left and my rev counter on the right, opposite way to yours, so maybe a Toyota?
John
Neither Nissan nor Toyota. Right part of the world though. Al
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