Self service

[MrJan]

Diesels are quick but the point is that I'll feel less inclined to open the taps (at least that's the thinking, not sure how that'll work though). At the minute I just enjoy the noise so any open stretch of road means that I'll recline it.

I can find nice roads but I like a good run to really enjoy myself. I like that there's one corner on the way to work that I can get sideways and there's plenty of other corners that are nice, just not nice enough to warrant the £1000 or so that it costs me to enjoy, especially when I can still enjoy a decent set of corners in any car. when i first got the MR2, and to a certain extent with the Civic, I used to look forward to a weekend when I could head out for a drive, but that just doesn't happen any more as I'm too aware of how much it's costing.

Budget for a new car isn't exactly brilliant, most things that I'm looking at will have over 100k on the clock. I'm trying to keep it to under ten years old but keep getting tempted by German stuff that's on a T plate or something

[Daniel]

Diesels are quick but the point is that I'll feel less inclined to open the taps (at least that's the thinking, not sure how that'll work though). At the minute I just enjoy the noise so any open stretch of road means that I'll recline it.

I can find nice roads but I like a good run to really enjoy myself. I like that there's one corner on the way to work that I can get sideways and there's plenty of other corners that are nice, just not nice enough to warrant the £1000 or so that it costs me to enjoy, especially when I can still enjoy a decent set of corners in any car. when i first got the MR2, and to a certain extent with the Civic, I used to look forward to a weekend when I could head out for a drive, but that just doesn't happen any more as I'm too aware of how much it's costing.

Budget for a new car isn't exactly brilliant, most things that I'm looking at will have over 100k on the clock. I'm trying to keep it to under ten years old but keep getting tempted by German stuff that's on a T plate or something

Fair enough. What's the budget then? Will be interesting to see what you get anyhoo. One thing I quite like about the 500 is that it seems to just settle into a 60mph cruise so the chance of getting caught speeding is minimal which contrasts with the Subaru in which you'll look down at the speedo and see some silly licence losing number on the speedo, that said the speedometer isn't even working at the moment

Not thought of getting something smallish and economical with a small engine? My experience of cars of the vintage you're talking about is that they've come to the point where people no longer maintain them properly and there's always a big risk at that point.

[MrJan]

Fair enough. What's the budget then? Will be interesting to see what you get anyhoo. One thing I quite like about the 500 is that it seems to just settle into a 60mph cruise so the chance of getting caught speeding is minimal which contrasts with the Subaru in which you'll look down at the speedo and see some silly licence losing number on the speedo, that said the speedometer isn't even working at the moment

Reminds me of the FIAT Uno that I learnt to drive in, took 3 days to get to 60 but could happily be nudging a ton without too much effort. Never quite understood why such a gutless car was geared so high.

Not thought of getting something smallish and economical with a small engine? My experience of cars of the vintage you're talking about is that they've come to the point where people no longer maintain them properly and there's always a big risk at that point.

Budget is certainly under 2 grand but isn't exactly fixed. It seems that anything over about £1600 makes me squirm at the thought of buying, so I've sort of told myself that 2 grand including initial service/works and the insurance change. I know that it's a risk buying cars at that age but I think that, until you're spending double what I want to, the extra expense doesn't negate enough of the risk to be worth it. You can also be looking at the company car/rep mobile end of the market which are quite often serviced well and looked after. Around the mileage that I'm looking at I risk having to sort cambelt, suspension, CV boots/joints, clutch etc. But I may also end up with something like my MR2 which cost £1150 and hasn't missed a beat in over 30k miles

Ultimately I'm not going to buy something that I don't feel is worth it. For example I test drove a Mondeo the other day that had about 96k on the clock but the interior was a bit tatty and there was more rust on the doors than my current car, so I walked away. And miles/age isn't everything, I'd rather have a 10 year old VW with 120 thousand than a 6 year old Citroen with 70 thousand. I like to think that by being careful I can reduce the risks...although that probably just highlights my lack of experience buying used cars

[555-04Q2]

In a world where where more and more stores are using those blasted self check out things, how refreshing it was to pull into a petrol station today and have my car 'attended' to. I thought I'd woken up in 1957 - they washed my screen, filled my tank, even offered to check my tyres - All for the same price as my local supermarket filling station.

We get that at every service station over here as a standard service, for free. Even the pissy little service stations in the middle of nowhere do it. And they say we are third world hock: