Too good to be true…

Yesterday I went looking for a new car. After some time browsing Auto Trader I found a truly amazing car. It was a 2.0L P’ Reg Vectra Saloon in Black with Electric Mirrors, Electric Windows, Air Con, CD Multi Changer, Traction Control, Factory Alarm and Immobiliser, Power Steering and only 80,000 miles on the clock. The most amazing thing though was the price - £695!

So, off I went to Flint (about 50 minutes drive from home) to test drive this car. My initial inspection revealed no faults and everything was looking good. The car was in immaculate condition inside and out - could this be too good to be true? Unfortunately the answer to this question was - yes, it was.

After the inspection I got ready for the test drive. At first the car needed to be jump-started because the battery was a little low (fair enough - it has obviously been standing for a while). As I left the garage the car felt a little jerky - initially I suspected this was simply because I wasn’t used to the clutch, however it very quickly became apparent that it was something more serious when after about 2 minutes into the drive the car broke down!

My first thoughts were - oh it’ll just be low on petrol - no, it had almost a quarter of a tank. Perhaps the battery was the problem still. After a few attempts to push start it, it became quite apparent that I needed to call the garage so they could bring their battery pack and get the car going again. So 5 minutes later the guy from the garage arrived… could he get it going? No. I’m still not entirely sure what was wrong with it, but I suspect it’s probably a fault with the immobiliser or the starter motor - either way, I ended up going home without a new car… never mind! It just shows how important a test drive is when buying a car.

So, I’m still on the lookout for a 1.8/2.0 litre Vectra/Mondeo with reasonable mileage if anyone’s got one that they’re selling. Even better would be a MG ZT if anyone has one of them? No? Ah well, pity. For the moment I’m going to borrow one of my parents cars that they’re not using at the moment - a Fiat Marea Weekend, not quite what I was looking for - but never the less a car that is big enough for my needs

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My Crash - Good news at last!

As many of you will know, in June 2007 I was unfortunate enough to have a quite bad car crash. We were on our way to Go Karting as a end of exams trip and a guy in a red Fiesta drifted across the road and hit my car head on at a combined speed of about 100MPH. Fortunately everyone was (is now) okay from the accident. This accident in turn caused a smaller shunt further down the road. I promised in my old blog that I’d put up some photos of my car after the incident, however I never did - so I’ve included them now.

Ever since then there have been legal battles between a whole host of people who all claimed that it wasn’t their fault. At the same time, the police investigation (which had six months allowance to be concluded) was crawling along. At the end of November (26th to be precise) I was informed at last that the guy in the red Fiesta was to be taken to court on the charge of ‘driving without due care and attention’.

This court hearing took place on the 19th December at 9.30am at Aberystwyth Magistrates Court and I’ve finally heard from the Police that he pleaded guilty! This is excellent news as it now means two things:

• His claim that I was the cause of the accident to his insurance company is invalid (otherwise why would be plead guilty?)
• My insurance company will finally pay out my excess and give me back my no claims.

Overall a pretty good day.

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