Buying a car

Emp_Fab

celentium said:

Please don't try and buy a car from a small independent dealer on a Sunday again. Or at least don't moan when they can't help you.

Why?  Have I tried that previously?  What's the problem with Sundays?

RaymondLin

I told you he is trolling!

Either that or you have some amnesia issues.  If it’s the latter I apologise.

RaymondLin

Emp_Fab said:

Well, I tried.... I really did.  I rang three sellers and messaged another two.  One didn’t respond to my message, the other just rang and rang, one said the car had already been sold and another was out in his van.  A fifth said the car was away at the garage, awaiting a new MOT.  I gave up at this point and decided to checkout the times of Bus number three.

This is what happened last time you tried to buy a car on Sunday.

also, you gave up very quickly I must admit, 5 attempts? Is that it? 5 calls isn’t trying. 50 calls would be trying.

if you had to get a car you would keep dialling and dialling until 5pm or you ran out of ads that fits your criteria.  However considering you are looking at the entire database on AT, you have plenty of choices.

Emp_Fab

RaymondLin said:

I told you he is trolling!

Either that or you have some amnesia issues.  If it’s the latter I apologise.

Apology accepted.  However, your follow-up post quotes my less-than-accurate ditty penned for comedic effect.

Loathe as I am to concede anything you've said as being useful, but you are right about the automatic box on the interim car.  The ratio of autos to manual is something like 1-20.  Trying to find an interim car that meets my other criteria is hard enough without me decimating the pool by insisting on an auto.  I also want to maximise my resale chances as you said.

Now I've switched to searching for manuals, I'm able to reapply my other criteria more stringently just to cut the field down.
It's looking more likely I'll get something tomorrow now.

RaymondLin

So you have amnesia? That explains a lot.

Put this in AT

less than 60k
less than £3k or whatever itnis
exclude Cat cars
manual
petrol
less than 50miles
less than 2L
Trade only
pick a car shape

how many cars do you get?  

Then rob you will see at least the kind of cars there are, now you can filter out by brand.  It should now get you like double digits results.

takes 3 mins. Not 3 months 

easy.

digitalscream

Well, I've got a Puma you can have for a few hundred quid tomorrow. You can even have a pair of spare rear arches if you fancy a bit of work to triple the value...

Emp_Fab

Trade only ???  WTF ?  Why would I do that ?

RaymondLin

Emp_Fab said:

Trade only ???  WTF ?  Why would I do that ?

 Because you seem to be obsessed about reliability, with trade at least you have some come back.

you have none with a private seller.

is that too logical? ah right I forgot you don’t understand logic.

DiscoStu

I saw three Velosters in my town yesterday. One white, one green, one orange!

EricTheWeary

DiscoStu said:

I saw three Velosters in my town yesterday. One white, one green, one orange!

You win Republic of Ireland Veloster bingo! 

I keep noticing them and those odd little Honda's all the time now. I was next to a lovely condition Volvo C30 at the lights yesterday thinking that could have been Emp if only he'd listened 34 pages ago.

hywelg

Emp_Fab said:

Loathe as I am to concede anything you've said as being useful, but you are right about the automatic box on the interim car.  The ratio of autos to manual is something like 1-20.  Trying to find an interim car that meets my other criteria is hard enough without me decimating the pool by insisting on an auto.  I also want to maximise my resale chances as you said.

Now I've switched to searching for manuals, I'm able to reapply my other criteria more stringently just to cut the field down.
It's looking more likely I'll get something tomorrow now.

Duuhhhhh. Just set manual/auto to no preference. If you find an auto so be it. While you're about it stop being so fussy about colour.  Just exclude colours you absolutely don't want and stop only searching for those you'd prefer. 

Emp_Fab

Like duuhhhhh....  I’m already doing that!

My filters are now set to (cue blood pressure increase in some here!....)

£7,500 or under
5 seats or less (or unspecified)
Engine between 1.0 and 2.9L
Body type: Convertible, Coupe, Hatchback, Saloon and unspecified
Transmission & Fuel type: any
Under 80,000 miles
Colour: Anything except black, brown or grey
Location: within 30 miles
Manufacturer: Anything except Vauxhall, Nissan, VW, Jag, BMW, Merc, Mini, Subaru, Perodua, Audi, Citroen, Fiat, Peugeot, Renault (plus loads of others that don’t come up anyway like Lambo, Roller, etc).

After all that, I’m down to a shortlist of about 20.  Next, I’m going to check the asking price vs the valuation sites such as Autotrader and the MOT history.

There can be only one....

WiresDreamDisasters

Just a question - isn't diesel like .... really fucking bad for the environment?

SouthpawMark

Ford Scorpio it is then. 

RaymondLin

Emp_Fab said:

Like duuhhhhh....  I’m already doing that!

My filters are now set to (cue blood pressure increase in some here!....)

£7,500 or under
5 seats or less (or unspecified)
Engine between 1.0 and 2.9L
Body type: Convertible, Coupe, Hatchback, Saloon and unspecified
Transmission & Fuel type: any
Under 80,000 miles
Colour: Anything except black, brown or grey
Location: within 30 miles
Manufacturer: Anything except Vauxhall, Nissan, VW, Jag, BMW, Merc, Mini, Subaru, Perodua, Audi, Citroen, Fiat, Peugeot, Renault (plus loads of others that don’t come up anyway like Lambo, Roller, etc).

After all that, I’m down to a shortlist of about 20.  Next, I’m going to check the asking price vs the valuation sites such as Autotrader and the MOT history.

There can be only one....

This is why you are coming up with Diesel cars.

Weird that you exclude all the Germans and also Nissan? Yet somehow you thought about the Kei car a few page back.  

That filter screams for a Toyota Corolla or a Ford Focus.

Just do it.

WiresDreamDisasters

He wont buy a Toyota. He hates Japs.

BigBearKris

Emp_Fab said:

Engine between 1.0 and 2.9L

This is the best one. 

I love this thread! Trolling on level 'EMP'.

RaymondLin

A Focus RS would come under that Filter, so would a Volvo T5, as would a Toyota Aygo or a Suzuki Smart.

It's a HUGE range of cars, the only reason he is getting like 20 is because it is within 30miles.  However the 30miles radius doesn't mean the best condition of cars, it's just that they are close.

I'd rather be more specific about the filter and extend the radius.  You will get the same number of results but more direct result of the cars that you actually want.

You need to be really specific, like I have a filter for a Porsche Boxster, the filter down to between a certain time periods because i know during my research that the IMS issue was solved after 2005, so I filter out all cars before that, and before the next facelift.  So even at a national level, I get less than 40 cars.  If I start more specific like Nav, it get about 5 cars.  Then filter down the engine to 3.2L I get 1 car even.

It is not difficult.

celentium

Mazda MX-5 is back in the game! 

digitalscream

Emp_Fab said:

There can be only one....

Give me your postcode. I'll find you a car in 15 minutes.