![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Well yea but if I said 'lol all these cars are crap, just buy the prettiest one' I'd get called a snob
3.5k for a new car
- Thread starter J86
- Start date
Well yea but if I said 'lol all these cars are crap, just buy the prettiest one' I'd get called a snob
Soldato
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I would be cautous about a TDCi with that mileage. They can be unreliable, expensive to fix even with low mileage.
I think it's fair to say that if the story attached to that one is true it's had an easy life where the biggest damage thats been done to it is its residual value. I'd rather that than one with a clogged DPF and 60k thats spent its life in town.
But point taken Re: TDCi engines.
But point taken Re: TDCi engines.
Don
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and is £500 over budget.
Have you ever paid the original price for a car from a classfied?
Yes if its a fair price and they really won't budge.
Fox, you could have just made your overly versed point regarding mileage without trying to bait him into a response, that you could pick him apart with.
You have a point, but the way you've gone about expressing it here is terrible. You clearly had no intent of helping him with his purchase once you read his statement about mileage.
The simple fact is that, whether you like it or not, mileage is a deciding factor when buying a car. I'm not going to harp on about it all day and night as its 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Just because you have had at least two higher mileage cars, and obviously have a chip on your shoulder about the stereotypical low mileage requirement comments by shoppers, doesn't give you the right to belittle relatively new members who come in here merely looking for a bit of advice.
Perhaps next time, you should try to educate someone instead of belittling them.
For the record, if you are thinking of flipping this, my car is knocking on 100k.
You have a point, but the way you've gone about expressing it here is terrible. You clearly had no intent of helping him with his purchase once you read his statement about mileage.
The simple fact is that, whether you like it or not, mileage is a deciding factor when buying a car. I'm not going to harp on about it all day and night as its 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Just because you have had at least two higher mileage cars, and obviously have a chip on your shoulder about the stereotypical low mileage requirement comments by shoppers, doesn't give you the right to belittle relatively new members who come in here merely looking for a bit of advice.
Perhaps next time, you should try to educate someone instead of belittling them.
For the record, if you are thinking of flipping this, my car is knocking on 100k.
Not at all - I had a response prepared for when he replied with 'I guess it doesnt matter THAT much' or 'I dont want a car thats falling apart'. But instead he picked up his football and walked off. His loss I guess.
It's just a completely crap way of guaging the condition of a car - I've seen as many crud 'low mileage' cars as I've seen mint high mileage ones and to think some of them would make it onto the less educated shoppers shortlist is just a real shame. There is a thread on PH now about some bosses wifes car. 3 years old, 8k miles... never had a service.. for example.
I just find it utterly bizarre that some people would have a mileage restriction when buying a car but not an age one. Why would you care more about how far it had been driven than you would about how long it'd been around for
You could drive the same car on the same day, turn left out of your road and sit in a queue or turn right out and head off into the country - after 30 minutes you'd either have covered 5 miles or 25 miles but the engine and ancilleries would have been running for exactly the same amount of time. Yet people care far more about how far it went... odd.Mileage CAN be a useful indicator of condition, and dictates value. It should be used as such and not as a criteria when chosing a car unless there is a decent reason - ie I'd never advocate a high mileage £25k car as residual value becomes a hell of a lot more important than when bunging a few grand on a Focus.
To be fair I think my response was probably one of the least harsh he got.
I've got the number for a local scrap dealer if its any help?
But this all detracts from the MAIN point..
Picking arbitary criteria you've no real understanding of. Why a '2.2 or lower'? Why did he pick 2.2? Why not 1.6 or lower? oR 2.0 or lower? Why that particular size, etc etc? It's as if he's just picked a load of figures out of thin air and decided thats what he wants. Then he says diesel or petrol. Yet the 2.2 limit remains, as if a 2.21 diesel would be awful yet a 2.19 petrol would be fine.
It just struck me that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing and would be far better off saying 'Hi guys, I need a car to get from A to B, do the odd trip, whatever. I have £3.5k to spend, want a medium hatch, something reasonablely cheap to run, any ideas' than picking all those meaningless numbers instead.
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[TW]Fox;12320215 said:Not at all - I had a response prepared for when he replied with 'I guess it doesnt matter THAT much' or 'I dont want a car thats falling apart'. But instead he picked up his football and walked off. His loss I guess.
It's just a completely crap way of guaging the condition of a car - I've seen as many crud 'low mileage' cars as I've seen mint high mileage ones and to think some of them would make it onto the less educated shoppers shortlist is just a real shame. There is a thread on PH now about some bosses wifes car. 3 years old, 8k miles... never had a service.. for example.
I just find it utterly bizarre that some people would have a mileage restriction when buying a car but not an age one. Why would you care more about how far it had been driven than you would about how long it'd been around for
Mileage CAN be a useful indicator of condition, and dictates value. It should be used as such and not as a criteria when chosing a car unless there is a decent reason - ie I'd never advocate a high mileage £25k car as residual value becomes a hell of a lot more important than when bunging a few grand on a Focus.
If you had provided that level of detail in the first instance perhaps his responses would have been more amenable and he wouldn't have jumped ship.
It just shows that you do have a lot of knowledge and decent advice to offer but you let yourself down with some shocking deliveries sometimes.
I mean for example, if I hadn't dished it out to you, would you have typed the above in this thread?
[TW]Fox;12320215 said:I've got the number for a local scrap dealer if its any help?
No need, he's on speed dial thanks very much.
I wanted his reasoning for chosing the criteria he had, first. Pointless preaching to people who just don't want to know..
Nope - he's already cleared off. But don't forget it wasn't just me. I think everyone had some sarcasm in this thread
Mileage isn't a stupid criteria if you know what it means - for example if you know big bills (clutch, suspension, cambelt) might come at a certain mileage on a certain car - don't spend top dollar on a car thats coming close to it.
I'd have to say though, a lot of cars get some big bills around 80k, not a mileage I'd be aiming for, might be better saying around 50 or over 100, around 50 you have a way to go before any big bills become likely and over 100 they've probably been done, plus it's cheaper
I'd have to say though, a lot of cars get some big bills around 80k, not a mileage I'd be aiming for, might be better saying around 50 or over 100, around 50 you have a way to go before any big bills become likely and over 100 they've probably been done, plus it's cheaper
I quite agree - further highlighting it wasn't the fact he didn't want a car that had done 900k that I found perplexing more how he'd arrived at the figure he had. I'd probably stop short of 100-110k on a petrol Focus anyway but not, I feel, for the same reason the OP stuck 80k in his thread.
Soldato
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Biggest problem with mileage is resale. We all know cars can easily do 130k+ but Joe public still live in a world where cars self destruct at 100k.
hence why buying a car with 100k+ miles is such a bargain
Yea, I identified that above. But resale doesn't matter on cheap cars - infact it becomes your friend, becuase you get a considerably newer and better car for your £3500 for exactly that reason.
