Ok - firstly the car is no lemon, and I haven't bought it from Car Craft resulting in paying finance worth more than the car new!
So I had just got a contract extension, when I thought my days were numbered. I had recently been in an accident and no longer had a car.
The money I had saved up for bills, I thought, well I don't really need it now...and so went out and bought myself a serious upgrade on my diesel fiesta...a Merc CLK 2.3K.Nice.
However, my first mistake was taking my girlfriend with me to see the car. I noted the issues, the drivers window being an issue I new about and a rust spot. However the car had new tyres, and AMG alloys which offset those problems, and still made it a good buy.
But the bodywork in general was a fair bit worse than anticipated, just a lot more scuffs and light scratching/stone chips.
At this point I said, I think I might walk away. However, my GF pointed out that I on cars that are 10years old I should expect such scratches/scuffs and that I could go and other cars of this age are likely to have such issues.
She had a point. Then it drove well. Then I bought it.
I've loved it ever since, but then today I discovered that those scratches might cost slightly more than I anticipated.
It is a silver car, and therefore getting small paint repairs is almost impossible, the whole panel will need to be resprayed and is likely not to match the rest of the car. Given the number of small scuffs and scratches a near whole respray could even be a consideration, at a cost of £900! Now I'm not going to do that, but I am likely to spend some considerable amount.
Now with the cost of that, the window and a few other bits and bobs...
I realise I could have MAYBE bought a slightly better example from the start, and also had no initial things to sort out.
Then again, I could be taking a grass-is always greener approach, and believe that if I pay more I automatically get something better...which is not always the case and is even less likely in the world of second-hand cars.
I'm not sure what the point of this was, just to share experience really!!
So I had just got a contract extension, when I thought my days were numbered. I had recently been in an accident and no longer had a car.
The money I had saved up for bills, I thought, well I don't really need it now...and so went out and bought myself a serious upgrade on my diesel fiesta...a Merc CLK 2.3K.Nice.
However, my first mistake was taking my girlfriend with me to see the car. I noted the issues, the drivers window being an issue I new about and a rust spot. However the car had new tyres, and AMG alloys which offset those problems, and still made it a good buy.
But the bodywork in general was a fair bit worse than anticipated, just a lot more scuffs and light scratching/stone chips.
At this point I said, I think I might walk away. However, my GF pointed out that I on cars that are 10years old I should expect such scratches/scuffs and that I could go and other cars of this age are likely to have such issues.
She had a point. Then it drove well. Then I bought it.
I've loved it ever since, but then today I discovered that those scratches might cost slightly more than I anticipated.
It is a silver car, and therefore getting small paint repairs is almost impossible, the whole panel will need to be resprayed and is likely not to match the rest of the car. Given the number of small scuffs and scratches a near whole respray could even be a consideration, at a cost of £900! Now I'm not going to do that, but I am likely to spend some considerable amount.
Now with the cost of that, the window and a few other bits and bobs...
I realise I could have MAYBE bought a slightly better example from the start, and also had no initial things to sort out.
Then again, I could be taking a grass-is always greener approach, and believe that if I pay more I automatically get something better...which is not always the case and is even less likely in the world of second-hand cars.
I'm not sure what the point of this was, just to share experience really!!
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