What should I test drive so that I know what I want?

Its cool... :p

I'm not going to go and look at a car at a dealership, see that it is in horribly tatty condition, take it for a test drive, notice the steering wheel is crooked and it won't go in 5th gear, then buy it anyway.

I'm not going to put a deposit down on a car on eBay which is 100+ miles away and has no service history, turn up, see that the owner has no idea how to look after the car, see that it has had the wrong oil in it, look at the fact that it has four mismatched tyres in the wrong size including a winter tyre, hand over the money, then notice the clutch is slipping when I'm 10 miles away, only to try and phone her and be ignored, and go back and find she isn't there.

And I'm not going to buy a CAT D from a random guy 100+ miles away which I've never seen before and then glance at it in the dark, hand over some money, and drive off, only to notice its a pile of **** when I pull over to get petrol half an hour later.

That is how three of my four purchases went...
 
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Yeah but you can't get annoyed when people take the mick, I mean, you do have a bit of history here :p
 
The fourth one, I went to view it, looked it over top to bottom, test drove it, looked through all the history, asked lots of questions, went away and thought about it, did a history check, absolutely everything checked out, then went back another day and bought it having haggled off about £100. That is the only car purchase I did properly, and it is the only car which has been faultless after over 5000 miles... The Slowda... :)

Yeah I do have a slight history... Its also possible that nobody had heard that bit about me buying the Polo with four functional gears and a crooked steering wheel before now, so thats a treat for you... :p

Now what was different with the one car purchase I did properly? I went and did it all alone.

The other three times I had someone with me who tried to persuade me that every thing that was wrong was "fine". And got me excited about hurrying the purchase as quickly as possible so we could go and drive it... :rolleyes:

I went and viewed a lovely Corolla T-Sport in black with a rare alcantara interior, I went alone, and I ended up walking away because the heaters wouldn't blow hot and there was an odd noise under deceleration... I went and saw another one and had an excitable person with me, and ended up driving it away even though it was worse than the one I walked away from.
 
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Acme don't buy cars off bruv asian type of guys. They'll screw over their own kind no joke.
 
Vita said:
Acme don't buy cars off bruv asian type of guys. They'll screw over their own kind no joke.
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Whilst the one time I got "screwed over" on purpose was when I bought a car from someone with Pakistani heritage; anyone can be a scammer. Its not down to where they are from or what their origins are... :)

The person with the black Corolla mentioned above was as white as a sheet of paper and as British as a pork pie, but I got the vibe from him too.
 
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Acme said:
Whilst the one time I got "screwed over" on purpose was when I bought a car from someone with Pakistani heritage; anyone can be a scammer. Its not down to where they are from or what their origins are... :)
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Buy another and prove me wrong.
 
[TW]Fox;29721366 said:
Enjoy the Skoda for a few years, get some experience and a stable job then get yourself something good and enjoy it more. It's far better that way.
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This.

Please don't get any of the cars mentioned at ~£7K as you'll manage to get one that is nothing but trouble. Or, there is that leasing deal on the Golf R is saw on motors would be a good one to go for. Get rid of both the current cars and have that! :)
 
Just a note on the S4 - 344hp sounds a lot but in this car it feels slower than you'd imagine, handles more closely to an A4 rather than an RS4, its LOL-MPG considering how slow it is vs engine size and the bills can be genuinely eye-watering *but* with a decent exhaust the V8 is lovely and the body/chassis is fairly bullet proof.

I had one as a loan car for a few weeks and it just felt like a nippy A4 rather than something a bit more special which is where the RS4 come in really.
 
I think your view of what is slow, nippy, and fast might be a little skewed though in fairness! :D

Thanks for the thoughts though, it looks like the S4 thing isn't going to happen after all, it sounds like a complete disaster waiting to happen.
 
Do you need a car? Could you just get something that looks fun for throw away money? Then if you get more than a year out of it its a bonus.
 
ianh said:
Just a note on the S4 - 344hp sounds a lot but in this car it feels slower than you'd imagine, handles more closely to an A4 rather than an RS4, its LOL-MPG considering how slow it is vs engine size and the bills can be genuinely eye-watering *but* with a decent exhaust the V8 is lovely and the body/chassis is fairly bullet proof.

I had one as a loan car for a few weeks and it just felt like a nippy A4 rather than something a bit more special which is where the RS4 come in really.
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I didn't get ANY of that from it.

344 BHP is fast enough really. It quickly gets you into license losing territory. I drove mine 500+ miles home from London when I picked mine up, and it was a great, comfy cruiser on the motorway, and certainly felt more than quick enough dragging off the tool booths on the M6.

The I live kinda rural, so have a lot of single carriageway A and B roads on my day to day driving, and found it a complete hoot. Especially from 50+. Handling was certainly good enough for me, as were the brakes. Sure, it's no RS4 in reality. But then it's not really up against an RS4, which will cost at least double.

Lol MPG? Not really. Sure, if you hoon the **** out of it, you can get it into the teens easily. But I averaged around 24 mpg over my ownership. Which was only 2 mpg less than my V6 4 motion, over a similar amount of miles with a similar enthusiastic driving style, which was around the same as my R32. And that was only a couple mpg less than my 330i (e46 or e90) and my 1.8T Golf GTI. So with 140 BHP more than it's closest rival (that I have owned), the 2 mpg is hardly lol worthy. In fact, the main reason I don't really like 6 cylinder petrol motors (that aren't charged in some way) is because that V8 was only marginally less efficient, and a lot more powerful.

The only reason I sold it, in fact, was because there are so many other nice cars out there, I felt there was no point in keeping that one too long, when I could be trying something else (e90 330i). That didn't last too long before I went for another V8, albeit this time in a P38 Range Rover (my first one, not the one I currently have).
 
Xs2man - remember the individual we're talking about here, an S4 would be madness for him to try and purchase.

I'd quite fancy one tbh, but I'd also buy a good one, paying more for it if I had to plus not waste money on silly things and ultimately be prepared for the worst....

By contrast something like a 350z should take years of abuse without too much trouble and is still going to provide what will feel like a good jump from what he is used to, whilst looking the part
 
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350Z's are looking like the most likely candidate... :)

But not for a while anyway... :p

It would have been nice to keep looking into the S4, rock bottom B6's are 4K - 5K and 7K ish would have got a good one, but I didn't realise the scale of the potential costs... :eek:
 
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Acme said:
350Z's are looking like the most likely candidate... :)

But not for a while anyway... :p

It would have been nice to keep looking into the S4, rock bottom B6's are 4K - 5K and 7K ish would have got a good one, but I didn't realise the scale of the potential costs... :eek:
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A friend of mine purchased a 350z last year. Full service history and mechanically sound for 5k. I was quite impressed with the noise, comfort and how well it went sideways :D . It felt like a lot of car for 5k. It hasn't put a foot wrong yet. He doesn't like the 18mpg average though.

Out if your shortlist I'd say it's the best all round car.
 
About 10MPG less than the Celica though. But I think it sounds 10MPG nicer... And it will be 10MPG less awful... :)
 
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