Car Shopping
We’ve just got back from a weekend at my Parents in Gloucestershire, the aim of which was to buy me a new car… Why is nothing ever easy?
We spent all day Saturday driving around various used car showrooms but just couldn’t find anything that suited. I was after a fairly large 4×4 which wasn’t too old and was within my fairly modest budget. We found plenty of old 4×4’sn within my budget, but they were only a year or two younger than my current Ford Transit, so really that would have been a downgrade seeing as I’ve had the van for 4 years or so. We also found plenty of nice 4×4’s that were around 4 years old or younger, but these were out of my price range. Maybe I was asking for too much and would have to plump for a 1999/2000 car after all, but something kept telling me there must be a 2001/2002 4×4 out there somewhere that would be perfect.
By Saturday afternoon we had one last option that looked too good not to investigate, depsite the fact that it was out near Swindon. On paper it was a 2003 52 Reg Mitsubishi Shogun 2.5 Sport TD Classic. So Brad and I went out to look at it. At £6790 it was aove my £6k budget, but we though a bit of haggling might bring that down. When we got there, the price on the car was actually £8495, but apparently it had been reduced to clear so we had very little leeway as far as haggling goes. It did look nice, it was a 2002/2003 car which was younger than I was expecting, loads of room inside, no alloy wheels which was a shame, but the other specs (manual, ABS, 5 doors, Diesel, Central Locking, Driver and passenger airbags, Electric windows and mirrors, PAS, sunroof etc.) were all good. We took it for a test drive, everything was good and everything worked so I decided to have it.
Of course, as is probably always the case when spending such large amounts of money, 2nd thoughts started to creep in after signing on the dotted line. A bit of research shows that fuel consumption isn’t going to be great and that this particular model doesn’t have ABS brakes despite the dealers description which says it does. Insurance is going to be fairly steep as well becasue up until now I have had commercial insurance.
Still, I need a new vehicle and there wasn’t really any other option. Whats more, it is white and should match the iPod I’m getting for christmas nicely… Is this just another aspect of my mid-life crisis? A new slightly OTT car and an iPod?
So, a weekend looking for a car will now be followed by a few days shopping around for the best insurance deal…
