Thinking about thinking about buying a new car

[boggyb68]

another way of playing around with some options is to look at something like car giant. if you do the body type to suit your needs, you might be surprised what comes up. in terms of price, car giant is usually also very good because of their business model. high turnover of cars, so less profit on each one (no haggling etc).

http://www.cargiant.co.uk/

I bought a car from Car Giant a few years back and I couldn't fault them.. even when it went wrong a few days later (well I would buy a Peugoet! lol) and they couldn't do enough to help and sorted it all out quickly and efficiently..

Only thing is they are based in London and Davey lives in Manchester.. there are car supermarkets all over the place though which offer the same sort of discounted prices and service so I would def look at them..

B.

[thingonaspring]

ah yes, sorry - i should have said, it's london -based. but even having said that, it's quite useful to see what cars come up when you search for a particular set of search criteria- cars i've never even heard of. i've actually bought 3 cars from car giant, and only one has gone wrong so far. funnily enough, it was also a peugeot, still under manufacturers warranty, but because it was a dodgy clutch that kept burning out (5 in a year?!), that was "wear and tear" apparently. meh. but also moved onto automatics soon after that too
didn't really notice any difference in price when it came to buying an automatic though.

i also had a look at the prices of a few of the other car supermarkets, but (at the time, a few years back), cargiant was far and away the cheapest.

[boggyb68]

The Peugeot I got had a software fault with the semi auto gearbox.. just ground to a halt on the way home from there.. I disconnected the battery and reconnected it and it came back to life.. until 20 miles down the road!

They took it back to the local Peugeot dealer and they sorted it straight away..

There is a place in Slough called Trade Sales that used to be really cheap, dunno if they're still going or not..

B.

[FatTrucker]

If you're buying new and dependent on your budget go for one of the new focus's with Fords new 1.0 litre engine. Dirt cheap to run, all the space you need from a family car and still the same power delivery as a 1.6

[Negative Creep]

I would never trust a car supermarket, but from what I've seen opinion is definitely mixed


http://pistonheads.com/xforums/topic.as ... &mid=46688

[psj3809]

Yeah i wouldnt go to a car supermarket. I would get one from Exchange & Mart, prices there are often quite good, Focuses and Fiestas are common as anything so you should be able to find a decent deal. Insurance is pretty good and best of all the parts are easy to get hold of and so the prices at garages for tyres/parts/services etc are very cheap. I wouldnt go to a Ford garage (find most prices at main garages are OTT) but use a local garage.

I do a lot of mileage in my job and (touch wood !) my Focus has been superb considering how many times i drive up north/south etc a month

[FatTrucker]

Yeah i wouldnt go to a car supermarket. I would get one from Exchange & Mart, prices there are often quite good, Focuses and Fiestas are common as anything so you should be able to find a decent deal. Insurance is pretty good and best of all the parts are easy to get hold of and so the prices at garages for tyres/parts/services etc are very cheap. I wouldnt go to a Ford garage (find most prices at main garages are OTT) but use a local garage.

I do a lot of mileage in my job and (touch wood !) my Focus has been superb considering how many times i drive up north/south etc a month

You do realise that posting that pretty much guarantees a breakdown within the next fortnight?

[MikeFishcake]

Done any more test drives then Mr Hawk?

I agree with being wary about car supermarkets. Heard all sorts of bad stuff about Car Craft. Although I did read some good stuff about The Car People in Ashton under Lyne so I went there.

As promised, nobody pounced on me as I walked through the door, and I was able to look around at my leisure, but when I *did* make enquiries about a few cars, my GOD did the pressure start. I did test drive a Fiesta, Focus and Jazz (if you can count a 3 minute tootle down the road and round a roundabout a "test drive") and after all that the salesman seemed to basically assume I was going to buy one of the three and started pulling out all of these documents for me to sign

I repeated the same thing I mentioned to him at first, which was that I wasn't going to buy today as I was just looking, politely thanked him and walked out. I appreciate they have targets to meet, but I don't like to be pressured to make a quick decision when I'm planning to make the second largest investment in my life so far.

The place I did buy my car from was fine though; the guy didn't try to fob me off with nonsense (unlike one of his slimy colleagues I overheard on the phone), answered all my questions, was perfectly fine with the fact I said I wasn't going to buy there and then (although TBH me and Mrs Fishcake agreed we'd get it as soon as we left the showroom), he let me prod around the car whilst I tried to look like I knew what I was doing, and also let me give it a proper test drive for about 15 minutes. He even gave a polite yet nervous laugh when I was driving down the motorway at 70MPH and I asked if I could test the airbags

[Negative Creep]

On the subject of car supermarkets, there's this famous car crash of a thread

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showth ... t=18019506

[Sega2006]

Well from driving a coming up on 16 year old Civic I can tell you that Honda's will go and go and go and are fairly well made (yes even the swindon built ones), If the Jazz doesnt work out and a Civic doesnt suit your needs then I would say Ford is your other better choice to go, most are very reliable these days and often share motors with Mazda and Volvo so not much tends to go wrong, the interiors can put up with plenty of abuse, my dads '05 plate C-Max still looks like new inside and its recived no special care, stay well clear of anything french though, we got my Sister a 206 and its cost so much over the time we've had it, every MOT we have put it through it failed on something.

[psj3809]

On the subject of car supermarkets, there's this famous car crash of a thread

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showth ... t=18019506

Thanks for the link, never seen that before, looked at the first two pages, looks to be a good un ! Cant believe that lad bought that crappy car on that silly high finance package. Ridiculous. Shall read more later !

[the_hawk]

Thanks a lot for all the advice everybody, we ended up with a Vauxhall Astra, which I suppose flies in the face of most of the advice on this thread.

I quite fancied the Jazz, but after test driving the Astra, the wife was completely taken with it, which is only fair as she'll be the one commuting to work in it, doing the school run, doing 80% of the shopping etc so it was pretty much her call.

After driving for the best part of 20 years I think it's the first "grown up" car I've ever driven. (Previously had Corsa, Micra & a Matiz)

Anyway it was fun doing all the reading into it & the test drives & the looking at cars pretending to know what I was looking at, but hopefully that's all over for at least another six or seven years.

[thingonaspring]

you went from thinking about thinking about buying a car, to owning one in four days.
that's efficiency.

i have an astra, second i've owned. good, cheap to run, and never had any problems with either, both sailed through MOTs with no problems etc (much like the advice about fords). though mine's an estate (rock n roll!), due to the small kids/push-chair etc.

[SexyWayne]

Cars are sh*t.. I f**king hate cars...

But yeah, Astra's aren't too bad when it comes to MOT time, most common thing I've failed them on is broken rear coil springs and track rod ends, even older ones 2002/03 pretty much sail through the MOT, decent solid cars really

edit: there is one thing I don't like about them, when the mold starts to build up in the air-con/heater... it smells like dead minge...

[Sega2006]

Im disturbed how you know what that smells like wayne