Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Transporting the Troops

So we have bought a car. We've had a rental the last 2 weeks, which I've been bravely driving around without incident. But that has to go back on Thursday, so we bought a car. We bought it at a "car supermarket" which is something I hadn't heard of before. Basically, it's a company with lots and lots of cars. The turnover of cars is so high, they can afford to keep the price pretty low. You don't haggle, you don't get to test drive. You can sit in it, start it up, but that's it. The place we went to deals mainly with cars that had been used for companies, so they have a fair amount of mileage on them for relatively new cars. However, they are also several thousand less than the new price for 6-month old cars.

We bought a black Ford Focus. Ford Focuses are apparently Britain's most popular car, so there were several to choose from. For those who like all the nitty-gritty details, it's a 1.4L LX Focus. We did have our eye on a Sport model, but it was already taken when we went back, so we settled for our second choice. There's not a lot of difference between the 2 anyways, and this one was 300 pounds less with less mileage, so we can live without the alloy wheels. It's pretty roomy in the trunk and has 4 doors, so getting the baby and baby equipment around shouldn't be an issue.

The young fellow serving us was pretty amusing. He had had a bad day when we went in to make a down payment on it and was ticked off with all his colleagues and the entire place. So absolutely no hard sell on any of the extras, he just wanted to get out of there. I'm off to get a banker's draft made up for the rest so we can pick it up tomorrow. I'll maybe try and post a picture or two in a few days, both of the car and the area.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watch out for the clutch of your Ford Focus. On my recent trip, the car rental company gave me first a Ford Focus (yes, seems to be rally popular in the UK). The clutch turned out to get stuck when pushed, not every time ; when the traffic light switched to green, there suddenly was not clutch. I had to get under the steering wheel and pull it out with my hand - not only once. The rental company changed the car and was not surprised about the problem.

Joy Stick

ZeeBride said...

Fortunately, it's still under manufacturer's warranty for another 2 and half years. But thanks for the warning, we'll definitely look out for it!