Matt_C
Distinguished Member
Couple weeks ago I had a bit of a mishap, and had to say goodby to my cherished Lexus IS200. I'd had it almost 10 years, and despite it being extortionate to run (mpg is terrible and £340 a year tax!) it was the best car I ever owned. In the first 8 years it barely cost me a penny in upkeep and maintenance, outside of regular servicing. 2020 it decided it was going to do it's best to retire and I had to throw a couple dozen components at it to keep it going, but it still sailed through MOT's with barely an advisory each time. Its last ditch attempt at retirement was to wear it's valve stem seals, so it smoked and smelled like a diesel on start up, and require a litre of oil every couple months. Then during a momentary lapse in concentration, I looked up to see the van that had been way in the distance ahead of me had stopped to make a turn, and I wasn't able to (in my defence, I wasn't speeding. I just wasn't giving the road my full attention). The old girl had 167k on the clock, and was only 7 months from turning 20
I was fine - strong car, airbags did their thing, and I walked away from it with just a small laceration to my eyelid from my glasses frame when the airbag went off. Bit sore and bruised, but overall fine. Car was of course a write-off. A witness behind called an ambulance and the police, and I was carted off to hospital to be checked out, and the police managed to shuffle the car out of the road and onto the grass verge. In a random twist of fate, the wreckage was stolen later that same day - presumably by chancers looking to weigh it in for scrap. Thankfully a family member had taken the time to go back to it while I was waiting in hospital and retrieve all my personal belongings from it.
So then the arduous task of finding a replacement. I prefer to buy cars at leisure; when you have a car it's much easier to spend time going to look at different cars to get one you really want. So I figured I'd just get a cheap runabout to tide me over while I find the car I want - and that's not as easy as it sounds anymore! Those little cheap hatchbacks and runabouts aren't actually easy to find anymore; gone are the days of cars at the side of the road with for sale signs in the window, and they're not cheap no either (typically, this is the WORST time to be looking for a used car, as prices are WAY higher than they were two years ago). Anything under £1500 is gone within hours: I found a £750 Mazda3 local on the same day of the crash, messaged the seller and he said he had someone coming up to see it that evening; it was gone by the time I got out of hospital. I found a £1500 Merc that same evening, and spoke to the seller at 10am the next morning: still available. had to make arrangements to get over to it, when I finally had I contacted to seller at 11:15 to make sure they were going to be there - already sold. I went that afternoon to see another Lexus only to find it was an absolute dog (and literally smelled like dog inside too) so had to walk away as despite being under a grand, it was just awful.
I had been looking at Audi A3 saloons for a while (since 2019) and they were on my shortlist of cars I wanted (with a Jag XE at the top of that list, one of these or a Lexus IS300h). Found this one for sale at a used car sales place fairly local, went over there with the intention of test driving it to see if I liked the car and then looking at a couple others over the next few days, but I ended up buying it that afternoon. It's not the the spec I wanted, and higher mileage too, and I know I overpaid (victim of this market and my predicament) but it is a lovely drive. My first auto (I'll ever go back to manual I don't think!), £20 a road tax, and far better MPG from it's little 1.4 turbo engine
Hopefully it will be as good to me as the Lexus was (at least for the first 8 years!) as there's a lot more that could go wrong in this I feel..!
I was fine - strong car, airbags did their thing, and I walked away from it with just a small laceration to my eyelid from my glasses frame when the airbag went off. Bit sore and bruised, but overall fine. Car was of course a write-off. A witness behind called an ambulance and the police, and I was carted off to hospital to be checked out, and the police managed to shuffle the car out of the road and onto the grass verge. In a random twist of fate, the wreckage was stolen later that same day - presumably by chancers looking to weigh it in for scrap. Thankfully a family member had taken the time to go back to it while I was waiting in hospital and retrieve all my personal belongings from it.
So then the arduous task of finding a replacement. I prefer to buy cars at leisure; when you have a car it's much easier to spend time going to look at different cars to get one you really want. So I figured I'd just get a cheap runabout to tide me over while I find the car I want - and that's not as easy as it sounds anymore! Those little cheap hatchbacks and runabouts aren't actually easy to find anymore; gone are the days of cars at the side of the road with for sale signs in the window, and they're not cheap no either (typically, this is the WORST time to be looking for a used car, as prices are WAY higher than they were two years ago). Anything under £1500 is gone within hours: I found a £750 Mazda3 local on the same day of the crash, messaged the seller and he said he had someone coming up to see it that evening; it was gone by the time I got out of hospital. I found a £1500 Merc that same evening, and spoke to the seller at 10am the next morning: still available. had to make arrangements to get over to it, when I finally had I contacted to seller at 11:15 to make sure they were going to be there - already sold. I went that afternoon to see another Lexus only to find it was an absolute dog (and literally smelled like dog inside too) so had to walk away as despite being under a grand, it was just awful.
I had been looking at Audi A3 saloons for a while (since 2019) and they were on my shortlist of cars I wanted (with a Jag XE at the top of that list, one of these or a Lexus IS300h). Found this one for sale at a used car sales place fairly local, went over there with the intention of test driving it to see if I liked the car and then looking at a couple others over the next few days, but I ended up buying it that afternoon. It's not the the spec I wanted, and higher mileage too, and I know I overpaid (victim of this market and my predicament) but it is a lovely drive. My first auto (I'll ever go back to manual I don't think!), £20 a road tax, and far better MPG from it's little 1.4 turbo engine
Hopefully it will be as good to me as the Lexus was (at least for the first 8 years!) as there's a lot more that could go wrong in this I feel..!