I'm Really Worried I Have Upset My...
Family & Relationships0 min ago
I’m at the stage now where I need to replace my 16 yo Citreon C1. I can’t keep paying out and paying out for it when it goes wrong and now the rubber exhaust mounts have gone on it. When I called breakdown recovery out he said it could cost a maximum of £500 to fix and I don’t want to spend that on a car that is so old. I just spent £170 on it just a few months ago when one of the coils went.
Anyway, I want to go looking for a car at a proper dealer (none of the Car Giants or Cazoo’s of the world). However, I feel intimidated by the salesmen as I’ll be a lone woman going to look for a good used car. Any helpful hints to get round my awkwardness, please?
£500 seems a bit excessive to replace exhaust mounts, get a few quotes before agreeing to the work.
You have to realise that the annual depreciation on your 16 year old Citreon is zero, whereas say you buy a 3 year old car for £10k and keep it for 10 years, your annual depreciation will average out at £1k per year.
That £1k will buy a lot of repairs on your C1 – for this reason I normally keep my cars until a repair cost exceeds (or is close to) the value of the car, rather than having it repaired I could purchase a similar vehicle. At that point, I’ll buy a newer car, and suffer depreciation averaging around £1k per year over ownership.
Even relatively new cars can suffer expensive repair bills, at around 5 years old my current car required a replacement transfer box, for which the main dealer wanted £2.5k.
Well sort of, but in my experience women sales people are no differnt. They are all a breed of their own!
Best bet is take someone (preferbaly male) with you. And dont agree anything there and then, if they tell you the couple over the other side of the showroom are about to make an offer tell then "OK let them have it" and walk out. (Or similar sales patter)
A monkey to fix the exhaust hangers is taking the peace. They are just a couple of rubber donuts that stretch over a bracket. I'd get that fixed if I was you. The guys in the local quick fit would do it for you but beware they'll probably try and flog you all sorts so just insist on the exhaust mounts, should not be any more than £50.
I felt similar to you but found I overcame it once I got there out of necessity really.
However the female assistant still managed to sell me an add on which included a free valet and MOTs for life which wasn't very expensive but did have me waiting for nearly 2 hours on the day I collected the car while they did the flipping valet. I'm sure it was already pretty clean. Nevermind I'm happy with what Ibought and have had my free MOT this year without any pushing to have extra work done or a service.
I wouldn't be confident enough to use an on line service to buy a car but you might include the likes of Car Shop in you search in addition to the main dealers.
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