Car Ownership (Again)

Maytreees min having decided that  having just passed her driving test at the first attempt, she should acquire  a car to ensure that she gained driving experience, she naturally enough co-opted  her dad in the car buying   exercise. As at the outset, travelling   was slightly restricted  by the need to  use public transport to view possible cars to buy, our area of search was limited to London SW20 - 17. She  also decided to look at private car sales rather than professional or  motor garage controlled sales, on the grounds that  private sales give better value and avoid VAT payments applicable to most commercial sales.

Disadvantages of buying privately however are  the risks of the car being faulty with  no guarantee or warranty and of course of  the seller being a fraudster  and perhaps not even owing the car being sold at all.

She having found a car in the Wimbledon area through one of the internet car ad sites, we traveled by bus to meet with the seller on this bright sunny Saturday morning. I was slightly concerned that the meeting place was  at a local  Homebase/industrial-type complex but we soon met the seller who turned out to be an interesting Polish  man who told us that he was married to a Polish lady he had met in the UK and they had two tiny children.

They were selling their 2nd car a VW Polo Diesel  as they found living in Wimbledon that they did not need  cars as much as they had thought. After driving it about and haggling the price down a couple of £100s a bargain was struck at £2500. However with maytrees min only just having passed her driving test the cost of insuring the car for her to drive (with parents as named drivers as well) was really high I thought at a tad under £1,800. Still she bit that bullet too and is now the proud owner of a silver VW Polo diesel. A problem with buying privately however is that if the car has faults there is little one can do  other than pay up  for repairs. However none are  apparent (yet!).

Overall the process of searching looking haggling and then buying  a car was better than it used to be when I was last in the market for a  second hand car a few years back  and  car prices seem much less expensive than they were. On the other hand the cost of insurance  has gone through the roof though this is no doubt partially a result of maytrees min having only just passed her driving test.