I bought a new car this week. I say “new”, it’s actually 12 months older than the one I traded in for it. And I say “car”, but it’s really more of a small bus, except there’s no one at the back being happy-slapped by tattooed 13-year-olds.
What it definitely isn’t is cool. But coolness is not something that bothers me about cars any more. Since the baby arrived I have become obsessed – to the heady point of buying three consecutive issues of What Car? magazine – only with a vehicle’s safety and sturdiness. As the salesmen have twittered on about multiple CD players and alloy wheels I have batted them away irritably, saying, “Yes, yes, but has it got a side-impact protection system and an inflatable rear curtain?”
Ever public-spirited, though, I will share the fruits of my motor-vehicle trading experience, and my first tip is this. Ignore anyone who tells you it is better to put an advert in the paper and sell your car privately. All that happens then is that two dodgy-looking blokes, both called Dave, will come to your house, park your car with one wheel on the kerb and lie underneath it on the wet street blowing out their cheeks dramatically and saying words like “camshaft” and “floor rot”. Then they will offer you the “bottom book price” as if they were proffering a kidney and say, “You’ll be lucky to get shot of this, love”, whereupon you run indoors in tears.
At least when you go to a proper showroom, they are paid to be smarmy, diplomatically looking past the 12 empty crisp packets stuffed in the door pockets and complimenting you on your one CD which came free with the paper that morning. They may still rip you off, but at least they give you a cup of tea while doing so.
Then there is lesson two. Don’t be drawn into one of those “options”-type schemes where you have to make a stonking great payment at the end for a car which now feels like a boyfriend past its sell-by date. The salesmen know this, and it’s a clever ploy to ensure you will prolong the scheme by getting a new car, because you feel cheated that you are having to hand over thousands for something that you thought of as yours anyway. Before you know, it you’re in a psychological trap you can’t escape, like those women who have “just one Botox session” and within weeks are begging surgeons to liposuck their big toe.
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The last tip comes from an old friend whose father is a trained car mechanic. He says it is always – and he taps the table and repeats “always” – a waste of money to buy a brand-new car. “The second you drive a new car off the forecourt, you’ve lost a grand,” he says in a Cockney geezer accent. “All you’re paying for is seats that smell nice.” You can take or leave his advice, of course, but I will say that he’s a millionaire and he retired at 50.
bargainhunter@thetimes.co.uk