29 SO CLOSE, AND YET...

After the umpteenth trawl on Auto Trader, I finally found the car of my holiday dreams.  It was white, with less than 70,000 miles, and only a couple of owners from new. The water pump had been replaced, and it had the right alloys. It wasn’t covered in stickers, and the interior was in good condition.

I was really tempted, but I asked Lisa to come and have a look at the car, as I knew she would talk me out of it. Alarmingly, she told me to go for it!  Before you could say ‘loan application,’ I was on to Money Supermarkets, looking for a deal with the lowest APR.

After that, I looked to see how much I’d be getting rinsed by the insurance companies.  Surprisingly, it was only a few hundred quid a year.  I’d like to say it was because of my no-claims discount, but I don’t have any, so it was all down to the fact that I’m an auld sod.

Yikes! It was all systems go. I knew something would go wrong, so when I phoned the company selling the car, I expected it to be sold already.  It wasn’t! The guy invited me over for a test drive, and that is when everything started to unravel.

The car is in Bradford. I couldn’t get out of work to have a look at it, and I want to get the AA out to give the car a shakedown.  The seller, Jay, was initially happy for me to get the AA out but started putting caveats in. 

He asked exactly when the inspection would take, claiming that he could only keep the car for me for a couple of days, after which the next person with cash could have it.

I spoke to the AA, and they confirmed that that could only be done within a window of 3-5 days. After much gnashing of teeth, he agreed to keep it for 3 days, and we would take it from there. The AA confirmed that if I cancelled the day before, it would only cost me £20, so I thought I’d take a chance.

After going through seemingly endless online pages, the inspection was booked. The engineer would liaise directly with Jay to arrange the exact details.  I phoned Jay out of courtesy to say it had been arranged, and he said he had someone contact them.  They were willing to sort the finance out tomorrow and take the car.  He said he was in a quandary over what to do. He said he was going to have a cup of tea and think it over.

There is no quandary; you have given me three days, you plum!  I basically said this to him, and he said to give him a ring back in 30 minutes to let him have a little think.  Helmet.  I put the phone down and told Lisa her advice was straight to the point; “f*ck him!”  As she rightly pointed out, we have until May to get a car; the perfect one will reappear.  As Carl said, dealers will desperately shift cars off their forecourt in January.

I didn’t wait 30 minutes. I phoned him straight back and told him there were other cars I was looking at, so I’ll make the decision easy for him and sell it to the other buyer. Suddenly, his attitude completely changed! He started with, “Why don’t you leave the inspection in place until the last minute? If the other person drops out, you are in pole position.”  

“Keep an eye on the website. If it is still there on Wednesday, then it is all yours!”  Keep an eye on my middle finger, mate. You have missed your window.