Cars 2015

So 2015 was a bit of a disaster year in terms of cars.

Our long-suffering Renault Scenic, which we got in September 2008 for £2500 finally started to need more money put into it than it was worth, and we decided to get rid of it. The exhaust went in August in quite an expensive place, and the local garage said it would need more done on its MOT in a month or so, so we made the hard decision. I loved that car, as it had served us very well, been little bother, and was great for both of the kids. A lot of good times had been spent in that car.

We looked at a few cars (difficult with me, unfortunately), but a few weeks later were tempted by a VW Golf Bluemotion in Prestwick (90 minutes drive away). We packed into my mum's old Getz (which I'd had for a couple of years without any bother) after school one night, and took the long drive over to Prestwick. When we got there it wasn't quite as we'd hoped it would be, but after getting a couple of concessions from the garage and a lot of humming and haying, we eventually decided to buy it. I had to drive it back with the trade plates, and Sarah posted them back the next day. It'd cost more than twice what our previous car had cost, and was a late 2008 car, but we trusted in the brand. That was a bit of an error, as a massive scandal erupted the next week about VW diesel bluemotion engines. That said, it was a great car to drive, and I got about 75 mpg driving it back from Prestwick.

We'd both had reservations when looking at it, and they started bearing fruit within a couple of days. The carpet had been dyed with some industrial strength carpet dye that stunk and dyed stuff black (my trainers still smell a little of it). After a couple of weeks of it still not drying despite the garage assuring us it'd be fine if we put on the heaters and opened the window, we eventually called the garage and got them to cover half the cost of getting it valeted, as well as covering half the cost of a new windscreen (it needed replaced due to a chip they said could be fixed but it turned out couldn't and would have been an MOT fail. The car had just been through its MOT). Bigger issues followed when the passenger door wouldn't unlock, and phantom lights started coming on when other lights were activated. Our local garage guy (who'd been really helpful) was incensed when he took off the passenger door cover, as someone had made a real mess of the inside. We decided to get our money back, but we'd bought it just before some consumer legislation came into force, and despite some shouting matches between Sarah and the guy from the garage, they refused, as they had the legal right to, and said they'd bring it up to the required standard instead. Sarah had to drive it through, then take the train back.

We didn't hear anything back from them for 4 weeks. We called each week but got fobbed off that they'd sent stuff away. They were less than useful and outright hostile sometimes.

In the meantime, we were using my Hyundai Getz (my mum's old car), which had been great. It had just passed its MOT with no work needed, but when Sarah took the kids off to Crail to visit Lyn Smith who'd been in our ward in Alloa then moved, she went over a speedbump on the way back from the chip shop, and the wheel came off. Thankfully she was alone in the car at the time. Granddad and Granny Black came out and picked up the kids, and Sarah had to drive all the way back from Crail to Tullibody with the RAC guy, and dropped off the car at our local (very helpful) garage. They said that it'd cost more than the car was worth to fix, and we weren't sure what to do with it, but they then said it'd need more work done soon, and that was it for that car and we were then without any car.

We didn't want to move on getting any cars until we'd got the mess sorted out with the Golf in Prestwick. We had to hire a car to go up to Aberdeen, and got bumped up to a big Volvo XC70, which Emma loved (it was pretty much new and very big and expensive). She kept saying from that point on that we should buy that car).

Eventually, after 4 weeks of chasing up from us and an unbelievable amount of stress, the garage in Prestwick conceded they couldn't bring the car up to a sellable level of roadworthiness, and agreed to give us our money back. Sarah pushed for them to also give us the money we'd had to invest (half a windscreen and a valet and travel costs), but they totally refused.

We were then officially without any car, and had to rely on lifts from people for a couple of weeks and I worked from home occasionally. I bought a wee car for me (an old Honda Jazz) a week or so later from a local garage in Alloa, which did us quite well for a while. Sarah and I looked at loads of cars, hampered by the fact that I had quite a bad ME/CFS crash in November and was off sick for the whole month, but after seeing loads of cars and upping the budget a few times, we finally bought a Honda Civic diesel with quite a few extras a week before we started travelling around for Christmas. We'd actually put money down on a car a couple of weeks beforehand, before realising it was actually an off-brown (urban titanium they said).

The latter half of 2015 was, unfortunately, dominated by us looking at car websites and trying to work out what car would serve us best with the money we had. Sarah and I are not a well oiled decision making machine (I settle very easily for the first viable option, and she wants to do loads of research and check out all the options then can't decided), so it wasn't ever really fun.

On the plus side, we've come out of it with two decent cars that hopefully will last us for a few years, and a load of experience of what to look for, who not to trust, and only to buy local in case there are any issues. We had to take the Civic back a couple of days later as there was an issue with the windscreen, but because it was just down the road in Stirling that was no bother at all and they sorted it out there and then with no cost or hassle.