Wednesday 26 September 2007

Buying Cars!

Buying a car should be straight forward, well you'd think it was. Unfortunately my partner isn't very tall and her legs are pretty short, though they do reach the ground!

The problem was that very few cars have enough seat adjustment to enable her comfortably to reach the pedals. Having previously put her back out for 8months whilst driving a metro, which taught her that the driving position had to be perfect, not just almost comfortable. Previously she'd been driving a Fiat Cincequento (sp?), though wanted something a bit bigger and a bit more substantial.

Well we went around about a dozen garages locally on Saturday, we check the South Bristol Directory, to find the local ones, most didn't actually have websites but luckily the directory still listed them and gave a routemap to them. The first garage we went to was just down he road and they had a couple of cars in the price range that looked hopeful. After trying the Fiesta, 206, Seat and clio it was found only the 206 was actually comfortable. It was also a pretty tidy car for the money although being a 1.9deisel it was going to be a bit of a jump insurance wise. After driving round a few more garages trying similair cars, none others 'fitted' as well as the 206, not even a 106. Perhaps car makers should do a bit more to make their seats more adjustable! One car we were shown didn't even have a lever to slide the seat back, so we left that one quickly. Another had to have someone in the back to do the seat adjustment, so another sharp exit!

After umming and ahhhing we went back to the first garage and I took the 206 for a spin. I was pretty impressed with it driving wise, power steering, pretty nice acceleration for a diesel and good handling. We managed to negotiate the price down a bit and we're not sure wether we got a trade in for the Fiat or he was just being kind taking it off us!

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