Still, cheaper than buying a new car. Why are people never honest and just say, "I fancy a change"!

my car just past 138k on the clock and its nearly 12 years old im assuming youre car uses petrol, are you going for a diesel this time? theyre invincible!

I used to be a salesman, so I know exactly how annoying they can be!

Buying cars from a dealer is the problem though. Just go private and know what you're looking at.

Or, as suggested, fix your relatively young car!!

It shows the depths of the economy that even consoles need finance.

You could be waiting a while.

I've always let them witter on about their great deals as I'm looking round the cars, settle on a car, hammer down the price and then, and only then, let on that I'm paying cash. I always get the feeling, if they know beforehand that they won't be getting their finance commission, they are less inclined to move on the price.

A friend of mine used to be a salesman in a Lada garage. Best job he ever had, he said, because everyone who walked through the doors was a customer - they didn't get many folk browsing Ladas.

Buying a new car with cash?
When I did that I used drivethedeal.com
Best broker prices by far and the car comes from a UK dealer. A two hour trip to Manchester was well worth it for almost two grand off the list price.
There was never any mention of credit as you pay a deposit to the website, then the rest by bankers draft (or similar) to the dealer.

When I bought my first Mondeo in Germany (V6 estate), I plonked 10K on the desk in 100s and 50s.

As to the finance and price, it is true, you generally won't get as good a deal, if you mention from the start, that you are paying cash. Get the offer, with finance first, then say you've changed your mind and pay cash.

ABS control unit - £1,603
Anti roll bar thingies x 4 - £467
A 'few' other bits - £289

Total cost to get through MOT - £2,359. Yea - you're right, I fancy a change.

Al

Apart from the fact that it looks like you're being ripped off there, I bet you're spending more than that on a new car!

I hope those aren't anti roll bar bushes!? If so they shouldn't be more than about £20 each. I bought a set for Horace for his MOT and they were £15 each including shipping and from Swedenishland!!

I bought a Hyundai 2 years ago and after the initial finance question I told them I had cash and unless they were doing 0% then I was not interested – they did not try and sell any finance to me after that. (They tried to sell me load of other stuff not needed but then that’s their job)

Was that from an authorised main dealership?

I used to think it was nice to use your "friendly local garage", but having seen friends being completely fleeced I'm sticking to main dealers.

An intermittent starting problem on a Kia ended up costing a guy at work about £3.5K in parts and labour. I'm pretty sure it was just a corroded connection on a sensor, and a proper dealer would have had the correct equipment to efficiently and quickly diagnose the fault. Instead, the mechanic probably caused more faults himself bodging it with the wrong tools and then charged engine-out prices to fix wot he broke.

This particular "friendly local garage" then quoted his wife nearly double what Allen Ford charged for my service and MOT on a very similar car. Now she's compared notes, it's safe to say they're never going back...

Ah now you see - the problem is that your car is too new!

What you really need to do is get an older car - like mine.

No ABS and I'm pretty sure no anti-roll bar. Certainly doesn't feel like it has anti-roll.

At those prices I suggest so. My advice is never to use a stealers, find a specialist independent. That ABS control unit, for example. You could get a second-hand one from a scrappy, or have that one refurbished, or even a brand new one from somewhere else for less than half that price, but they'd lose their shiny markup and their £90 an hour charge for letting the work experience monkey loose on your car.

My last main dealer was excellent, very good prices (40-50% under those of an independent and the independent was using pattern parts!), but I've also suffered from expensive dealers as well.

Another advantage of the main dealer was that I could pay on invoice, up to 30 days later.