The world of used cars

[scoundrel]

My car is no more.

I have owned the car, an 18 year old Ford Mondeo LX1.8, for so long that my own relatives look funny at me when I mention any previous car I ever had. They literally cannot remember me driving anything else.

So now I am in the process of looking for another car and on a derisory budget of £1,000 or less. It is so long since I last had to do this that I myself had forgotten what this is like...but it is coming back to me.

Kill Bond! Now!

So far I have apprised a £490 Mondeo estate which was located at a dealership near Paddock Wood (Kent) on the banks of the River Medway. I got there before 4pm on a Sunday but the place was shut tight as a clam when it should still have been open. This may have been a good thing because I was able to wander around the plot at my own leisure. I soon discovered that the best end of neck of mutton was on the front, visible from the road, and the scrag end of neck of mutton ("part-exchanged, priced to clear") was behind the building, on a plot right next to the river. At the very far end, hemmed in by other cars so that at least four would need to be shifted before this one could move, there was a Ford Mondeo estate, as advertised...sort of.

Dear me. What looked on the web like a perfectly servicable car (with clean alloy wheels even) turned out to be an abandoned derelict. The accumulation of atmospheric dirt and bird poo as well as the location, in the very most inaccessible spot on the yard, tells me of a car which has not moved an inch for many months. Checking the brake disks and calipers through the gaps in the alloy wheels (nice wheels BTW) tells me that this car shouldn't move. Those brakes are rustier than deep sea salvage. To crown it all, the seats were dirty in a way which speaks of a whole lifetime in which they have been hard used and never, ever washed. I think they used to keep hens in there until the hens got fed up and went off to find somewhere nicer to roost.

All this can be mine for £490...plus £235 for the road tax...plus £50 or so for the MOT...plus however much the remedial work to get past the MOT test would come in at. Then of course there is insurance, but that is no different to insuring my recently deceased pride and joy.

Crikey.

Good advice gratefully received,

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Good advice gratefully received,

RIP for Scounds legendary Mondeo

As for a newer one
Don't, lacks 4 cylinders to qualify as having a real engine plus it drives the wrong wheels

[scoundrel]

I saw on the web this morning a Mondeo which looks very much like a clean and well kept version of my old one, same Mark and a slightly ungraded model (alloy wheels, naturally); plus from the interior photos I see that the digital clock is there so I can tell the time without trying to catch the light on my wristwatch while driving in the dark. Most of my driving is done in the dark BTW. It is even the same colour.

The asking price of £250 is pretty reasonable for a car which still has tax and MOT. I was getting interested. But then I read this.

Car has scrape along passenger side rear door as shown. Makes grinding noise under hard left turning. Full service history plus mot. Very comfortable. 2 owners, Green, £250

I can see the pirannha fish in the water already.

[rotobott]

£550 in Kennington 2003 Mondeo, I doubt you'll get the cardboard box thrown in at that price

[scoundrel]

I'm liking the Bacofoil effect interior trim. This could be a sell.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

This could be a sell.

No don't Nooooooooooooo

Never but a used car, for all you know the back seat was used by , Umm, Bill and Bob

[Brecht]

Granted, I know shit about cars when it comes to details but there's an universal advice even I'm aware of: don't buy American cars.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Brecht

Granted, I know shit about cars when it comes to details but there's an universal advice even I'm aware of: don't buy American cars.

Its not very PC, but I met a chap at the dealership in Kent who was sizing up an Audi (about 15 times my budget but this fellow was obviously more flush than I am, he was wearing Nike trainers) and who commented:

Buy German or Jap:
The rest is crap.

As it happens, they made the Ford Mondeo in Belgium until 2014. They make it in Spain now.

[MaxJoker]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

My car is no more.

Dammit , why do bad things happen to good vehicles

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I have owned the car, an 18 year old Ford Mondeo LX1.8, for so long that my own relatives look funny at me when I mention any previous car I ever had. They literally cannot remember me driving anything else.

Well how could they remember you driving anything else Gent
Before buying that practically immortal machine on your seventeen birthday , the last thing you`d driven was a dodgem

Originally Posted by scoundrel

So now I am in the process of looking for another car and on a derisory budget of £1,000 or less.

Hey you're in luck (I said ) as our very own Leg-End Greenman has placed his car for sale



Yet you know Greenie , a grand isn't going to cut it
He might accept it as a down payment on allowing you to listen to him reading from the logbook though

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Good advice gratefully received,

Never buy seafood from a stall situated behind a dumpster

[scoundrel]

No Viking funeral for my old one, I regret to say. It went the way of the Falun Gong; executed so that its vital organs can be sold to enable other Mark Two Ford Mondeos to continue to roll.

I have bitten the bullet and invested £100 deposit towards the £760 I will pay to obtain this 2005 Mondeo 1.8 litre Zetec hatchback.




As you will see, it is at least nice and clean and it runs very well. It comes with all the MOTs since 2008 and a full service history with two previous owners, neither one of whom was a car rental company. It was on sale for £795 but when I learned that the tax will be £240 on top, I asked them to reduce it £760 so that I will meet my £1,000 budget.

I hope I made a good choice but only time will answer the question. However I doubt if I will get much more car than this at this level of price. Plus, of course, I get the obligatory alloy wheels.