[Johnny Brown]

Get it MOT'd. The VAG specialist did our Polo last week for £30, and its older than yours. It will add lot more than £30 to the value.

[JamieG]

Thanks guys. Good advice all round.

I'll book it in for an MOT then and stick it on ebay. Hopefully i won't get loads of knobs hassling me again. I'll have a go with T-cut too and see if i can minimize the scratches. Yeah, i'm not trying to pretend the car is in mint condition but it certainly worth more than £200.

Cheers Jamie

[SA Chris]

It's amazing what a bit of T cut , a going over vinyl with a damp cloth, an attack with a Dyson and a £60 set of halfords wheelcovers can do. If you are prepared to put a price on it and haggle, gumtree is an alternative.

Avoid webuyanycar they will offer you a shitty price, and then push it southwards during the inspection, even if you think you've covered everything.

[Paul B]

Thanks guys. Good advice all round.

I'll book it in for an MOT then and stick it on ebay. Hopefully i won't get loads of knobs hassling me again. I'll have a go with T-cut too and see if i can minimize the scratches. Yeah, i'm not trying to pretend the car is in mint condition but it certainly worth more than £200.

Cheers Jamie

A few car detailing products (as mentioned) will make the car look a lot better (tyre black, bumper black etc.). T-cut does work wonders, especially if combined with a coloured polish. This can be a bit misleading to someone purchasing the car. If it's going on Ebay take LOTS of decent photos.

[Mike Tyson]

Webuyanycar offered me £50 for my car, but said there was a £50 fee to process it all, so basically they'd take it away for nowt.

Amazing business plan.

[SA Chris]

Surely the word "buy" in webuyanycar is therefore a lie!

[Mike Tyson]

They're a bunch of tossers. People must be desperate if they use them. Why else would you sell your car for about a third of its market value? I might start a business called webuyanythingforathirdofitsvaluefromdesperatepeople.com and see how I get on. Twunts.

[SA Chris]

There's a local (well Fife) car scrapper that will (or used to about 4 years ago) buy your car off you for a mimimum of £100, and will even tow it away.

Never heard from anyone having a good experience with wbac.com

[nic mullin]

Surely the word "buy" in webuyanycar is therefore a lie!

They turned a friend of mine down when he tried to get them to take his (worthless, undriveable) old motor off him, so I think the "we buy any car" in webuyanycar is a lie...

[tomtom]

Surely the word "buy" in webuyanycar is therefore a lie!

They turned a friend of mine down when he tried to get them to take his (worthless, undriveable) old motor off him, so I think the "we buy any car" in webuyanycar is a lie...

They won't take a car without an MOT.

IIRC Falling Down had a perfectly decent experience of selling his car via them...

[Jaspersharpe]

He did but his car was a beast. 

[cheque]

Webuyanycar seems like a good option if you have a car that runs but is basically worthless and you want to offload it before it's MOT runs out without having to pay to scrap it.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this as it's what I plan to do in a month's time.

[Mike Tyson]

I've never paid to have a car scrapped in my life! I'd be gobsmacked if wbac gave you more than the scrap value.

[tomtom]

Go back 15 (I think) years ago when the price of scrap metal was on the floor and you'd have to pay £50 or so to get it taken away and scrapped...

[cheque]

I thought that was still the case to be honest. I've only ever had one car so I'm pretty much clueless about how best to get rid of it. It cost me nothing so I'm not really bothered how little I get for it.

[tomtom]

Especially for Fiend http://newsthump.com/2014/10/06/vatican-declares-official-miracle-after-audi-driver-indicates-before-lane-change/

[Fiend]

LOL, nicely done.

I've started indicating even more since I got the A3, it does that funny thing where it blinks 3 times when you vaguely wave your hand near the indicator stick, so I do that all the time habitually, even on my own at night with the nearest car on a completely different motorway.

[Baron]

Has anyone used Start Rescue for breakdown cover?
http://www.startrescue.co.uk/annual-breakdown-cover

Seem very cheap...

And what about Kwik Fit for insurance? Quoting me £328 for a 58 plate Octavia estate.

[Paul B]

No but I used Alps through my broker and they were dreadful. I'd be wary of insurance-type breakdown for this reason.

Finally broke with Brentacre this week when a mainstream insurer could beat their quote by ~25%.

Also, the car went in for the 187k mile service ('heavily corroded breaklines') and we were given an 03 1.9TDI 130 Passat with... 385k miles!

[fatneck]

Disclaimer; I am not interested nor do I know anything about cars beyond whether they work, filling them with fuel, driving and regular maintenance although I can change a tyre...

Our current heap is dying and having recently spent time in/around both Andy E and Crouchy's cars I have my heart set on a Skoda Octavia. I understand there are a few members of the parish who either own or have owned one of these cars and would appreciate general advice. The car will primarily be used for day to day work and kid related travel plus regular weekends away fishing/climbing/camping etc I reckon we do around 15,000+ miles per year so economy and reliability are important and whilst we would like a car in decent nick, cosmetics are not high on the list. Our budget is circa 3-5K but we would obvs prefer to be around the 3K mark.

Thanks...

[tommytwotone]

Sounds like you're sorted then - only questions you need to ask yourself are a) do you want an estate and b) do you want the VRS?


I can vouch for the fact (as I've been looking too) that Skoda Octavia diesels are ten a penny, but finding a low-miler will be a challenge. I'd do your research, work out what model / trim level you're looking for and then work back from there. I did a search bound by price but the options were too overwhelming.


They will do (as Paul intimates) spaceship miles - mate of mine was a service manager who had a taxi driver customer who was replacing the back seat cushions. He thought it was a strange thing to replace, checked the car and found out it was on 445k miles and still going strong!

[tomtom]

Had a quick look at Autotrader and you get a much better car for 4K than 3k. Quite a few Octavia estates around - also (same car different badge/looks) golf estates of the same age are about the same/a little cheaper. 4K will buy you a 2008 estate with c.80k miles.

Petrol or diesel?

[fatneck]

Deffo want an estate and VRS?

I think it's the model and spec that confuses me but will look into this in more detail, thanks TTT.

Hadn't considered a Golf...

Petrol or Diesel? Pretty much of a muchness these days?

[tomtom]

Deffo want an estate and VRS?

I think it's the model and spec that confuses me but will look into this in more detail, thanks TTT.

Hadn't considered a Golf...

Petrol or Diesel? Pretty much of a muchness these days?

Diesel wear their miles better - and make more sense economy wise if you do longer journeys (they work best when warmed up) and in general use less fuel. But diesels are (a bit) more expensive to service and can sling you a larger bill if they go wrong (but that tends to happen less often than petrol).

Check which car tax band either is in too - most of the diesels will be in the £130-150 band - petrols £200-250.

Golf estate is the same as an octavia estate. Jetta is a booted golf - same as an octavia. In fact Jettas are V.Good cars but not very popular in the UK - so tend to be cheaper than Golfs (despite being the same but with a boot).

[SA Chris]

We were diesel estate shopping recently, and compared Golf Estate to Octoavia Estate, and comparing price for price the Golf seemed very poorly specced inside by comparison.

(We went for another Focus Estate in the end, I think once you are used to heated windscreen it's hard to do without )