Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Speaking of selling cars; need to sell the RR this month.

Probably worth around £45k.

Is it mental to try to sell something at that value privately? Imagine there aren’t many cash buyers kicking around for something like that?

From the looking around I've done dealer finance is (significantly) more expensive than what I can arrange myself, so that side of things isn't a compelling reason to buy from a dealer.

However, if I spent £45k with a private individual I'd want a) a decent length of manufacturers warranty and b) sign-off from Land Rover that said warranty is in place and not compromised by for e.g. pattern parts used to prepare the vehicle for sale.

I'd generally be worried about lack of comeback if the vehicle goes boom, basically, which (possibly misplaced) I'd feel that I'd have with a dealer.

Although with that said my two silly cars will have cost me 7k over the last couple of weeks, so maybe don't listen to me.

Well I just sold my Aston privately for a little less than that.
However that sale basically consisted of me contacting the buyer who had wanted one for ages and letting them know it was for sale.

I think that makes sense for a low volume / high-interest car like that - especially one of that age (ie out of manufacturer warranty etc).

@Dammit - agreed, the concern I have is that there just won't be any buyers of a 2-year-old luxury car privately when the manufacturer warranty/peace of mind of purchasing from a dealer will be higher; especially when it comes to Land Rover.

Motorway.com are now going to list it / sell it tomorrow which should get me a little over £44k for it, with payment and collection in under a week with no more hassle than a couple of photos.

Will update but if it's as simple as they say, I'll be delighted.

That sounds like a win, if it's as they say.

I'd buy a 996 GT3 from a dealer, or someone I knew very, very well.

If I were to buy from a private individual the price would have to reflect the possibility that the engine would turn into around £80 in scrap value on the drive home.

These cars are around 10-20k above what you want for your Rangie, but of course also 20 years older, so the comparison isn't that great.

@Soul Did you buy it outright two years ago?

No - it's a PCP deal but I get special rates through work we do for JLR which means there's about £15k in it for me to sell. That will be going straight towards the Tesla probably.

I was thinking today, what's on higher-end cars now that's not yet widely available at lower tiers?
Our 2007 BMW and 2019 Seat basically have the same set of toys, with automatic lights/wipers, heated seats, steering headlights, cruise control, voice control, settings saved to keys etc etc. The BMW has slightly more motorised things (doors, boot, seats) but less connectivity and shitter displays. 12 years seems like a long time for not that much to change - 12 years before 2007, electric windows seemed luxurious.
I've not noticed anything wildly interesting on car-building tools but maybe the changes have all been on the autonomous safety side with lane keeping, auto-brake, adaptive CC, etc, with Tesla self-driving the bleeding edge?

can lower tier cars park themselves? a friend worked at honda (sadly now redundant) had a top end civic with all the cruise controls and lane assist etc etc. still couldnt parallel or bay park itself. my 2014 bmw can parallel park itself and i know the newest ones can bay park themselves

Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but other than adaptive CC it's all bollocks value added items to give the illusion of newness and make up the fundamental lack of genuine engineering and quality.

• climate control and heated/AC seats
  
• leather steering wheel with controls
  
• if auto, adaptive cruse control
  
• a decent stereo
  
• good headlights
  
• auto wipers
  
• one of those little sunglasses holder compartment thingys next to the review mirror
  
  

What else do you actually want, let alone need?

I was about to glibly dismiss all the auto-parking stuff. But actually thinking about it, I would prefer it if other peoples' cars had automated parking.

I disagree slightly.

I think that, although the common components of in car tech haven’t evolved much (sat nav, radio etc) the functionality of them has improved massively, from larger and easier to read screens, to more responsive and faster touch screens. The features have become easier to use and more useful.

The inclusion of things like CarPlay or android auto are also massive game changers in terms of cross car UI meaning you can jump into any car with a reasonable level of tech now and have the same user experience.

On top of that, I think autonomous driving features are absolutely something that changes the way people experience driving and (potentially) make it much safer for the occupants and other road users.

I get the autonomous driving stuff. And in fairness the last time I was in a high end car with it in, it was the latest tech.... which shows how long ago that was. But all the middle to low end cars I've been in I've found it a pain.

In terms of all the smart hi-fi stuff, maybe again I need to use a brand new one, but I see a lot of that as fluff and bling.

Any half decent 10yo car has a BT system that will control your phone as well as you need call, play and skip fwd/back phone music. Other than BMW style head up(?) displays I think in car sat nav locations are inferior to a phone in a cradle mounted near eye height. In fact I think that's a really solid illustration of what I meant by bollocks value added items.

Annoyingly, our Seat can’t. I thought it could but all the ‘park pilot pro tronic xtreme’ guff in the manual basically means front/rear parking sensors and a rear camera. I think some other models can, if they have the side sensors installed.

I am really impressed with the ACC combined with lane assist and an auto box - it basically steers and drives itself, right down to stopping, then starts up again when the car in front moves off.
LED headlights seem equal to xenon, maybe less even throw but similar clarity.

The neatest feature is the digital dash - puts the satnav map right in front of you and less odd to focus on than a HUD (which is very cool tbf when done right).

Satnav ease of use/quality has massively improved but like you say, can never match phones and isn’t really a game changer.

Man the one thing I HATE on my 03 car is the utter ballache of switching my windscreen wipers on and off

My 22 (23?) year old 911 has a rheostat that provides an incredible fine range of adjustment to the intermittent wiper frequency.

My 13 year old C55 has automatic rain sensing wipers.

Both are great for their own reasons, but I’d not want the feature on the other car, if that makes sense.

TBF sat nav on a digital dash is a good enough middle ground.

But personally what I really want is stuff like an excellent and auto demist that doesn't sound like a vortex. Or heated and AC seats. Or really nice adaptive suspension that is comfortable and wafty over speed humps and shit roads but still handles well.

A smartphone glued in the dash with a billion pixels is just a cop out.

However to totally contradict myself all that carbon fibre chassis, etc. shit in the new 7 series is really impressive to me.

incredible fine range of adjustment to the intermittent wiper frequency.

You see stupid shit like this actually is useful imo. Everyone's had that moment when you can't quite get the speed right. So why doesn't everyone have a little dial as well as auto?

The answer is because doing these genuinely useful little engineering bits well is so much more expensive.

The answer is because doing these genuinely useful little engineering bits well is so much more expensive.

Surely having a dial hooked up to a variable speed motor isn't a huge engineering feat. I don't know much about how window wiper systems work, but isn't it just a single motor going faster or slower depending on the setting? It's not like there's a gearbox that only has 3 speeds or something, right?

bank two VarioCam solenoid is borked on the 911

How the hell can a solenoid cost over £2k?!

a van is "not sufficiently dissimilar from" the C55 for owning both to be acceptable.

I think this is unfair. A van would be much more reliable ;)

lol. How hard is doing a roadside oil change?

Not asking for a friend.

How the hell can a solenoid cost over £2k?!

Presumably one has to disassemble most of the engine bay to fit it

isn't it just a single motor going faster or slower depending on the setting

For intermittent there's a circuit that switches the motor on, and it'll run until they get back to the park position. It then waits a variable amount of time to power up the motor again. If you have intermittent at all, setting the delay between sweeps is solely a UI issue - i.e. you have to provide a knob.

On a lot of cars auto replaces intermittent, since it saves redesigning the stalk and it's basically doing the same thing with wetness replacing the knob position.