Where to buy a car?

Hippy's neighbour: "Look Hippy, £1500 is my offer, I have two cars now so not pressed to buy another"

unsubtly notices the dent "ouch that dent doesn't look great, what happened? fat cat sat on it? look i can do £1000 right now, i'm doing you a favour really"

you’d have to also effectively ban diesels entirely

This was very nearly the option they chose for the Bristol clean air zone (albeit charging not banning) so I don't think it's miles away from being implemented

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/388432/

It's had an outside wash, the inside might get cleaned at some point.

Update on my imported car situation - whilst Admiral will insure imported cars, it transpires the unspoken caveat is 'only if the make/model/engine size appears on our internal forms'. This one didn't, so computer said no. I went to some specialist imported car insurers and got quoted £4k plus. Lol. Apparently it was the learner driver that spooked their algorithms. For ref, Admiral quote was £750 including learner driver. So yeah, had to ditch that deal, which was a shame, as the car was mint.

There are other ball aches to an import besides insurance, like having to research every part/size etc before going to a garage. The parts ordering system they use will generally be computer says no for an import, and despite it being the same as something else, you need to know what you are asking for, as most won't have the time to figure it out for you or want to order parts in that won't fit.

That's only for imports that were never UK models and even if that specific model/engine/trim level was not a UK variant, then the info takes about 10-15 mins of research to get an answer.

What you want to be wary of is models that were never sold in the UK and don't share parts with any UK spec cars.

If you're not car savvy but fancy a rare/obscure import then the best thing to do is make sure there's a recommended specialist close enough to you that you're willing to rely on.

It looks like 'Bangernomics' now looks like anything under £2k these days, rather than sub-£1k a few years ago, but I'm now in the market again and can thankfully downsize from a soccer mom 7-seater to something Polo/Golf sized...

I'm not planning on using it much day-to-day around town as I wfh or walk/cycle commute, but
most of the planed use will be 2x ~2hr drives each week. I would train, but I don't want to give up 10+ hours of my weekend.
No ULEZ here, so based on expected use, would I be better off going for a diesel?

The answer is never diesel.

Get a 5yo 5 series BMW.

Idk what is up with them, but they're are insanely cheap. I though 7 Series and S Classes had devastating depreciation, but they seem to have nothing on that era of 5 series.

With a little one on the way I'm starting to look into upgrading the '03 Focus I've had for a fair few years to something larger (chucking a bike in the boot easily a bonus) and more reliable - Vauxhall Zafira Tourers seem to strike a great balance of cost/features/space vs dimensions/safety etc, followed by Citroen C4s and non 1.2 PureTech 3008s.

Usual question probably, but how's people's view on Autotrader/Dealerships/Private sellers and/or best places to look at? The much-advertised Cinch and Cazoo seem very expensive compare to anything else.

Only bought one car before (the aforementioned Focus) and that was from a good friend, so it's a wholly new world to explore for me and feels like a bit of a minefield...!

Vauxhall Zafira

no

Zafiras have a tendency to spontaneously combust.

Check out Ford S Max
Reliable 2.0 diesels
2.5 petrol if you want some poke

Zafiras have a tendency to spontaneously combust.

Not the Tourers, only a handful of pre-refresh models had that potential thankfully.

S Max look nice but are ~50% more expensive than the models mentioned, ie too expensive.

Zafiras aren't glamorous cars and I'm sure not "fun" to drive (whatever that means, not my bag that I guess!) but they are packed with good features, have great safety ratings and have proven very reliable, all at an honest price, basically ticking all my boxes - any particular reason why some people seem to hate them or is it more of a case of "it's a boring family car, bah"?

I went to cargiant
https://www.cargiant.co.uk/
Seemed reasonably straightforward for someone who knows little (and cares little) about cars.

Yeah, after various tribulations documented on here I went to Big Motoring World in West Malling and would generally recommend the experience albeit I could have done without the shiny-shoed young'uns giving estate agent energy turned up to max.

I'd seen Car Giant as one of the big places to go in London and will keep my eye on them, as well as Big Motoring World - as you say, a tried and tested place might cost a little more than a private but make life easier so I'd be open to that.

Is haggling with prices a thing for second hand cars? The internet seems to think so, as it says it's the case with brand new ones, which I wasn't aware of.

I searched for a long time to find something decently priced that was bigger than my ‘04 focus (which has been amazing) that wasn’t going to go bang and eventually settled on a….. roofbox

You can definitely haggle with private sellers/small forecourt operations, but in recent experience (sample size - 1 purchase from big motoring world) they were clear at the outset that they would not be able to do anything on price. They were able to 'improve' their warranty offer, but as also discussed on here I don't think that's really something you should be buying if you are able to stomach some degree of risk.

My Honda is for sale and is great for carrying a bike with the 'magic' seats.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/391011/#comment17252802

However you choose to navigate this hellish landscape, make sure to get a year's worth of warranty.

Saved me £1000 when my gearbox went in the summer and AA paid out straight away.

Good luck.

Alas mine is getting a little tired, would love to avoid the pain of getting a new car but it's started needing little bits here and here at MOTs and outside of MOTs, too. I like the idea of a car I could trust to take on holidays into Europe and the trusty Focus has given hints of wanting to check out of that category...!

@sacredhart did see that actually but won't be for a while that I'll be pulling the trigger. Definitely noted though!

Also really appreciate the haggle/warranty suggestions - it seems to me that if I do end up going with a dealership I'd definitely want a degree of protection as that has to be one of the selling points, especially against a degree of price hike vs buying from a private seller

So we've had an addition to the family, looking at getting a Captur or a Qashqai, what should I be paying for a good one?. How old?. What mileage?. Is 6k enough. It needs to be reliable so a banger is out of the question.

Nissan used to have a very bad reputation, not sure if that's changed

Just looked these up, you're not wrong.

Decent '19 5 Series Touring are under 20k