Going to the dark side

[WiNgNuTz]

So after having my 407 written off, I spent a fair while searching for a new car, being thwarted many a time by people buying cars I wanted and/or sellers with lousy attitudes. However, I finally managed to beat everyone else to what seems like a pretty damn good deal.

I decided straight away I wanted to go with something that wasn't french for a change, and as some of you may know, had been chasing an Audi 2.5 TDI Sport Quattro, but I wasn't quick enough to put a deposit down on it, and missed out to someone else.

Cue searching through many many other options, ended up going to NW London on Sunday to view (and subsequently put a deposit on) a BMW 320d in black. Hasn't failed an MOT (or even had an advisory) since 2012, which says to me either hooky testers, or a well maintained car (seems to be the latter from what I've seen), comes with a brand spanking new MOT (no advisories again), and some nice spec for a 2001 car. And at £895, it's an absolute steal. Has a mismatched bumper for some reason, though no underlying damage that I could see, and a small patch of rust on the o/s/r arch...but I figure for the price, I can afford to buy the car, insure it fully comp for a year, have the bumper sprayed and the rusty arch sorted, and still be within the budget of the settlement from the 407! Win.

Pics from the advert:













The other thing that points me towards a well maintained car is the fact there were a couple of other guys there when we arrived to look at it, that according to the seller, had been there for no less than 2 hours going over the car with a fine tooth comb, with all sorts of diagnostic equipment, that didn't find any kind of fault codes, or anything untoward. Apparently they were looking to export it to portugal to be broken for parts or something, and better still, they wanted to give him £500 for it, via bank transfer that could take up to 24 hours to go through, but they wanted to take the car there and then. Needless to say, he told them to jog on, and after a quick check of what I needed to, we put a cash deposit down, and will be going back on Saturday to collect it.

Got a few odds and sods planned for it, but it'll probably end up staying mostly standard for now at least, and hopefully I can keep it away from numpties in Audi's.