After finally putting all my thoughts down around buying a car the other day, I bit the bullet and bought a car I’d had my eye on for a while. It’s one thing to look at a car online and another to look at it in person. Prior to heading out, I mentally went through the pros and cons of buying a car and almost talked myself out of it. Ultimately it came down to the fact that I wanted to keep going with a second car, and my current car is almost dead.

My partner also has a car but it’s automatic and family oriented. My replacement car is more family oriented than my previous car including the inclusion of back doors. In 2001, I managed to buy a new car, my only new car, a Peugeot 206XR, black. My replacement car is a 2007 Peugeot 207XT, red. Unlike my old car, the aircon works, the tacometer works, the gears change smoothly, the cd player works ie everything works. It does have some hail damage and a few other scratches, but it’s only done 68,000km compared to the 150,000 or so of my current vehicle and it must be said is in better condition than my old car was at the same age. I’m not good at looking after cars. Unsurprisingly.

I did my research, reading up on the model, it’s slightly larger than my old car but not too much. I took it for a test drive and it was nice and easy with the same gear stretch that my old car has. Geez I sound like an old man…my new car is the same as my old old car but better…and red. I set myself a budget and this was the best value car that came close. The sense I have is if it wasn’t for the hail dents (not badly so), the car would have been significantly pricier. I’ve kept an eye on it online and it hasn’t sold for a couple of months so I was able to negotiate a cheaper price. It was on offer for $5,950, I offered $5,000 and they came back with a sharp $5,250 which I thought was a good outcome. It was a fair offer and I didn’t need to be hard-nosed about it. I paid a deposit, will do an EFT on the remainder during the week and pick it up after I vote on Saturday.