Country Living: Our Man in Arundel
As sure as Ant follows Dec, there's an inevitability about buying a car. Sooner or later - oh, alright then - sooner, something will go wrong. I'm told that marketing people call it "post-purchase dissonance": the sinking feeling that you've just made a dreadful buying decision.
I do my best to think otherwise. My glass is half-full, my toast lands butter-side up, I laugh and the world laughs with (and occasionally at) me. I could go on but you'd probably start feeling queasy. Of course, it doesn't work all the time.
Mind you, neither does my car. From feeling as though it needed a service - hardly surprising; I reckon most of us sell our cars when they need a service - mine now feels as if it needs an extra cylinder.
Fortunately, Arundel has managed to fit a small independent garage on the edge of town. (Thank goodness I'm not living in the real badgers-and-silage countryside). They diagnose the problem fairly quickly. It looks like £200 of engine management system. Oh dear. Time for a word with the trader who sold me the car last Friday afternoon.
"It didn't do that when I had it". No, of course it didn't. I wouldn't have bought it, would I? Points deducted from his overall score for making excuses.
He's asked how much I was quoted and is getting a quote from his preferred ("I get trade prices") mechanic. No mention yet of whether he's going to pay for everything... or anything. But there's also no point in fretting about it at this stage, is there? I suspect there'll be some bartering later.
All this means I'm probably back to public transport (and cadged lifts) at the weekend. Not that I was going anywhere on Saturday morning anyway - it's the Farmers' Market. And it's much easier to make successful buying decisions there!
I do my best to think otherwise. My glass is half-full, my toast lands butter-side up, I laugh and the world laughs with (and occasionally at) me. I could go on but you'd probably start feeling queasy. Of course, it doesn't work all the time.
Mind you, neither does my car. From feeling as though it needed a service - hardly surprising; I reckon most of us sell our cars when they need a service - mine now feels as if it needs an extra cylinder.
Fortunately, Arundel has managed to fit a small independent garage on the edge of town. (Thank goodness I'm not living in the real badgers-and-silage countryside). They diagnose the problem fairly quickly. It looks like £200 of engine management system. Oh dear. Time for a word with the trader who sold me the car last Friday afternoon.
"It didn't do that when I had it". No, of course it didn't. I wouldn't have bought it, would I? Points deducted from his overall score for making excuses.
He's asked how much I was quoted and is getting a quote from his preferred ("I get trade prices") mechanic. No mention yet of whether he's going to pay for everything... or anything. But there's also no point in fretting about it at this stage, is there? I suspect there'll be some bartering later.
All this means I'm probably back to public transport (and cadged lifts) at the weekend. Not that I was going anywhere on Saturday morning anyway - it's the Farmers' Market. And it's much easier to make successful buying decisions there!
Labels: arundel
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