Diary: on buying a new car

Posts have been infrequent recently. The Tour de France, obviously. But we've also been busy trying to buy a new car.

A lot of stuff to get in the back

Returning from our recent camping trip to the New Forest, Clare - writhing and shuffling on the Toyota Auris's uncomfortable seats - suddenly had an epiphany:

"We need to get a new car!"

So her requirements are: more space for camping equipment .. and seats which are a lot more comfortable. I would add that the sluggishness of the Auris has always irritated me while some high-tech driver-assist would be really interesting.

Apparently what we need is a compact (or family) SUV.

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It's a nightmare choosing the short-list. Most manufacturers have this category in their portfolio. Cue tedious research on the Internet before we discovered the Top Gear 'best small SUV list'. This was enough to get a five car shortlist (not including the Dacia Duster!) and on Friday we hit the showrooms of South Bristol.

I had initially thought that selection was equivalent to running an internal Prolog program like this:

spacious(volkswagen_golf_sv).
spacious(skoda_karoq).
spacious(seat_ateca).
spacious(volvo_xc40).
spacious(peugeot_3008).
spacious(dacia_duster).

comfortable(volkswagen_golf_sv).
comfortable(skoda_karoq).
comfortable(seat_ateca).
comfortable(volvo_xc40).

fast(volkswagen_golf_sv).
fast(volvo_xc40).
fast(skoda_karoq).         % some models!
fast(seat_ateca).              % some models!

value_for_money(volkswagen_golf_sv).
value_for_money(skoda_karoq).
value_for_money(seat_ateca).
value_for_money(dacia_duster).

likes(clare, Car) :- comfortable(Car), spacious(Car).
likes(nigel, Car) :- fast(Car), value_for_money(Car).

choose(Car) :- likes(clare, Car), likes(nigel, Car).

This is what you see when it runs.

?- choose(Car).
Car = volkswagen_golf_sv ;
Car = skoda_karoq ;
Car = seat_ateca.

But nothing beats walking up to the car in the showroom and sitting inside it. We have test drives booked for this coming week. I am advised that it is critical to test drive all the shortlisted cars, not just the preferred one. Ride comfort, handling and noise just can't be predicted.

Another tip is from WhatCar which publishes the 'target price', usually several thousand pounds under the list price. As they say,

"Sales staff's margins depend on a number of factors, including the bonuses and incentives that are being offered by manufacturers to their network (many of these are leaked to our team of secret shoppers). So it's worth double-checking that day's Target Price on the car you're interested in before you head off to the showroom; we'd even recommend printing out a screen-grab or taking a copy of What Car? magazine with you so you can stick to your guns during negotiations.

If your salesman won't do the deal, we'll try to find one who will."

We shall see. That and the part-exchange on the Toyota, which after ten years is worth around £1,400.

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Some people, I'm told, treat buying a new car as fun. It's not exactly a chore but I'll be pleased to complete the process.

Citroen Saxo vtr

This morning found me earnestly searching the Internet for used car dealers in Reading. With Clare having to commute regularly down to Wells and me in Reading for my contract she has to have a car. "A small one," she suggested, "one I can get onto the drive in Wells."

With a long list of potential dealers, our first stop was Rose Kiln Lane which seemed to house a small cluster of them. We started with a visit to an establishment which confusing specialised in Nissan and Fiat cars (KJM Reading). But it was the part-exchanged Citroen Saxo (pictured below - not ours though) which caught Clare's eye.


The salesman, a good guy named Ruairi Ellis, assured us that although it was nine years old, the Saxo had barely done 30,000 miles with one careful lady owner. Amazingly he had the documentation to prove it. After a satisfactory test drive, it was ours. Clare collects it on Tuesday en route to our new home.

Getting established in Wells is going to be a lengthy process. When Clare and Alex were there last week, they tackled the downstairs bathroom which proved to be in a less than hygienic state. In fact when Alex returned to Reading on the Tuesday evening he was quite ill during the night having picked up a bug. The upshot is that we need the bathrooms fixed as well as the kitchen before we can consider moving our furniture in, so the builders will be busy over the next period.

Some time this weekend I will spend a couple of hours progressing the first chapter of the Calculus of Variations material in my maths MSc OU course. At this early stage it's just revision of standard calculus results but there are lots of examples which one is obliged to work through. Maple was also easier than I thought to start up although it again takes time to walk around the myriad of functions. It's fairly awesome to watch it effortlessly summing infinite series and integrating seriously heavy expressions. At the very least it will be great as a maths text editor for assignments.