Dealing with a dealer!

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Shopaholic

A friend of mine bought a car recently and I was so impressed by her purchase, it was worth a note here. Generally I don’t recommend dealers for buying a second hand car as the prices tend to be well hiked up. I believe they make an average of £1k every time they buy or sell a car.

Anyway, they needed a car for a learner driver so they wanted a second hand car and found one at a dealer. She actually managed to get them to give her a full diagnostic with all the problems the car has. There was about £800 worth of problems. As a result, she managed to knock more than a grand off the price and had loads of added extras added to the car like new wipers etc. I don’t think she quite managed a 5th wheel warranty but considering that cars from dealers in the Isle of Man come with a legal year warranty, I think she did rather well.

Well done A!

Ferrari

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Shopaholic

I heard you could use Ferrari parts on other cars. I think the old VW Beetle and Ferrari used similar parts. Or was it Porshe? I really don’t know much about cars. In fact for my previous car these were my requirements:-

It has 4 doors
It has 4 wheels

I did get my 4 wheels but it was a 2 door sports car!

My next car was it had to be a 7 seater… and yes, it is a 7 seater.

Need I say more?

Disabled Shopping

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Shopaholic

After my mum’s disability appeal to prove that she needed disability status, I bought her this sticker (see below). I thought it lightened the situation and it put a smile on her face. The reality is that the disadvantages of being disabled are horrific. I push my twins around in a double buggy that is roughly the width of a wheelchair, and despite legislation, I still find it hard to navigate around the shops. This has meant that a number of shops will not be seeing my money and that I have actually increased my online shopping. The fact is that I have the pushchair for a few years but people in wheelchairs are generally in them for life!

Servicing

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Shopaholic

I need to get my car serviced and have to get myself a new service centre. I hate having to deal with mechanics as most tend to treat women like imbeciles, “what would a woman know about a car!” attitude. When I lived near London, I used to take my car to Sky Motors and they were brilliant. Besides the fact that you were treated brilliantly, it was a fair price and I had confidence in their work. They would get your whatever the parts you need whether they were Ferrari parts or basic oil. But to get my car to them today would require a service just to get there. I guess I need to find their equivalent here in IOM. I guess I might go to Search Mann to give a look to see if they have any advice.

Our Car

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Shopaholic

I told you that we recently bought a Renault Espace. I must say I do like the car. It does feel a bit van like to drive, though my hubby disagrees but it has some wonderful benefits. First of all it can seat 7 but if you want to use it to load things, you can remove all 5 back seats or even store them using just a side of the car. My son likes the fact that it has airline style tables (and keeps insisting he wants to eat in the car).

I just want to, as my brother says, “pimp my car”! I want new car mats, seat belt protectors, a vanilla smell, sun visors etc! I cannot wait. The only thing is I cannot go pink as my hubby will need to use the car sometimes too. Perhaps Disney!!

MPV or RV?

Posted on July 14, 2009 by Shopaholic

I mentioned that we were looking for a 7 seater to “upgrade” our car. So we have been out popping from dealer to dealer to try to buy an MPV. Anyway, we recently came to a dealer and they had an rv for sale, and jokingly I said this is what will be ideally. So much for me opening my mouth. My son thought it was a great idea and kept going on and on about getting it. So when we came across other seven seaters, he was “No, I want the caravan!”. Bearing in mind that we have no driveway and you cannot even park on our street, it is sadly not a good idea. Still, would have been a good idea to buy a motor home! Imagine having everything you need at the tip of your fingers?

Bigger Car

Posted on June 17, 2009 by Shopaholic

The thing that comes with increasing your family is the need to increase your car size. I always thought that when we bought our Jaguar that that would be the biggest car we ever bought… except I am now pregnant with twins… and so we need to “upgrade” to a 7 seater. I am not quite sure if “upgrade” is the right word as some of the 7 seaters I have seen do not come anywhere near close to the standard of car of Jaguar. Sadly Jaguar do not do 7 seaters (at least as far as I am aware).

On the plus side, an auto insurance quote for a 7 seater is far lower than my current insurance on my Jaguar. My only issue so far is when I put in an offer for a car and it was accepted, we came to sort out how to pay they changed their mind about selling (and we were happy to pay cash if they were happy to wait till the next day). Go Figure!!

Easy Car

Posted on June 25, 2007 by Shopaholic

I bet you heard of the EASY Group. One of the Easy Group is Easy Car.

Easy Car specialises in low cost car rental online. You can rent a car nearly anywhere in the world from just Â£8.00 per day. Car rental covers everwhere from Paris to USA and London to Sydney. They cover over 60 countries. They are actually a car rental broker but this means that they have access to 400,000 cars which can be collected from one of 2,400 places such as airports.

By doing this they can keep in line with offering the lowest prices possible. I doubt you will find cheaper car hire anywhere.

Bikes

Posted on June 24, 2007 by Shopaholic

I bought a bike a few years ago. Needless to say I never used it. It was not because I did not have the inclination to use it or the want to use it. But simply because I could not manage to use the gears. I wanted a plain simple bike like you do when you are a child. But apparently the shop did not stock any. He convinced me to buy a bike with gears. It had 18 gears. I never manged to count the 18 gears. No matter how I tried, I always got different amounts. Ok it might be that I don’t know how to count. But I suspect it was more to do with not knowing how to use the gears.

I came across this website that sells beach bikes. These bikes have no gears. Just what I wanted. I was sure they still made them. Now I am glad to find out that they do. TheirÂ prices are good too.

They current mostly ship to california but they will ship to most states.

Shipping internationally is very expensive, but they will ship in bulk orders. Great if you want to sell the rest on ebay and make some money!

Auto Glass Repair

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Shopaholic

Did you know that a dent in your windscreen can be dangerous and is probably illegal! Also it is cheaper to fix before it cracks or worse shatters.

You can get Auto Glass Repair in PhoenixÂ by clicking on the link. Or watch this space to find national auto glass repairers.

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Category Archives: Automobiles