Checking out used cars

I wasn’t able to locate a suitable used ute in Canberra, but I had spotted a few on the carsales web site over the last few weeks. I had been making enquiries about it by email, and arranged to see it when I got to Melbourne. So, we took a drive to a little town a few kms north of Craigieburn to see it.

The owner wasn’t present, but her mother was there. And so we had to put up with Carmel, an Irish woman who could talk you to distraction, but couldn’t say a thing about the car. It was an average vehicle, without a spare wheel, toolkit, roadworthy certificate, and had a driver’s door that wouldn’t close properly. I had to pull the door very hard to close it. And having to deal with Pat, the owner’s father, who would hardly budge on price. We eventually agreed on a price but I had to organise the RWC myself. Normally, that’s something the seller does. I couldn’t get the car booked into the local repair shop, which was another little town, even further north of Melbourne.

No, this was just too much trouble for a car that I wasn’t 100% happy with.

I had a look at another ute, late in the evening. It was difficult to see much at night, but this ute was certainly a fine car. I had rang the owner in the afternoon after spotting it on the carsales website. She seemed a pleasant sounding young woman. We made arrangements to meet at a service station midway between my place and her home. The test drive went well. Without driving the car very far indeed, I immediately fell into the its-like-driving-a-new-car experience. Of course, this was at night, and that has disadvantages. Although the bodywork seemed fine, I might be missing a lot of flaws. But I was keen enough on it to want a second look in daylight. The car we saw in the morning wasn’t a patch on this one. We made arrangements to see it in daylight, but Sunday was the earliest opportunity I could arrange with the owner as she used the car for work and did a lot of country driving. This car was a definitely a possibility.