My little Corsa had to go up for its MOT. It's 19 years old, and I'm not the best with car maintenance, so anything could happen. It served me well for 7 years and it doesn't owe me anything! This time, there was good news and bad news. The good news was: it had just passed. The bad news was: there was a lot in the pipeline that probably would need addressing by the next MOT check. It looks like by then, it will need new brake discs, a new tyre and new axle swivel pins and bushes (whatever they are). And, most importantly: the body structure has started corroding. The garage told me that last year, I had a little hole in it. This year, it was a bigger hole. They said the structural integrity was still ok, but by next year, it would probably need work. And that would get expensive.
I figured I needed to buy another car before it came to the next MOT. I had come to terms with that I would have to let go of it in the not too distant future. This message from the garage told me about what time scales that would involve.
Given that I live in North Wales and that public transport isn't all that here, and not everything is doable by bike, I need a car. Going to see Neil, which by car costs half an hour, costs at least two hours without one. So I decided to start looking.
Neil had an idea. His elderly neighbour had just given up driving, and wanted to get rid of his car. Maybe that was an option? But by the time he inquired, the neighbour had already sold it.
I had been saying for years that my next car should be electric. I figured I should take the jump. I feel guilty every time I see my fuel meter crawl towards lower values. I am burning fossil fuels there and then! And second-hand electric vehicles are currently a lot more expensive than the older end of used petrol/diesel cars, but one should put one’s money where one’s mouth is.
It didn't look like in my area, there were loads of used and affordable EVs. I spotted two Nissan Leafs (I don't think it should be Nissan Leaves) on Anglesey; one from 2012 at £3000, and one from 2016 at £5000. Everything else was a lot more expensive. And if you are willing to go very far away, I am sure you can find more choice, but then you also have the problem of having to go and check out the car very far away, and getting it home.
I figured that the car from 2016 would be a better bet. A 10 year-old battery sounds old enough as it is! And I decided to pursue this. If this wasn't the sort of car I wanted, what was it? What would the better offer even look like? So on Saturday, I decided to drive to Anglesey, and check out this Nissan.
I checked the opening times of the garage online: at 10 am it would open. So shortly after 10 I was there. Standing by a closed gate. By coincidence, the Nissan was the car closest to the gate, so at least I got a good view on the outside. It looked fine.
Soon some bloke appeared who was similarly puzzled. I decided to give the garage a ring. A man answered, and he said he would be there at 11. You can't always believe what you read online.
I decided to do my food shopping while waiting for him. I knew Llangefni, where I was, has at least one supermarket. I popped to the nearest one. They had what I needed, except my Saturday paper. The next supermarket didn't either. I decided to head for a corner shop on the High Street. That worked! And by then, it was time to check if the garage was open now. And it was.
I told the garage holder I was interested in the Leaf. And what I wanted first was a view on the battery capacity. You would expect it to be somewhere between 80 and 90% by now. That would be good. But of course it could be worse. The man had no idea how to check this, but I googled it. He gave me the keys and let me work it out. I dived into the car and had a good look at the instruction manual. I don't have much experience with electric cars! Only the shared car of my town. The car seemed to still have 80% of its battery power. Enough for me. The cable and the charging point looked fine to my untrained eyes.
I asked the garage holder if we could take it for a spin, and he complied. It worked fine! But it only had 21 miles left to go on the remaining battery charge. Oh dear.
I said I needed to think about it I would go home. If I wanted to buy it, I couldn't do it over my phone anyway. So I had to get home and make a decision.
At home I also did what I should have done before: check the MOT status of the car. It would run out in about a week and a half. That's not good! You don't want to buy a car and need to have to go through the faff of having it get an MOT test, only to potentially end up with a bill for things that might be wrong with it. I mulled it over for a bit and I decided to ask the seller if he would be OK with me buying it on the condition he would get it MOT’d. He agreed. And that was it! I had committed to buying a new car. The most expensive one ever for me.
I transferred the money to the garage's bank account and hoped for him to sort out the MOT. I also asked for him to make sure there would be at least enough charge to get me home. I hoped that would be sorted quickly.
A week went by and it wasn't. When I phoned the man he said he struggled to charge it. There was a charging station at one of the nearby supermarkets, but he couldn't get the app to work. That was also charging at nearby M-Sparc, but these were rapid chargers, and if you charge a battery too aggressively it won't last. Modern Teslas are built for it, but 2016 Leafs aren’t. And I could check the MOT status online; that didn't change.
It's a bit frustrating! I have paid thousands of pounds for a car but I can't use it, and I have no control over what happens to it. I regret I paid the full amount. I should have paid only half, only to pay the second half upon pick-up. But that's Captain Hindsight talking.
I hope it will all turn out ok. I want to try out my new car! And sell the old one. I know it is the 19-year-old piece of rust, but I bet there are people who are interested in buying a quite reliable piece of rust if it's cheap and it has 11 months of MOT left. I'm in limbo! Keep your fingers crossed that this will turn out ok in the near future…
No comments:
Post a Comment