For several weeks, months even, I have been trying to buy a second hand car and so far I haven't had very much luck.
Unfortunately, any car that I want to see I have to be able to get there by public transport as I don't currently have access to a car except on Saturdays and occasional Fridays. Luxembourg is very well served indeed by public transport, but journeys can be pretty lengthy! It seems like all the cars that interest me are in places that are very awkward to get to from here.
Law in Luxembourg says that if a car is sold to an individual by a dealer, it absolutely has to have a guarantee. It is therefore quite surprising the number of car dealers who will tell you that a particular car has to be sold “privately” if you want to buy it because they can't offer a guarantee (which is completely illegal).
Having a vehicle at my disposal yesterday, I went to see a car just over the border in Belgium,. It was a decent enough looking car, a Nissan Juke, but when I started the engine there was a massive palpable wobble from the engine, I tried it three times and each time the wobble was clearly present and my guess is that was due to knackered engine mountings. Now, on some cars they are quite easy to replace and usually not that expensive but on others, it's an engine and gearbox out job and that's extremely expensive. Aside from that, when I drove it, the engine was unthinkably noisy even for a diesel. That suggests a very worn engine.
I toyed with the idea of taking it anyway as it did come with a guarantee but I felt the risk was just too great. So, having wheels again today, I went car hunting again. On the way back from the garage in Belgium yesterday I stopped at another second hand car dealer who had some quite interesting stuff for sale so my first stop was there. I looked over his full stock and found a couple of cars that interested me both of which were in my price range so I went into the showroom and said there's a couple of cars I'd like to look at. He found the keys and accompanied me to the sales area outside the showroom where the cheap cars were on show. I pointed out to him that the front Valance on one of the cars that interested me was smashed and the plastic was actually sticking into the tyre aside from that, the bezel on the fog light was gone. he brushed that off with yeah yeah yeah we will fix that it’s just a bit of plastic and so I said well anyway for the time being let's look at the other one which happened to be right next to it I said okay let's start with this one I said I'd like like to take it on a road test to which he replied we don't do road tests we don't have any trade plates and all these cars are unregistered so you can't take them out on the road without trade plates to which I replied “I'm sorry…” he then repeated what it said before to which I replied “ah, okay” and turned, walked back to my car and drove off. What kind of a car dealer expects a punter to buy a second hand car without even having driven it, it's fucking insanity!