Well, yesterday was an incredibly long day. Our appointment with the finance company was at 11am and we didn’t leave until 4pm. So, here’s what happened….

We actually arrived at 11:30, simply because we got lost trying to find out way around Chelmsford. P really is the most dreadful driver when he doesn’t know the area. 😀 We were greeted by our salesperson (Sue) who was really nice. After taking all our I.D. and proof of income to the underwriters, she came back and announced we were allowed to spend up to £225 a month on a new car – dependant on us giving a deposit of £100 as well as our old car in part-exchange. This surprised us as we had only budgeted for £100-£150, but we were very annoyed we had to pay a deposit as we had been assured we didn’t need one. After quite a bit of discussion, we decided to go ahead, but we would prefer to limit ourselves to £150 a month.

She disappeared again and came back saying we had a choice of three cars at £150 a month. Of all the cars in their lot, we could only afford three? She showed them to us. The first was an enormous Mondeo estate, far too big for us! Then there was a Citroen Xantia, a bit tatty-looking but with an amusing number plate ending in SHG. Finally, there was a rather ordinary looking Astra. None of the cars really appealed to us and we really were hoping for a super-mini.

After discussing our options, we asked what would be available at £225 a month. Off Sue went again and returned to add just one more car to the list of options at £220. I was rather disappointed that for an extra £70 we only had one more car available to us. Back into the showroom we went and looked for the V reg car – it was a Skoda Felicia.

My first impression wasn’t too good. Although the car was only three years old, it was a bit boxy-looking and had no sunroof or electric windows. It also happened to be a 1.9 litre diesel! But it was a super-mini. And it was five-door. Me and P stood around chatting for a while and decided to get in to see what the interior felt like. This was when my feelings about the car started to change. As soon as I closed the door, all the sound from outside was gone. The interior was a pleasant pale grey and the seats were firm but comfortable. There was even a cup holder, lol. 

We got out and pondered the cost. We couldn’t really afford £220 a month. Now, when I want something I can be rather irrational and make P’s life hell, but I kept myself together and made the firm and honest decision that we couldn’t afford it and we went and told Sue that sorry, but no. We were going to go home with our old banger and save up for something.

Sue thought for a second and asked how much we could afford. After some deliberation, we decided that £180 a month would be a fair figure. She dashed off and came back 10 minutes later saying she had the “deal of the century”. She had spoken to her manager and they had decided to remove the payment protection (PPI) and agree to our offer of £180 a month. We were impressed and worked out that this would save us £1700. We took the car for a test drive. The deal was almost done. But there was one other query that we had – the vehicle had no tax. Sue told us that it didn’t come with any and we would have to buy it ourselves. Now, we had already been told we had to hand over £100 cash as deposit that we weren’t expecting and now we were expected to spend another £80 for 6 months tax. Not a chance. We simply wouldn’t be able to pay all our bills this month.

Sue went off to get one of the managers. After more discussion, he offered to re-imburse the cost of 6 months tax if we agreed to the deal. More discussion. Finally, we agreed to go ahead with it.

We arranged the insurance and were introduced to a girl from the accounts department to see us through the finance agreement. Everything seemed pretty standard except when it came to what was included in our repayments. Boxes were ticked that said we wanted the breakdown insurance – this worked out at £330. Phillip already has RAC cover which takes care of this so we didn’t really want to pay for something we already had. The accounts girl went to get the manager. 

As soon as the manager walked in, we knew this was going to be trouble. P argued with her over the breakdown cover, the £150 acceptance fee and – most shockingly of all – the whopping 40.9% APR we appeared to have been charged! She argued straight back, saying that as she had already taken off the PPI, we had to take the breakdown because the underwriters wouldn’t finance us otherwise. It was all to do with us being a risk to finance. The 40.9% APR was also non-negotiable, again because we had a terrible credit history and we were high-risk.

At this point, I thought P was going to say “stick it!”, but he kept his calm, thought rationally about all the options (or lack of) and we decided that we would still go ahead. We finished signing the documents and accepted the keys. Thank God it was all over.

I really am loving this car more and more. I hope we made the right decision. The car is getting a fresh MOT on Saturday, courtesy of the finance company. We have a few issues to bring up, namely that the central locking doesn’t seem to work on the passenger-side door and there is a strange knocking noise coming from the gearbox when we accelerate. If they don’t fix these issues, then we’ll cancel the agreement. I expect this car to be perfect for the shocking amount of money we’ll be paying for it. 

How much was this car? £3650. Cost of the finance? Do you really want to know? £7500 including the 3 year warranty. Please don’t shout at me, because we spent a lot of time (4 hours to be exact) coming to a decision.