greido

I have a Dec' 2006, 56 plate 27,000 mile spotless black GT and put it up for sale on PistonHeads in November with a price of £15,500. At the time I consulted the guys on here to gauge the asking price. Most folk agreed that was a realistic price, I never sold the car and rather than sell if for less than it's worth I decided to keep it. I consider myself to be fairly tolerant but I am also very busy so when I got a few phone calls asking the lowest price I would take for the car and making offers less than £14k I got pretty p!ssed off and more or less told them where to go and ended up not even wasting my time showing them the car. Personally speaking I would rather not sell the car than put up with a chancer. My previous car was a Porsche Boxster S and when selling that it had 2 months MOT and I agreed a deal with a guy, as part of the deal I foolishly promised to put it through a new MOT; to cut a long story the car had corroded discs so I had the discs and pads replaced..... £700 and a full MOT later, the guy decided this was the time to try to re-negotiate. I could have put put non Porsche discs and pads at half the cost but the car was my P&J and perfect in every way so I wanted to keep it like this, to stick by my word and 'do the right thing' so when the prospective buyer tried to get the price reduced this absolutely infuriated me which quickly ended our conversation. I sold the car the following week to a guy who fell in love with car straight away and who was a pleasure to deal with. Following from this experience I will no longer waste my time with someone not will/able to pay the asking price, obviously a little negotiation is necessary but if someone called me expecting to get £2.5k off a £16k asking price I wouldn't entertain them and they would not get the opportunity to waste any more of my time. This attitude might not be conducive to selling cars quickly and if time goes on enough this attitude may cost me more in depreciation but my time is more precious to me than a few quid and the thought of someone trying to get a bargain at my expense does not sit well at all.

Thanks guys, much appreciated. I'll check out how much clearance I have getting into my drive and possibly be in touch CS. I lowered my an FTO I had about 5 years ago and really liked the results, used Tein springs and not only did I much prefer how the car looked and rode, I felt it handled better too. Thanks again, G

Your car looks great lowered, been thinking about this myself for a while, out of interest, how much were the springs and how much do you reckon it would have costed to have them fitted? Cheers, G

Hey Maxi, Some good advice above, get the best quote you can for insurance then call Chris Knott telling them that you're a member and they'll beat your best, I've currently got by far the cheapest insurance I've had in my life (less than half of what my Boxster S cost me the the previous year). You seem to be doing a lot of miles, presumably on the motorway? - on a Glasgow to Edinburgh commute I get circa 30mpg in the summer, curiously around 26-28mpg in winter. Worth baring in mind when doing a lot of miles is that the Zed uses high octane fuel so budget for an extra 10% cost on fuel. Best of luck, for £11.5k you should be able to pick up an excellent low mileage 04 car. G

I can't agree more about the poor quality/expense of public transport; I commute between Glasgow and Edinburgh every day which is a 100 mile round trip and the train costs pennies under £20. Until recently I had been putting more miles on my Zed than I wanted to so bought a Vectra SRi diesel to commute in, as a result I'm saving almost £10 per day in a cleaner, more comfortable and convenient environment, only down side is that the Zed is a bit of an ornament these days. Saying that, I've discovered that if you drive your Zed every day you take it for granted but if used very occasionally, you appreciate it so much more after commuting in something mundane

You guys might be able to criticise the covering snow but you really should give credit where credit is do; the lad must have gone to a fair bit of effort to get the focus just right.

Thanks Martin, I'll check it out. G

Superb, I gotta get me some of those!

The SL looks great, I'll be very interested to hear how you find it to drive and what sort of mpg you get!

I'm with Trev, the GT3 looks awesome, defintely where my £75k would go.

For a small car with a £1-£2.5k budget, I'd go for a Honda Civic, excellent cars and ultra reliable.

I was wondering if any of you guys could give me a little information on Liverpool? - I'm heading down there for my brothers' stag weekend in March and I've got the responsibility of being best man so I should make a bit of effort and make sure we do something good and find some decent places to go. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a decent area to get a hotel (A fairly cheap hotel!) and also where we'll get some good restaurants, pubs and clubs etc. Also, if you can think of any good day time activities that would be great; I basically want to keep the lads occupied and out of the pubs in the afternoon, possibly a Beatles tour or something like that? If you've got any ideas on any of the above I'd appreciate your input; I always think it's best to get the inside info on someone who knows the city rather relying on guide books. Cheers, G

Out of interest CS, how much are the Eibach springs, how much do they lower the car buy and what do you reckon would be a reasonable price to have them fitted? Has anyone had their Zed lowered and have any before and after pics? Cheers, G

I test drove the new shape 3.2 Audi TT and thought it was great, though I preferred the 2.0t and much preferred the Zed. With a £10k budget I'd imagine you're looking at the old shape TT? - From what I've read, it's nowhere near as good to drive as the new one, which isn't as good as the Zed so the obvious choice is the Zed! As for the Z4, I didn't even test drive it; I got to the showroom and just didn't like the look of it, I was going from a Boxster and felt it was too big a step down and it was a bit girly. As for an import; don't let that put you off if you see a car you like; I've had two import FTOs in the past and had absolutely no issues with either of them. The only thing to possibly put you off an import is other people's ignorance; you might find it more difficult to sell on as people are unsure about them, as are Nissan dealers I believe.

I've had to get myself a cheap runabout too; I got a 2005 Vectra CTD SRi 150, I've had it a week now and so far it's been great. I'm only using it for commuting between Glasgow and Edinburgh but it's good to know that my fuel bills have now haved - Also makes me appreciate my Zed a bit more, commuting in it in heavy traffic really was a waste. I must say a Vectra would not have been top of my wish list but my Dad was trading it in and he was offered peanuts for it so I took it off his hands and got an absolute bargain.

I’m gutted by what I’ve read above but NATE247 summed up my experiences and feelings perfectly in this thread. I have never met Phil nor Andrew but I feel I'm part of this community and I think I speak for everyone here, past and present, our best wishes and thoughts are with both. Andrew, can I please say at this point that I admire your will to ‘Put the customer first’ with the ESR orders you referred towards on this thread, but I think these pale into insignificance with what’s going on in your life so don’t waste your energy apologizing, I’ve been on this forum for almost a year and as much as people love their cars, from what I’ve read and the people I’ve met through here, there are a lot of guys here who are decent and good people and they symathise and empathise with you and your Dad at this time and appreciate the fantastic contribution you both and ESR have made to us all. God Bless, G

Welcome to the forum! Most folk in here are kinda biased with their opinions of what's a good colour for a Zed, based on what they drive themselves. Personally I'd go for a black one, but I'm biased!

" i avoided getting a GT one, as i really dont like the Orange leather seats, steering wheel and gear gaiter!" - The GT also comes with black leather.

It does seem too good to be true but potentially a great deal for someone.

Absolutely. Complete Pr!ck.

Sorry to hear about your car but glad to hear that you and the other driver walked out of the accident unscathed; how fast were you both going when you colided and what was he driving and how did that fare? As for a new car, the BMW 330d and 320d both sound like good options.

Having so much power going through the back wheels does take a bit of getting used to but you'll mess your pants less often with experience! I live in Edinburgh and work in Glasgow and very rarely see any Zeds on the road in either city and never any between them, I guess there are better/more suitable cars for commuting in!

The pics look great, well done.

I've just seen that vid for the first time and noticed it's fairly old, I'd be very very surprised if the car and the driver are still in one piece. Very fast car but a pretty poor driver.

I was in a similar situation when I got my Zed, I too found that Black was more expensive but I held out though and got the one that I wanted and haven't regretted it. Many years ago I bought an XR2i when I wanted an RS Turbo and regretted it every time I saw an RS, so I always now wait and get the model, spec and colour I want.