So here it is. "The Deal".
As of last night, the eagle-eyed amongst you may (but probably won't) have noticed that on my profile, I now appear to own two cars. My "old" car, my Corsa is shortly going to be put up for sale for about £4,500 - £5,000*.
The reason being that my Grandad phoned me a couple of months ago with an offer that I'd be stupid to pass-up. At that time he owned a 2005 "55-reg" Astra worth in the region of £9,000. He said he'd ordered a new Corsa and asked "If I wanted" his Astra. He said that if I sold my car and gave him the money I got for it, I could then have the Astra.
So in other words, I'd go from owning a £5,000 car to owning a £9,000 car for very little work - and as some of you know, I'm looking to buy a bigger family car. This deal gives me a greater contribution (The Astra's worth more to trade in) towards said car.
*The only complication is that I have a personalised registration plate on my Corsa, and I'm waiting for the paperwork to come through to change the plate back to it's original one ready for sale.
Anyway, without further ado, here it is:
2005 "55-reg" Vauxhall Astra Club 1.7CDTi (80ps) 5-door
Only 12,000 miles BUT unfortunately my Grandad has a few bad car care habits:
- He washes his car using one bucket of water (to do the whole car) and instead of using car cleaning products, he uses washing-up liquid. As a result the paint gone really dull when I picked her up on Friday night.
Since a quick wash with Auto Glym car shampoo/wax the paint's regained it's colour
- After then noticing small marks on the paint (due to improper cleaning), he determined the car had a "bad paint job" before applying an insane amount of 'touch-up paint' with what looks like a paintbrush. Yes. A paintbrush. This means the car's covered in this stuff, and I'm wondering how I can get it off because it looks terrible.
- He also insists on using an outdated steering lock when the car's parked, despite it not being necessary on modern, immobilised cars. this has taken some of the finish off of the back of the steering wheel, and it's annoying that you can feel it when you hold the top of the wheel (whilst turning)
Also, the car has a couple of other "imperfections"...
- Apparently, when parked in a car park, some muppet drove into the front right wheelarch of the car and leaving a dent before driving off. In order to cover the scratches, my Grandad also used a liberal amount of 'touch-up' paint on that.
- When on holiday in Scotland, he tried to get onto the seafront using a narrow track. Unfortunately he realised too late that the track was too narrow and couldn't prevent scratching both rear wheelarches and the right rear doorhandle in an effort to reverse back. yep, you guessed it. More touch-up paint
Despite this though, the car's in great condition - I may seek some posters' advice on how to bring the paint upto scratch (no pun intended ) but I don't intend spending much money on it as I plan to trade it in for a better car.
I'll show the piccies now but there'll be a full "review" of the car later. Enjoy.
EDIT: Photos Added