OK, so I'm either a cheapskate...

... or people here have an 'interesting' idea as to how much their heaps, sorry, cars are worth. OK, it might be that I'm suffering from the same delusion when I'm selling as opposed to buying but I usually check with a few people I know in the car trade if my (private sale) price is realistic.

Anyway, I'm in fairly urgent need of a DD. The last one I bought turned out to be a bit of a disaster area[1] - what did I expect, given that it was an Alfa? - and it's currently on ebay for NotVeryMuchMoney because I'm straight up about the faults and just want to get rid of it. Of course this means that I'm also shopping for cars, which means I'm spending too much time on ebay.

I've been outbid a couple of times (fine) but the classic ones are where I'm the high bidder, the price seems to be OK but it's a case of 'reserve not met'. And then you don't hear back from the seller, ever. Or the one that I won last week, went there, found that the description was stretching the truth a little too far (pop quiz - if a car is advertised as having new tyres and wheels, how many new tyres do you expect given that it has had four new ugly cheapy alloys[2]?) so I walked away from that. I hate doing that, but I hate buying someone else's headache even more.

Normally I wouldn't be too bothered about this but one of the conditions for the special classic insurance I have for the Integrale and the 911 is that I have a DD and the insurances won't accept the Elise as a DD. Which kinda makes sense, I can see where they're coming from but it's a huge PITA.

Oh well, back to trawling ebay we go...

[1] Here in the UK, there is an annual safety inspection for vehicles older than 3 years. This Alfa passed the test six weeks ago and neither me nor the reputable mechanic I took it to can figure out how the car passed.
[2] The correct answer in this case being 3, the fourth was pretty much bald. On an AWD car as well...

eBay is a lottery, as many people do lie about their cars, which is why I always pay when I pick it up and be prepared to walk away.

Of course I am a cheapskate and rarely buy anything worth a lot anyway.

Given that I'm only looking for a DD to last me for four months, I'm not looking to spend a lot of money. The problem also seems to occur when you're spending more - I saw some "interesting" 911s before settling on my Targa, for starters. Small ads are a nasty lottery over here as well, guess it's the same as in the US.

I tend to run into the "oh, I thought your car was much worse than it is" a lot simple because I'm one of these odd people who attempt to describe their cars as accurately as possible instead of skipping over all the potentially embarrassing faults.

I have been very lucky to date, very few cars I have picked up weren't a fairly accurate description, but they were so cheap it didn't matter, why bother lying.

Just to be clear, are you looking for here or back in Britain

BoxheadTim wrote: Normally I wouldn't be too bothered about this but one of the conditions for the special classic insurance I have for the Integrale and the 911 is that I have a DD and the insurances won't accept the Elise as a DD. Which kinda makes sense, I can see where they're coming from but it's a huge PITA.

Easiest answer would be to find a insurance company that will take your Elise. I have had some pretty strange cars and its been interesting finding insurance to would cover them as DD but all it took was a day or two's worth of lunches on the phone.

In reply to aussiesmg:

I'm looking in Britain, hence the "four months" comment and me being even more of a cheapskate than usual. I completely agree with the "why bother lying", most of the time I'll find the faults anyway when I look at the car (Alfas excepted, but to be fair the specialist who drove it before he found all the problems also thought it drove OK).

wearymicrobe wrote: Easiest answer would be to find a insurance company that will take your Elise. I have had some pretty strange cars and its been interesting finding insurance to would cover them as DD but all it took was a day or two's worth of lunches on the phone.

Slight misunderstanding here . The Elise is insured and the insurance allows me to use it as a DD if I so want to. The issue is that the insurance companies covering the 911 and the Integrale insist on me having a DD (fair enough, as it's a discounted "pleasure use only" policy) and they do not accept the Elise as playing the role of my DD.

Plus, given that I'll have to transport things about, get a bike to a specialist and back and get the Integrale to my tame bodyshop and back, I'll need a towcar anyway.

For a 4 month car, look at something boring and common, you have fun cars, get a beater Festiva or similar that is easy to fix and parts are everywhere. It is just transport after all

Yeah, I'm not after a fun car - the one that had the three new tyres on was a Subaru Impreza station wagon but the other ones I'm looking at are all Land Rovers or Range Rovers. They're pretty boring and common here and they're also one of the few cars that can legally tow really heavy weights. Plus the Diesels are pretty OK on fuel and the Range Rovers I'm considering pretty much all have been converted to run on LPG, which is a lot cheaper than running them on regular petrol.

LPG was common downunder also, my last tow car was an LPG powered Ford XC GS ute with a 351, I miss that one

My thoughs too on a 4 month car was to not buy something you really like but buy something you can really sell quickly. In the states that would typically be something of the Corrolla or Civic variety. Cherry pick something in need of some slight attention and turn it once the attention is done.

Sample would be to buy on in need for a full brake job. One weekend and less than $300 and you would have a percieved value of $1k. Buy low, fix cheap, sell high.

Also, at 4 months, if it were me, here, I would consider a "Rent a Wreck." These are local car places that will rent you a used car. It is often nothing fancy but for $300 per month, you get a car that you do not have to fix, or invest any additional money into. It may not seem cheap but 4 months into it you are out $1,200 but you completely walk away the day you are done. No need to coordinate sale dates or change of ownership. On top of that you can easily risk $1,200 on the sale and maint. of a used car once you figure all costs.

If you do not locally have these types of shops, try priceline on a 30 day rental. Name your own price and see if they bite. I think 30 days is the longest they will go. In the following month, name your own price again for another 30 day run.

Just a few:

http://london.craigslist.co.uk/cto/1506598854.html

http://london.craigslist.co.uk/cto/1503581884.html

http://london.craigslist.co.uk/cto/1485918842.html

• I threw in that last one because it's kewl.

@JFX001 - the problem is that they're all smaller than my Alfa and that's too small for some of the things I need to do here in the next few months. I actually did consider a 205 but I've got a bad history with them (drove my aunt's into a deer), plus even looking at that one is a day and half trip...

@aussiemg - the main issue with LPG here in the UK is the lack of stations as it never really took off as a car fuel. I used to have a station 10 miles down the road from me but they closed. I think it's now a 40 mile round trip for the closest one. That said, pretty much all the LPG-fuelled cars you get are dual fuel anyway.

@jrw1621 - one of the reasons of looking at Land/Range Rovers is that they're pretty easy to sell on where I live. It's getting pretty rural for Southeastern England when I drive five minutes, plus at least Discoveries are pretty well liked by those people whose daughters are into horses as they'll tow Jemima's horse box so well. I don't particularly like them but they're steady sellers if you've got a Diesel version. I went to look at this Discovery on Thursday and it seems to be in reasonable nick. Owner maintained but I met him at his workshop and he seems to know what he's doing. Oddly enough it's a little dirty inside and it needs a wash and polish, but you could eat off the engine bay and the chassis looked rather good, too.

Didn't think about renting, the main issue with that would be that it doesn't really take care of the insurance side of things, plus getting something with a towbar is pretty much impossible. Having worked for Avis years back and seen the state of the normal cars and vans, I can understand why they're reluctant to rent out cars and vans for towing.