New car

My friend had only had her very first new car for a week when she hit a deer on the back road home. Deer may look fragile but they're big animals and can cause a lot of damage, car was in the body shop for almost a month. I have a deer whistle fitted to my car-hope it works!

Our very first car was a Mini. It suffered various indignities during its tenure with us - the rear subframe broke on a trip to Antwerp when we were living in Belgium and had to be replaced; it had its headlight broken by a seagull with a lousy sense of direction in Northern Ireland, and had a bullet hole put in it there too! It was a rust bucket that leaked like a sieve but it never let us down mechanically. It frequently carried two children and various goods and chattels from one posting to another. Surprising what you can pack into them! Some years later we bought another and ran that one into the ground too. Regretfully, because I was late learning to drive I had never had the chance to drive either of them. Now I think I would struggle to get in and out of one of the older ones, but I wouldn't mind trying the new ones.

I use to have one of the little old minis..it was blue with a white roof..

I came home one day to find dh had painted it Brown and cream ! thats in the days when people just painted their old cars...(he was a painter and decorator so he did make a good job of it )

Cor! What a nasty shock for you silverlining I would have boo-hoo'd as well.

We have only ever had one new car, bought for husbands 60 th birthday as a very special treat. We had looked after it well for 7 years and intended to keep for another 7 probably, but when parked down at dover cruise terminal while we were off on a nice cruise there was a storm surge and ours, together with 200 other cars, were all written off.
It was dreadful sailing back into dover at the end of the cruise to find them all piled on top of one another. Then we had to find our way home, car-less. A nightmare.
We learned then that if a car is written off the only responsibility an insurer has is to get you home.
No loan car...what loan car.....forget it!
So ends the sad story of our one and only new car. Boo hoo.

Dj my my current cars previous owner was disabled but I bought it from my usual trusted second hand dealer for a bargain price and it had less than 3000 on the clock.
If I out live it I will try a mobility garage next time, good tip.

Yes agree with dj all motabilty cars are serviced and looked after...we had new car every 3 years and appreciated every one of them!
Been without a car for over 3 yrs now and miss it sooooo much..as Ive always had a car of some sort since passing test around 41 yrs ago.
We used to have " old bangers" prior to motability.

I do have my scooter but not ideal.But I am trying to save and any car would be a bonus (although 11 yrs old grandson prefers a LAMBORGHINI /or Audi such n such lol...

Has anyone seen the new sporty Mini Cooper, have seen several around, coloured body and black top, really nice ( too late for me this time) .....maybe next.

That's a good tip dj

Anyone who wants a car that's not new but low mileage should look at a motability garage.
They are exchanged every three years.

My car is now 14 years old. I bought it with more or less the delivery mileage on it, and of course it's diesel. We were encouraged to buy diesel back then, and we love her. She is comfortable to drive/be a passenger, and high enough for us to get easy access and exit. She was my first and only new car, but she is beginning to look her age around the edges, but then so am I, so we rub along just fine, so far.

I have never had a brand new car either but like whitewave I buy one under a year old and with low mileage. My present car was 2 years old when I bought it but had 1500 miles on the clock. It belonged to an elderly lady who had to give up driving. I hate the car but with that low mileage and it appears to run on water, I had to keep it.

I'm very happy to say (touch wood) that my Fiat Panda, which is now 13 years old, is going strong - bought new from a legacy, great treat.

We plan to buy an electric/petrol next. We would really prefer fully electric but the technology isn't yet up to scratch.

We used to have a new car each time, but after a while we decided it didn't (for us) make economic sense as it is a depreciating asset, whose greatest depreciation is up front. We therefore decided to buy a low mileage year old car and have done do ever since. We also keep all our cars until the repairs are worth more than the car. So for us the longer the better.

As it happens one of them has gone in for an mot, brake linings and rattle so as it is 7 years old it's days might be numbered

We have a new car every 2 or 3 years also but are not very precious about it once we have it. I am precious about new carpets for a long long time though. No eating in the lounge ..no shoes EVER!. dogs have to try to float over the carpet . Well ok that one is a bit much but you get the gist .?

Harrigran, that happened to us on the day we picked up my husband's motability car and went to a cash and carry.
Whoever let the trolley go didn't own up to it.

When we bought the car ( or rather went to collect it) the salesman told us to go carefully, with a grin, and said that there had been several accidents there, with people driving their new cars from the forecourt out into the traffic.

The thing burst into flames too, didn't it?

Did people see the story of the guy who crashed and wrote off his £250,000 Ferrari that he'd picked up less than an hour beforehand?

Yes Nina I understand, our first date was an old land rover with no back glass and with all the grass cuttings in the back creating a vortex all over me as we drove along, by the time we reached the pub I was covered! My Dad was the same so didn't mind and brushed myself off and got on with it, and it was middle of winter! Must have been love. Actually to this day I still find chainsaws and the like in the car usually with a gallon of two stroke precariously balanced. Wouldn't change a thing TBH

We have always had a new car every two years, love the smell when you drive it out of the showroom. We usually park in the furthest corner of supermarket car park but two years ago returned to find a shopping trolley leaning against passenger door and a dent where it had hit, the car was less than seven days old

I've adopted what I call the "sad git's" style of parking,where I always try to park with an empty space either side of me. The other day I noticed in a very quiet car park,every car was parked like that....

My car is silver because it doesn't show the dirt. I can identify it in a car park by the silver glittery aerial ball. I also have other balls to put on according to the season, such as Santa, Easter egg, and witch.
When a car is new I am very careful, but once it gets its first scratch and the newness has worn off I am not so bothered.
My now-ex DH once wrapped a brand new car around a pillar in a dark car park on the day he picked it up. I had to drive it to work for a few days until it went in for repair so I wrote 'My husband did this' in marker pen on the wing! Once it was mended we changed it and never had a blue car again as he had had a mishap in a previous blue one.

I chose white for our last car; huge mistake - it never looked clean for more than a day. When we had this latest one, DH was a bit precious about it - very keen to steer me towards fisheries where there were proper car parking facilities, rather than let me take up the forest roads full of mud and potholes to my favourite reservoir fishing spots! Well, it had to be christened some time!