r/CarTalkUK

Autotrader AI nonsense.

You have a car listed up and want fifty thousand of my hard earned pounds and you can’t even be bothered to write a description of what the car ACTUALLY contains, but rather you generate an essays worth of AI slop instead. What do car salespeople even do anymore?

Could some one help me find an LCI bmw e90 3 series saloon in the uk
I have only one must have which is an idrive system, some what full service history and automatic
I would prefer less than 90k miles, heated seats, cruise control and bi xenon light but I don’t mind not having these
Thank you

I'm looking for my first car to buy outright.

I'm a single parent with one kid. I think the size is ample for myself and her.

I went to see this Volvo V40 T4 1.6 and I loved it but I am reading endless horror stories about the Powershift. I'm more concerned about safety over anything else. If expensive repairs come up I would blame myself for not looking after it.

Is it really that bad or will it be fine if I ensure to keep a close eye on the oil?

I'm happy to own it for years to come, all being well!

The dealership is reputable and has mostly good reviews. They have a 3 month warranty, full service etc.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202606293715827?fromSavedAds=true&advertising-location=at_cars&sort=relevance&postcode=CT9+1TN&calc-deposit=678&calc-term=48&calc-mileage=10000&calc-selected-product=PCP

In most cases I’ve noticed the rate for PCP is way higher for a used car compared to a new car. It seems the APR for personal loan is lower in general.

Why do we still see PCP for older car is a thing?! Is there any other benefits that I might not be looking into?

Are there any good options for getting a used car transported from a private sale?

Obviously, it might sound like a bit of a scam to the seller, and not being able to look it over yourself before purchasing/transferring any money is maybe not the wisest idea.

In an ideal world, there would be some sort of service that offered a pre-purchase inspection, and then could act as a middleman to make the deal happen, and then have transport pick up the car. Basically, de-risk it for everyone.

piston heads was fun in the day to petrol ted wanted to sell it to Hayward publishing and started banning regulars for stupid reasons.

who remembers it back in the day?

but i did have my fun with em more fun than hammer frozen sausages in the law

OUTLAW

Hi

Apologies if this isn't the right sub for this but I'm at a bit of a loss. I have a "stop lock" steering wheel lock on my van, I've had it about six years now but never had an issue with it.

Used it fine Saturday, then got into the van on Sunday and the key just wouldnt turn in the steering wheel lock. I've tried oiling it, nothing. Tried using spare key, also nothing.

Any tips or ideas? I'm reluctant to drill the lock or angle grind the whole thing off.

I was looking at cars sold both here and in AUS and the USA and it seems every car sold in the UK is priced way higher. I know some people say that it is due to taxes etc with US pricing being before tax, but even with tax and dealer fee's added on - we still come out on top by a country mile. Are we just being ripped off?

Here are some examples i grabbed and had put into a list - this is with all taxes and fees- in both local currency (USD and AUD) and in GBP.

Model	UK OTR Price	USA OTR Price	Australia OTR Price
Toyota RAV4 (Hybrid Base)	£43,845	$35,245 (£26,328)	$49,990 AUD (£25,894)
Tesla Model Y (RWD Base)	£41,990	$47,042 (£35,140)	$61,691 AUD (£31,955)
Ford Ranger (Double Cab Base)	£41,564	$37,041 (£27,670)	$47,840 AUD (£24,781)
Honda CR-V (Hybrid Base)	£46,610	$33,337 (£24,902)	$44,500 AUD (£23,051)
Toyota Corolla (Hybrid Base)	£30,500	$25,858 (£19,315)	$36,000 AUD (£18,648)
Hyundai Tucson (Base)	£32,000	$31,535 (£23,556)	$43,500 AUD (£22,533)
Kia Sportage (Base)	£29,390	$30,278 (£22,617)	$40,000 AUD (£20,720)
Mazda CX-5 (Base)	£31,000	$31,794 (£23,750)	$39,500 AUD (£20,461)
Nissan X-Trail / Rogue (Base)	£33,000	$32,054 (£23,944)	$41,500 AUD (£21,497)
Volkswagen Tiguan (Base)	£38,305	$32,043 (£23,936)	$48,000 AUD (£24,864)

Jaecoo 7 review: Look how far China has come By Jeremy Clarkson | The Sunday Times

Four years ago this car company didn't exist. Now this is the third bestselling car in the UK

Back in the mid-Eighties I used a train to get from Beijing to Xi’an and it was a two-day orgy of awfulness. Smoke from the rickety steam engine up front leaked prodigiously into the carriages, the seats were wooden, the smell of armpit was extraordinary and there were no lavatories. Instead there was a hole in the floor of one carriage over which you were invited to squat — not easy when the carriage was rocking about as if it was falling down a flight of stairs. No one had hit the hole at all and I didn't either. I was so worried about falling over in there, I clung to the wall and did my business there.

Today it’s all rather different. You board a 220mph G-series bullet train and it covers the 700-mile journey, in near silence, in four hours and ten minutes. In the carriages there is air conditioning and in business class you have eggshell booths and seats that fold completely flat to form a bed. It’s like traveling by private jet, except there is no PJ I know of that offers choice of lavatory: western or Chinese.

There has been a similar leap forward for the Chinese motorist as well. They are building 6,000 miles of motorway every year and, as a result, there is now enough tarmac in China to cover the entire British Isles ... 20 times over. This is because car sales have gone through the roof. When I first visited there were one million cars on the roads. Today, 40 years later, there are 366 million. And who’s making all these cars? Not Peugeot, that’s for sure, or Ford or even Volkswagen.

As recently as 2012 the Chinese motorist had a limited choice. There was the snappily titled XF150ZK-4, which was a plastic three-wheeler with a single-cylinder engine and, curiously, a hinged front seat that rocked backwards alarmingly when you accelerated. Also, it had no suspension at all. It was, in essence, an uglified Reliant Robin made by people who didn't know what they were doing and had only a vague notion of what a car is.

But it was better than the CA6440UA, which came about when a Chinese tobacco company bought the worn-out Austin Rover tooling and used it to build a Toyota-engined car that was a Maestro at the back and a Montego at the front. So a British Leyland hand-me-down and a plastic pig-car. That was the choice. And this was only 20 years ago.

And now? Well, just five years ago a company called BYD — it stands, nauseatingly, for Build Your Dreams — broke ground on its new factory and today that one factory is bigger than the city of San Francisco. It covers an area of 50 square miles and it makes a car every 60 seconds. And that's just one factory from one company. In China today there are 109 companies making cars. And they all have lots of factories.

All of which brings me on to Jaecoo, a name created — and I’m sure you’ve worked this out already — by combining the German word Jäger and the English word cool. I’ve been intrigued by this brand because four years ago it didn't exist, and now the Jaecoo 7 is the third bestselling car in the UK. You see them everywhere.

And it’s not hard to see the appeal, frankly, because it looks a bit like a Range Rover but prices start at a scarcely believable £29,195. And that’s not a come-hither sales trick to get you into an expensive discussion about options. There aren't any. Not really. Everything you could reasonably want or need is included. So how are they selling it for less than 30 grand? What’s wrong with it?

Interestingly, the PR people who brought one round for me to try said I probably wouldn't like it very much and they were dead right, I didn't, because a plug-in hybrid SUV is not really my thing. Sure, it can travel for 56 miles on electrical power only and has an official mpg figure of 403. Which I'm sure is very interesting. There's one customer who claims he has now done 3,000 miles in his Jaecoo without filling the tank even once.

Yes, but that's 3,000 miles in the automotive equivalent of a bucket of sand. This is not an exciting car to drive and that’s irrelevant here. I know plenty of people who just want four metres of car; they don't really care where it was made or how fast it goes. They just want safety, economy and reliability, and on that basis the Jaecoo 7 is perfectly fine. Yes, there’s a cheapness to the feel of the fabrics and the materials in the cockpit, but what were you expecting? Peacock feathers?

It put me in mind of the very first Datsuns that arrived in the UK back in 1968. Oh, how we scoffed at their pleblon upholstery and their plasticky dashboards. But then we noticed that while our Fords and our Triumphs didn't start when it was cold or wet or damp or windy or foggy or sunny, the little Japanese boxes did. And it turned out that mattered to us.

The same thing is happening now. The traditional carmakers have convinced us that we should expect to find the finest leather in a car and the thickest carpet and the most amount of speed and power, but here we have Jaecoo saying, "Hang on, isn't the price more important?"

Back in the Eighties the demand for Japanese cars was so great in Europe that the EU limited them to just 12 per cent of the market. I wonder if they'll do the same thing with the new raft of Chinese cars. And I also wonder what will happen if they don't. Actually, scratch that, I know full well what will happen.

Because look how far China has come in 20 years. Look how far it’s come in the past two! If they keep going at this rate, they'll be selling us stuff by next spring that we can only dream about today. A drone in the roof that can be deployed in a traffic jam to see what's causing it? You can bet that's coming. Along with cold fusion propulsion systems probably.

That may be the only reason for not buying a Jaecoo, really. Because by Christmas there will be a new version that can fly and become invisible at the touch of a button.