The Car Chronicles

One hurdle in getting settled in England is the fact that I do not know how to drive a car with a manual transmission and approximately 95% of the cars here are manual.  In Canada, there are at least as many automatics as manuals on the road.  To compound this issue, the British actually have different drivers licenses for automatics and manuals - you can drive an automatic car with a manual license, but not vice versa.

We needed a car pretty much immediately as we're doing loads of driving and can only leech off my mother-in-law's generosity in lending us her car for so long.  Also, after my little accident with her car which Nick is currently out at a garage getting fixed, I haven't been too keen on driving it.  I'd rather have my own cheap little ride that I didn't car about if I dented it or scratched the wheel.  Off to Autotrader we went, searching through hundreds of listings for cars, most of which were either too far away, horribly bad deals, horribly bad cars, or manual transmissions.

We finally found one that seemed like a reasonable deal - a 2003 Rover 25 for just 1200 pounds.  The Rover car company went out of business, so old Rovers are cheaper as they aren't made anymore.  The car was in Dunstable, a 45-minute drive from where we are currently, but looked great and the description sounded perfect.  We called to make sure the car was still available and off we went to Dunstable.  We arrived at the used car lot and immediately identified the Rover out of the approximately 150 cars they had - it was the one with the jumper cables attached to it.  The smell coming from the hood wasn't fantastic either.  Nick went to find a sales rep while I called my father-in-law to give him a laugh (he provided us with lots of pre-buying advice on what cars are reliable, what questions to ask, etc.).  The rep assured us that the car with the cables attached next to the Rover was the one being jumped.  Uh-huh.  We took it for a test drive anyway.  The car lot was on a one-way street which curved in a U-shape emptying out on the High Street (main street for those in North America).  We got to the intersection and a police car was sitting on the High Street right there.  "Oh shit, oh shit, uh, uh, uh..." said the sales rep from the back seat.  That was a good sign.  Turns out the taxes on the car had expired... December 31, 2009!  That means the car hadn't been legally driveable since then which means it had been sitting in the car lot for nearly a year.  Nick didn't like the way it drove anyway.  We got back to the lot and listened to the engine, which sounded awful.  The sales rep immediately started talking about how we could get a discount if we paid in cash.  We had already decided we weren't going to buy the car, but attempted to find a polite way to extricate ourselves.  We found one.  "Can I see the service history?" asked Nick.  "Oh, I can't find it right now.  We're going to do a clean-out of our files on Sunday, so I can mail it to you then and give you a discount now for your trouble if you pay in cash."  I quickly and tersely stated that we wouldn't be purchasing the car without the service history (which they said in the ad that they had!) and we took off like a shot.

A couple of days later, we found another ad for a car just 7 miles from where we are, and it seemed reasonable.  A 2001 Vauxhall Astra hatchback.  Since we had been concentrating our search on Astras (father-in-law said they'd be one of the better buys in their car class), we jumped on the opportunity.  "Where are you located?" asked Nick on the phone.  "In Chesham, at the hand car wash next to the Total petrol station on Berkhampsted Road."  Alright, off we went.  We arrived at the hand car wash next to the Total petrol station on Berkhampsted Road and asked around for the car seller.  Nobody knew what we are talking about.  Nick called the seller who said "I'll be there in 2 minutes."  Ten minutes later, we're wondering what's going on.  Nick got a call - "I'm here, where are you?"  Nick reiterated that we were at the hand car wash next to the Total petrol station, just like he asked us to be.  I'm starting to wonder if we're about to get mugged.  After about 10 more minutes of this nonsense, we deduced that there are TWO Total petrol stations on Berkhampsted Road, BOTH of which have hand car washes adjacent to them.  We drove to the other one and found the car seller.  The car was a bit dinged up, but we could't expect much for an 8-10 year-old car.  Nick took it for a test drive.  It wasn't awful but he wasn't super-keen on it.  The engine sounded awful.  "The engine is perfect," said the car seller.  This is code for "I know nothing about cars and/or am trying to scam you."  To boot, the seller wasn't even the owner of the car.  "It's my cousin's car."  Uh-huh.  No way are we going to buy a car which is possibly stolen.  We made up some dumb excuse about not having enough cash on us.  "Oh, you can pay me a deposit and then pay the rest later when you pick up the car."  Sure, we're stupid.  We'll just give you a wad of cash now and hope that 2 days later you still exist and happen to still have the car and won't jack up the price.  We took off like a shot.

Today, Nick made a call to the DVLA - the British driving license authority.  They informed him that I could drive a manual car on my Canadian license for 12 months.  We decided to expand our search to include manual vehicles, which Nick could then teach me how to drive.  A 2002 Vauxhall Astra estate came up and was just in the next town over.  We went to see it, test drove it, loved it, bought it.  We probably shouldn't have paid sticker price, but at least they threw in a new MOT test (annual test required by the government for emissions and safety) and guarantee on anything that might go wrong during the test.  We pick up the car on Wednesday.

So I've just bought my very first car.  It's nothing fancy of course, but it's not so expensive that I'll cry if I ding it, and I'm sure my mother-in-law is very relieved.