Keep on Truckin'

So, once again I am looking for a car.  I think I've owned something like 22 cars in my 13years of driving, which doesn't sound too bad until you consider that I think half of that time was made up of 3 cars, so i guess I've owned 19 cars...and 4 motorbikes....in about 7 years

The shortest period of time I owned a car for was 3 weeks, it was a Rover 214 in a lovely green. It had so much water in the spare wheel well, that I actually considered attaching a winch and bucket and letting Africans walk 5 miles to get to it

I bought the car for £50, but was finding, whilst putting £10 of fuel in it that it was very uneconomic, so I decided to fill the tank and see just how many miles I could get

I filled it to the brim, around £50, effectively doubling the value of the car and drove it back to my flat, this was less than half a mile. 

I went out to the car the next morning, excited and intrigued to see just how many miles I could extract from this one tank of fuel. The anticipation was building as I swam to the drivers seat, the key slid into the ignition and......and......nothing

The starter motor had gone to the great engine in the sky. So then began the operation to cut the fuel lines, drain the fuel, then scrap the car

I got £30 rebate on the tax and £50 scrap for the car....not the easiest £30 I've ever made but profit is profit 

The next shortest period of car ownership was 28 days....I know...a whole extra week. This time it was a Mercedes C Class 2.2 litre, 4 speed automatic petrol saloon.   Now I know what you're thinking, that must have delivered almost hybrid like fuel economy, and you'd be rig....wrong

I once had to drive briskly, obviously no more than 70mph, to Guildford to deliver some keys. A journey that the Mercedes did with ease and comfort. However, the 100 mile round trip cost me about £30 in fuel, and that was when fuel was around 90p a litre 

That car was sold to a Romanian, I think. He called me at 9am saying he'd be round to view in a couple of hours...he arrived at 11:30..........PM

Whilst viewing the car, in the dark, and having driven a couple of hundred miles, he tried to haggle with me, offering me £1200 against my £1800 asking price.  I simply explained that I had walked down 15 stairs from my flat whereas he had been on the road for some 12 hours. 

He paid me £1800

And so with these two experiences, there was no chance that I would ever buy a car on a whim with horrendous fuel economy again.......or was there. 

Not until some 7 years later when I purchased my last car, an Audi TT 1.8T Quattro.  I researched everything before hand and fully expected the car to return around 30mpg as a combined figure.  Now I reasoned that a lot of my driving was motorway driving and hence I'd get a lot closer to 40mpg

I got 27....on a run......driving Miss Daisy

See the 37.5mpg it was capable of on the motorway was slightly outweighed by the 16/17mpg it achieved around town

Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely way to waste some money, and who needs money anyway, but I don't think I'll be repeating the experience....at least until 2020

And so it is that my car search begins today, with a few set criteria. 

- Cheap to buy

- Cheap to run

- Working starter motor 

- Easy to cut fuel lines

Wish me luck

I'll leave you with a few pictures to brighten your morning

Bye bye for now