Bye bye bomb

Just sold my old car...

it's been replaced with something newer and more shiny:

Despite my feelings for the old car, the leak into the cabin when it rained was getting ridiculous. I found seedlings germinating in the carpet! And driving in Melbourne 40+ degree heat waves was scary when it came down to a choice between running the air conditioning or having no acceleration. Not a good choice when there are two little kids in the car. To spend money getting it fixed seemed silly when they would cost so much more than the car was worth. (I rang a few car wreckers who offered between $100 and $250 for it.) So we splashed out and got a new (and by that I mean 8 years old) car.

Of course I had delegated the job of 'eventually' replacing our car to DeepSpice... about a year ago! He was supposed to research options, test drive a few and come back to me with a short list. From there we would finalise which make and model, then he was to shop around until finding the right car at the right price. Although there was no rush to do so, I did want a new car before the old one died. However, it became apparent that if I was to wait for DeepSpice to organise it, I would be waiting another 20 years and walking everywhere in the meantime. So I did some intensive research and within a couple of weeks had found the right car. We did one test drive then bought it the next day.

My next task was to sell the old Camry. An ad on Gumtree did the trick - I had three enquiries within hours and someone making an offer the next day (although he was then given a car by a friend so didn't end up buying my car). I received another enquiry the following day and after a test drive, the interested buyer paid a deposit. The sale was completed today, only five days after first advertising it.

Unfortunately I didn't get as much money for it as I could have... Although there was 2 months registration remaining, I advertised the car as for sale unregistered because I wasn't sure if anyone would buy it, so didn't think it was worth paying for a roadworthy certificate (RWC) which is required if you want to sell a car with registration. Of course, the buyer wanted to buy it with registration and we came to an agreement that they would organise the RWC and they agreed to sign a contract absolving me of any liability if any damages happened in the 14 day period until the transfer of registration was being finalised.

At the crucial moment when the buyer was haggling over the price, I was busy breastfeeding Thumper so DeepSpice was left to do the negotiations. I gave DeepSpice instructions not to negotiate on price if they wanted to buy the car with registration but that he could accept a lower offer if they wanted to buy it unregistered. However, somewhere along the way DeepSpice got stressed and confused and ended up agreeing to sell the car with registration but at the price I was only wanting to accept if it was unregistered. Bah!! Goodbye $150.

At least the buyer should be happy, and it is good that the car is going to get some further use, rather than being turned into scrap metal. But it's going to take me a while to forgive DeepSpice for this one.

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