I finally got my new wheels

So at the start of August, my wife and decided we were going to buy a new car. The contract wasn’t up on the old one, and while we really liked the car, we were starting to rack up the miles on the car. In addition, throughout our ownership of it, we’d had little ‘niggly’ problems with it, which the dealer didn’t really know how to / couldn’t fix, which was quite an annoyance.

We spent most of the month researching the available options to us and eventually decided that we were going to go for a slightly bigger car than our Honda HRV, moving up to a Peugeot 3008 SUV. So we headed over to the dealership at the beginning of September to see what was available to us, but more importantly, what we could afford. After running some figures and going out on a test drive, we agreed on the car, which would be available at the end of the month.

Throughout the entire month, we were getting excited, as you do when you buy something new and are waiting for it. However things were a little to quiet. I would contact the dealer on a weekly basis just to make sure things were ok and we’d heard the car was in the country by Mid-September, but then progress / updates seemed to just STOP. The information we were getting back seemed very vague and we were starting to worry. The deadline came and there was still no car, which we found very strange knowing that it was already in the country.

After a little more pressure and digging around, it seems like the vehicle delivery company had suffered a cyber attack and as a result, they had 10,000 vehicles in their compound, but they didn’t know where they needed to be delivered to. Not ideal, but out of the hands of the dealership, so we had to suck it up and play the waiting game. Having no information on when to expect the car now, I kept on at the dealer, for updates on a weekly basis just to be told the same thing over and over, we have no new information and will be in touch when we hear something.

Then, one Saturday morning we had a call from the dealer to say they’d taken delivery of all the vehicles they were waiting for, with the exception of ours. In addition, they told me that the vehicle had been put on a lorry and delivered somewhere, but the delivery company didn’t know where. I was livid! Not content with speaking on the phone about it, I went down to the dealer and discussed my options. We’d got a really good deal on the car and really wanted it, but with no known resolution what could we do. The news wasn’t as bad as first thought as the dealer explained they’d mis-informed me and the vehicle hadn’t been taken somewhere, instead it was put on a lorry and taken off again at the compound, which meant it was still sat there (some good news at least I guess). I discussed about waiting until March for the new registrations to come out and ordering a new one if this one couldn’t be found, but with Brexit, we’d be looking at a 10% price increase, on top of which, we’d lose out on the deal we had already agreed. I decided to give them a further 10 days and then I would be pulling out of the deal.

5 days later however, we got a call to say the car had been found. YAY! It was due for delivery within the next couple of days, which would mean we’d only need to wait about another week to pick it up. Despite all the trouble and the time it had dragged on, we were excited once again, until the weekend hit and news broke that England was going back into Lockdown, reportedly on November 4th – the day we were meant to be collecting the new car. It would be just our luck in this story you really couldn’t make up, that something else would get in the way of us having the new car. Luckily, later that day Boris announced it would be from the 5th, so it wouldn’t stop us getting it.

The day came, we said goodbye to the HRV and picked up the 3008. It was a strange feeling driving it away, not being used to an Automatic and always starting a car with my left foot on a pedal, I instinctively put my foot on the brake and tried driving with left foot braking (something I do virtually on racing games, but IRL, it make for very sudden & dangerous stopping). A few miles of practise and I was well away and I just can’t wait now to go a bit further a field once the latest lockdown is over to really test the car out (as well as that nice little sport button!)