Spent another Saturday searching for a car. Not our favourite activity at all 🙁

Anne had gone round some yards during the week and had found one with a reasonable selection of stuff and a guy running it who seemed OK (well for a car salesman anyway!)

The problem when there is a wide choice is it makes it harder to choose – bit of a paradox really! We had gone with the intention of driving some Mazda MPVs and Honda Odysseys and had done a fair bit of online research as to what years etc to go for. After climbing through various ones, sitting in seats, working how the back seats rearranged themselves, we ended up taking out a Toyota Estima! Fortunately we had also researched this, just hadn’t come across any on our previous weeks foray round the yards. The Estima seemed to have more room all round and a reasonable seating arrangement.

Like lots of the car yards, this one had two other sites within 2 or 3 miles (there are lots of car yards in Hamilton) so we went for a drive over to one of them to see what else might be available. We weren’t too happy with the Estima as it seemed to pull to the side a bit and was a bit ‘used’ inside. At the second yard, however, was another Estima, slightly different model, slightly older but $2000 cheaper. Decided to take that for a spin to compare with the one that we had just driven. This second one was much better, no pulling, tidy inside, even has electric curtains!!

Had a good drive about in this and by the end were happy to sign the dotted line. Most second hand cars go in for an AA service before purchase so ours was booked in for Monday. Main note from the examiner was that the air conditioner fan was a bit noisy! This was at the end of Monday when the guy from the yard phoned up. He arranged to come and pick Anne up on Tuesday morning (today), took her to the bank to get a cheque and then to pick the car up. It’s now sitting in the drive so Hooray! we can drive off somewhere this weekend.