1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

Going car shopping tomorrow

Discussion in 'Newbie Forum' started by Burma Sauce, Apr 8, 2011.

  1. Burma Sauce

    Burma Sauce Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2011
    8
    0
    0
    Location:
    Banbury, UK
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Hi all, first time poster but I've been reading the forum all week. I'm looking to replace my lovely (but thirsty) 1998 Lexus LS400. It's costing me £100 a week in petrol now.

    I've been browsing Autotrader a lot lately and I've found a 2006 T Spirit with only 30k miles on the clock for £9k just down the road in Oxford.

    I'm going to phone in the morning and take a look if it's still available. Hopefully I'll be saving at least £200 a month in petrol in the very near future!

    I'm looking to get the T Spirit mainly for the cruise control, audio system and bluetooth connectivity. The Satnav is a bonus but something I could live without for the sake of a £300 TomTom. I'm sure it's miles better than the CD-ROM based system in my LS but I know from experience that the dealers want a kidney in exchange for the latest disk!
     
  2. Burma Sauce

    Burma Sauce Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2011
    8
    0
    0
    Location:
    Banbury, UK
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Well I didn't get that one in the end because someone beat me to it, but I have just bought a 2008 T Spirit with only 11k miles on the clock from a main dealer. I even got a very fair trade in price for my old LS400.

    The only downside now is I've got to wait til Monday to collect it...
     
  3. twittel

    twittel Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2010
    1,605
    148
    0
    Location:
    Mt. Pleasant, SC
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    III
    Wow, nice find on that 2008 Prius T. I'm assuming that Prius are in high demand in you area because of rising fuel costs and Japan issues.

    Welcome to PriusChat.
     
  4. Burma Sauce

    Burma Sauce Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2011
    8
    0
    0
    Location:
    Banbury, UK
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Thanks for the welcome.

    Yes, very pleased with my purchase. It looks pretty mint condition. Only done about 1500 miles since the last service in January 2009 which was a slight concern... I'm assuming it was a second car.

    It's metallic silver which isn't my favourite colour (would prefer black or red), but I can live with that. It's got black leather seats though which is great!

    I will hold off on updating my profile details here until I've actually picked the car up.

    The auto parking thing looked very cool and worked perfectly, not sure I'm going to actually use it though as it looked a bit of a faff to set up. I can park pretty well - I've parked my LS on a packed double parked street every day for the last 7 years. Just being able to see behind the car with the camera will be useful though.
     
  5. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

    Joined:
    Dec 14, 2009
    6,722
    2,121
    45
    Location:
    North Yorkshire, UK
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    III
    Welcome to PriusChat

    You'll find the site a mine of information. If you have any questions about your new ride, just ask away.

    One quick thing is that the Prius can be quite susceptible to having the correct tyre pressures so make sure that's high on your list of things to do. Otherwise get used to saving loads of money - you should be getting 50+ mpg out of the car.

    Couple of things to note about the site - American gallons are smaller so 42 mpg is about 50 mpg UK and their petrol has a different octane measuring systel, so don't worry if you see someone putting 87 octane petrol in! (stick to 95 in the UK)
     
  6. Burma Sauce

    Burma Sauce Junior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2011
    8
    0
    0
    Location:
    Banbury, UK
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    Thanks again everyone, just updating this thread to say that I've now got the Prius, it's sitting outside my house at the moment because I'm working from home today. I did go for a spin in it last night and I'm very pleased with my purchase. At the moment I'm trying to decide where to go on a jaunt this evening. :)