In early 2014, I was in the process of changing jobs. My commute was not significantly different so car changes were not on the cards.
But the Jaguar started loosing water from somewhere, I could not find it but the Garage said it was the radiator. Anyway my friend had a 1996 Passat TDI estate that whilst not looking pretty was a fine workhorse. I paid £175 .
She was used up to mid august and sold to another friend, unfortunatly he became unable to drive so she was eventually scrapped but even at 185K on the clock she could have gone on for more and more!!
My brother in law was getting Married in May and as a gift we decided to offer the use of the Jaguar as both the wedding and honneymoon car ( he had a T4 Transporter, not ideal holiday transport)
After this I decided we needed a vehicle re-think. The Jag was gr8 perfomance wise but impractical. The Passast was practical but not very presentable. The Galaxy was presentable and practical but no real performer.
My plan was to replace the three with a fast powerful oil burning estate. and then have a small city car for the second car.
I bought a BMW E61 530D, unseen from 300 miles away. The guy wanted paying upfront, we decided to collect after our holiday. He was very quite and I was nervous I had lost £2200. But eventually managed to get the car picked up. It turned out to be a bit of a dog! litterally the car was covered in dog hair. But worse the rear arches had been badly repainted. The remotes did not work , nor did the rear wiper, the lumbar support would not deflate, and it broke down with a blocked DPF on the way home.. £1,000 further out of pocket.
I sold the Passat soon after. but held on to the Jaguar to October 2014! I trusted the Jag but not the BMW.
The E61 is not a great car in my opinion, and it seemed far to fragile. I fixed the Remote Locking, Lumbar issue, Parking, Rear Wiper, some other bits. But just did not find it CLICKED. It looked like it was going to need new discs and pads, and potentially new shock absorbers. Then started throwing ECU errors for the throttle body.
In March 2015 I drove to “WeBuy….” with the hope to get £2200 minimu and just cut and run. After a bit of haggling (and the fact that the worst paint job in the world was missed) I actualy got £2175 , did not run, but walked the 4 miles back to town via the pub.
It took a while for the wife to ask where the car was! Whilst she was not overly impressed that I was swapping cars again ( potentially back to a Jaguar). We all hated the BMW and were not sad to see it go.