I will never buy a new car! People worry about fuel efficiency. It is utterly ridiculous, you need to worry about depreciation.
BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
I just bought myself a 2010 Mini One, with only 107K on the clock and throughout its 13 years it has been maintained by a very reputable BMW/Mini Dealer in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Let me explain my journey and decision-making. It is not necessarily the best, it just happens to be the way I do things. So bear that in mind. Also, these days I live in the Netherlands, so I have some resources to check on cars, that might not be available in India.
First of all, why another car? Our official daily drive is my wife’s 2015 Ford Fiesta. A very nice little car. I have a 1982 Mercedes W123, a 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider, a 1998 Jeep Cherokee, and a 2002 Jaguar X308/XJR.
I retired about 6 months ago, which also meant I had to hand in the company tin. Not a great loss, typically I had BMW, Mercedes or Audi as company cars. Whereas these are very nice, very comfortable cars, I also think they are unbelievably boring! As most modern cars are. I really can’t tell the difference between these modern cars.
So I prefer, with a few exceptions, slightly or lots older cars! And as you can see from my list I am doing pretty well. There are a few problems though. If you follow my thread “Fiddling with Cars” you will have noticed I am always busy keeping these four cars on the road. Admittedly, I am completely anal about my cars. So I will fret and worry about the tiniest thing out of order until I manage to fix it.
And I love driving them. Four very different cars, and very different experiences when you drive them. But sometimes you just want a car, that has no issues, drives well, always. Without having to fiddle with it. Which means going for a bit more modern cars. No matter what. There is also another consideration. I used to drive about 25K with my company car. My four classic cars are all insured on a so-called Classic Car policy, against the agreed value. Which is great, but it does come with a restriction on usage. And even though I pushed all four policies to the max, 7500 km/year, I am still finding myself needing more mileage and a more daily convenient car.
But I will never buy a new car! People worry about fuel efficiency. It is utterly ridiculous, you need to worry about depreciation. You can drive a decent second-hand car for 20-40K easily on what a new average car costs in depreciation.
So my requirements are pretty simple:
- It needs to have at least 100K on the clock
- It needs to be a bit special, or rather not boring
- It can not be black, grey or white, I would rather walk!
Here in the Netherlands, more second-hand cars are sold than new ones. So there is plenty of second-hand cars for sale on websites. And there is one, called autoscout24.nl that scans all the sites for you. And it has a very handy detailed search function.
As I mentioned, there are not all that many modern cars I like. But I do like the new Fiat 500 and the new Mini. I am not overly keen on this retro crap, but both Fiat and Mini (BMW) did a pretty good job I thought. Both cars do stick out from the crowd. Which is highly recommendable in my book.
I went for the Mini, the Fiat is just too small (even though its use compared to the original 500). Also, the quality is not that great. So I concentrated on Minis.
Not sure about other markets. But in Europe, there are three basic versions of the Mine. The Mini S, the Mini One and the Mini Cooper. The Mini S is the most basic version and the Cooper is the most luxurious and powerful one.
You can spec up the S and the One version to the same level as the Cooper. Few people do.
Now, I have to say this, and I don’t want to offend anybody. Modern Mini Coopers are made for tossers! It has nothing to do with the original Cooper. It is essentially just an S or One with a turbocharged engine. That is all. And that turbo-charged engine comes with a host of issues. Also, and this is why I would never buy a new Mini Cooper, it has this air inlet ducts on the bonnet. Completely and utterly fake. Air is drawn into the engine identical to the cheaper version. So you are paying for, at best, an optical illusion.
Yes, the Coopers are fast than the S and Ones. But not by that much. Besides, a Mini is not about going fast on straight roads. The coolest thing about a Mini is not having to break for any corner. You just move the steering a tiny bit and it will corner as if on rails!! For all models, you don’t need a Cooper for that.
The total number of second-hand Mini available in the Netherlands is almost 5000!
So I added a few filter criteria. Maximum price Euro 7000, distance from our home maximum 50 km, colour yellow, blue, green and gold
That got it back to a more manageable 53!!
I looked at a number of these Mini, all versions, all years, and all models within the above criteria.
But one stood out by a mile! A 2010, one owner, Mini one for Euro 6500.
So I called them and made an appointment to see them this morning. Long story short, I bought it. Here is their website two minutes after I transferred the money. Verkocht means sold!
When you look in this price range, you are very likely to end up with private sellers or small companies that just flip cars. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t know how these guys do it, but they often manage to get you real bargains.
I took the Mini for an extended test drive, about an hour and a half. I also hooked up my OBD analyser. This car was advertised as a one-owner car, 107K kilometress and always maintained by a BMW/Mini Dealer. Here in the Netherlands, it is very easy to check the mileage of any car. All mileage is recorded whenever a car comes in for a service or its MOT. This guy who was selling also had a whole pile of invoices. Happened to be from a BMW/Mini Dealer near the Hague I know well.
So I gave them a call. They can’t tell you too much, because of privacy considerations. But they confirmed they had delivered this car to a lady who had it maintained by them for the last thirteen years as well!!
So everything checked out, we negotiated a bit and I managed to knock off a few hundred euros. Here in the Netherlands, transferring the car registration and paying for it, is a matter of a few clicks on the internet. So by 1300 hours this afternoon, I was heading home in my Mini!
I did stop to fill it up and run it through the car wash. It was pretty mucky.
Here it is in all its glory sitting in our drive!!!
Nice original alloys, just a bit of scuffing. Nothing out of the ordinary for a 13-year-old car.
The one thing I might have to look at is the brakes, specifically the rotors. Mind you, it passed its MOT only a few months ago with a mainstream dealer so I am not worried at all.
I would consider this car in pretty good nick. It’s not immaculate, no car after 13 years and a 100K would be. So it has a few dents, but no rust. This is probably the biggest damage I found and I can live with it!
The antenna is detachable, but it was broken. But it is an easy fix.
It has the original spare tire inflation kit in the boot!!
For some reason, it also has the original jack and tools. Not sure why, maybe it does have a spare as well, I need to check.
Under the tailgate the official original Mini emergency triangle. Nice detail!!
The Interior looks nice. you would be hard-pressed to spot any wear!!
It comes with a Garmin Nuvi GPS navigation system, wired permanently into the Mini Electrics. All the original manuals and boxes are still present. Look at the steering wheel, just one small little cuff, otherwise perfect.
It is a Gramin GPS device, but specially catered for Mini. Look how cool is this start-up screen.
Nothing wrong with this car, other than it needs a good clean up.
Apart from the broken antenna it also needs one of the light bulbs replacing. And the little cover on the valet mirror broke off. So I need to fix that, not a big thing at all.
It even has one of these emergency hammer/knife. You can cut your safety belt and smash in the window with this nifty device!
Although I have discovered dust and grime everywhere, I have only discovered one tiny spot of possible rust here on the roof.
Yes, I will admit, it might be a bit plasticky. But come on, this is a billion times better than staring at an iPad!
Keyword: 13-year-old Mini One done 1 lakh km: Found it online & brought it home