Our new car?

We have bought a new car! New to us that is.

Well, kind of. We have put a deposit on a car. It’s a 2011 Volkswagen Touareg. It is perhaps a little older than we were hoping, but it has done only 76,000 km. Most of the cars we had been considering have been a year or two newer, but have had 100,000 km on the odometer with some as high as 150,000 and more. The sale is not final. We can pull out at any time, for any reason, and receive our deposit returned in full. But if the inspection we are having done doesn’t turn up anything of concern, we will likely go through with the purchase.

As you can see in the photo, the car is black. Not our first (or second, or third) colour preference. However, when a low km car comes along at a reasonable price you don’t quibble about the colour. It does have tinted windows, which we would have had done ourselves had it not had them. It also has a tow bar with brake controller, both of which are mandatory for towing, obviously. This one has 18″ wheels as opposed to the 20″ that many Touaregs have. These should be better for the occasional trip onto rutted roads. Finally it has the long range fuel tank (100 litres) which is good for a range of almost 1,500 km on the highway (for those who can manage to match the claimed fuel consumption numbers). The long range tank is a double-edged sword for towing though, as fuel eats into your payload. Of course, we don’t have to fill the tank.

Don’t be fooled

I know, looking at the photo, it seems like it’s a VW Golf, or the size of one anyway, so here is a photo with a person standing beside one for reference. It’s not a small car by any means. It has a wider track and longer wheelbase than a 200 Series Landcruiser or Land Rover Discovery. Size, and some weight, is simply necessary for safe towing.

The only real downside is that the car is in Sydney. It means we will have to fly in and drive it home. Finding suitable cars for sale in Adelaide has proved extremely difficult. I may need to take Josh with me as the relief driver for the return trip as Megan is heading off on a week long break with friends on Saturday. Josh isn’t against the idea, but Megan really wanted to be there. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. Whoever ends up going, we’ll try a fuel economy run and see how far we get. Google maps puts the shortest route at 1,371 km, so I don’t expect we’d make it home on a single tank, but should get pretty close.

Updates

Dec 11, 2018

We have received the inspection report, and apart from a couple of minor oil leaks – not even leaks really, “moisture” they call it, and perfectly normal for this age and km we are told – and the rear left window not working in auto-mode, it all looks pretty good. The window still goes up and down, but only if you hold the button. We’ll get the dealer to investigate.

Dec 12, 2018

Our loan has been approved and contracts signed. The dealer is sending the car to the auto electrician for that rear window, and Josh and I are heading to Sydney and will probably return with this car. Details here.