We were being stalked by dealers

2:27pm Friday 22nd February 2008

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WE knew it was time to start looking at new cars when we realised that we were actually thinking about hiring one for our annual trip down to Cornwall this year.

For the past two years our ancient and long-suffering Polo has been so stressed by the 320 miles between Watford and Penzance that it has spent at least three days of the holiday recovering in a local garage. The first time it needed a new exhaust pipe - a part that took two days to locate that far west - and the second time something nasty happened to the brake pads, causing the front wheel on the left of the car to overheat so badly that the smell of burning rubber could probably be detected in the Scilly Isles.

Normally our heroic small car goes like a dream. Built like a tiny tank, but driven less aggressively, it's done about 120,000 miles (yes, that's not a misprint) for us, mainly round the M25 to my husband's far-flung office.

We've had it for nearly six years now. It wasn't new when we got it so I have to admit that I feel we've had our money's worth, but sadly we've recently had to admit to ourselves that the time has come to seek a new model.

It's not just the stressful prospect of driving down to Cornwall and spending up to half a week without a useable car that worries us. On an exceptionally cold morning a couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever, the car refused to start at all, necessitating a call to the RAC man.

The writing was on the wall from that moment.

My husband, a man whose interest in cars is usually confined to sightings of the occasional vintage vehicle chugging stylishly along a leafy country lane on its regular Sunday afternoon outing, suddenly started leafing surreptitiously through car magazines during our weekly visit to the supermarket.

Foregoing the potent lure of the property supplements, he also began to turn first to the motoring sections of both the local and national newspapers.

Even worse, he started engaging our male friends in earnest car conversation, using an alien tongue that included the words torque, cornering' and road handling'.

It was all a bit disconcerting, I can tell you. A bit like settling down on a Sunday evening to watch a lovely soothing episode of Kingdom only to find that Stephen Fry had been replaced by Jeremy Clarkson.

Eventually, fearing that I might be doomed to spend the rest of married life with a slightly less bouffant version of the Fast Show's Swiss Tony, I challenged him head on about his new, Toad-like enthusiasm for motor vehicles.

"You're thinking of buying a new car, aren't you?" I piped up last week in WH Smiths after he'd spent about 20 minutes leafing through a copy of What Car?

A bit of harrumphing and furtive shuffling followed, accompanied by a couple of mumbled sentences that included the words reliability' and, most shockingly, fun'.

And that was why last Saturday we found ourselves touring the forecourts of nearly every garage within a five-mile radius of Watford, looking at cars that I would probably be completely incapable of telling apart, even if my life depended on it.

I have to say that the whole dreary experience gave me a rich insight into how my husband must feel when he accompanies me on an afternoon of shoe shopping at The Harlequin shopping centre.

I think the worst aspect was being stalked round the forecourts by dealers. "Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look," wrote Shakespeare of one of Caesar's assassins, but he'd obviously never come across a pack of commission-starved car salesman on a slow afternoon in February.

If I could choose a theme tune for this particular group of professionals I think it would be the opening bars from the film Jaws.

They simply don't take no for an answer.

I don't know how many variations of 'just looking', 'no thanks,' 'not right at the moment' or 'at the browsing stage' we tried, but nothing put them off.

One even brought us out a couple of cups of coffee and pinned us to the showroom wall as he extolled the virtues of anerblue car.

I've now got so many cards in my handbag from dealers called Steve that I could start a poker school.

At about 4.30pm while patrolling the goods on offer at about the 15th garage of the afternoon, we spotted a dealer emerging purposefully from his shiny chrome and plate glass lair. "Quick, think of something to get rid of him" I hissed at my husband.

"What, something like: Hello my good man. We're a pair of impoverished time-wasters out to test drive the most expensive vehicle in your garage without the faintest intention of buying it'?" he suggested.

Sadly, he didn't use this particular line. Instead he got quite caught up in a lengthy conversation with the great white salesman, which even went as far as us being ushered into the front seats of a likely car "just to get a feel for it" and then led like lambs into the showroom, where the dealer proceeded to run us - at some speed - through a range of mind-boggling finance options that I doubt even Albert Einstein at his zingiest would have grasped with any confidence.

To be honest, my mind was wandering a bit by then anyway. The only car I'd seen and liked throughout the whole afternoon was the new Fiat 500 in a lovely shade of pale ice blue. I think I remembered it mainly because it was so cute and retro that it reminded me a 1950s kitchen on wheels.

While my husband made manly noises to the salesman, I went off into a bit of a reverie that involved me in the passenger seat of the 500 wearing a polka dot headscarf and Jackie O sunglasses, possibly with a poodle in the bucket seat at the back, but I was interrupted by the insistent voice of the salesman still gamely trying to lock us into a three-year finance deal for the erred car.

"And you, madam", he said in a tone that managed to combine the unctuousness of Uriah Heep with the urgency of Jeremy Paxman. "You must have some questions about the options and spec?"

Well, I certainly did.

"What other colours does it come in?"