A good day yesterday, Friday. Having realised some weeks ago that we would be much better off with a car and not a scooter, it was with some trepidation we set off for Montpellier. We’ve been looking at options for weeks, and having written off French cars for reliability reasons, Toyotas for price reasons, ditto VWs, we had chosen from the limited options remaining to go for a Hyundai Getz. However after finally viewing one in the car park here, we realised it wasn’t really big enough. It would be OK with 4 people, but not 4 plus luggage, nor for 2 with bikes inside. So the next choice was a Hyundai Matrix, like a tall Getz but a little larger all round. Good reports on HonestJohn.co.uk, and no obvious and known reliability options, unlike so many other cars. For some reason monospaces (MPV shape) are also cheaper to insure than normal cars, which was a nice little bonus.
So we’ve been trawling the French websites. There isn’t a Matrix available this side of Montpellier, and only two there which appealed with the right combination of age, mileage and price. We haven’t even seen one in the metal, as there simply hasn’t been one in Céret. So off we went in the €1 bus to Perpignan at 6.45am (ouch!) to pick up a rental for the purchase trip north. Thankfully it was available an hour earlier than the earliest we’d been able to book, which would give us that hour in Montpellier before the dangerous hours from 12-2pm when you are likely to be stranded with everything closed up.
The trip up was fine, then off to our first yard to look at a Getz that we wanted to see for comparison. What a wreck. Scratched, scraped, peeling paint, missing trim, bleached plastics, smoke smell, dirty upholstery, dusty and dull. You’d never see a car in that state in a New Zealand yard, even at Cheapies Car Sales. Our hearts plummeted. If that was what we’d see later on, we didn’t want to know. We had only two Matrixes (Matrices?) to look at, so the likelihood of one of them being good looked slim to start with. At the second yard there was our first Matrix. The orange ”vendu” on the screen didn’t look promising, and indeed it had been sold in the two days since I had rung and checked. Just as well – another scratched, scruffy car we wouldn’t have been happy with.
Onto our last bet. Not a great feeling heading to the last choice, and really knowing little about it, and that if it wasn’t there or wasn’t right, we had 200km to go back home with nothing to show for the day. Drove to the yard using our trusty GPS. No Matrix there so went round the block in case we had the yard address wrong. No other yards near. Back in and the very attractive salesperson knew nothing about a Matrix. Oh no, things not looking good. So I rang the guy I’d talked to before and yes, there was one, and yes, he’d bring it round now. Some 10 minutes of roasting in the hot sun, and into the yard drove a nice clean, tidy Matrix.
A good look at it, a test drive (it’s no sports car, but the 1.5 diesel is strong), and we were very happy with everything. Low miles, good condition, one lady owner, exactly what we wanted. Now came the fun part – the bargaining. Karen and I have a well-practiced good-guy/bad-guy technique. I am normally the keen one, Karen is all shaking head and disapproval as she walks away. This time, even I almost believed that Karen had no interest at all. It works every time! A few quiet phone calls from saleswoman to yard owner and we got it for €100 below my first offer, which itself was some €400 below asking. They’d sold another the week before with more kms and in a rather untidy state for just €100 less, so we’d done rather well.
Now came the hassle of trying to arrange instant insurance and payment, all in French, with branch people situated in Céret. We really didn’t want to have to drive home and do another 400km to pick it up. Thankfully it was all sorted thanks to having prepped them a few days earlier, with our bank friend doing a transfer and faxing through proof of it to the car people. By 3pm, we were able to drive away in our smart little mint-green Hyundai Matrix, just 83,000km on the clock, for the very reasonable sum of €3300.
The trip home in convoy went well. I’d had the idea of using our scooter/bike intercom to keep in touch, and it worked well. We were able to chat away despite being in different cars, quite helpful when only the GPS knew where we were going. 120km/h on the motorway and the trip was just under 2 hours.
A quick drop off at the Perpignan Gare for the rental, then onto Leroy Merlin to pick up a benchtop which had arrived there for us a few days earlier. We hoped to squeeze its 3 metres into the Matrix, knowing some would stick out the back, or else strap it on the roof. Fortuitously the Matrix came complete with a roof rack. Plan A was an abject failure as the seats didn’t fold out of the way in the right manner, so it was onto Plan B, the roof. No problem. With the aid of two bungees, some cord, two rolled beach towels (all brought with us for this purpose), and 4 packets of muesli (from Auchan next door), the benchtop, 3m x 65cm, was safely strapped between the roof-rack rails and we were on the road to Céret. We can thoroughly recommend 1kg bags of Auchan muesli as being the ideal method of packing the curve of a car roof to take a flat board. Rolled oats would be just as good I suspect! A slow trip home, with frequent pulling over to let traffic past, and we were in Place de l’Eglise safe and sound. Yet again we marvelled at the generosity of the drivers behind. Either that, or they were keeping well back to avoid a flying benchtop through their windscreen.
 |
| Note the muesli packing |
A long and tiring day, but well worth it. We are now fully mobile, in wet and dry, hot and cold, by ourselves or with others. Also, we have our benchtop here ready to have holes cut for the new induction hob and the old sink. Being longer and a little deeper, it will more than double our free working space. It’s solid laminated oiled beech, which matches our Ikea beech furniture.
I am writing this on a wet and pleasantly cool Saturday afternoon. We got trapped in the church today! We’d gone in to check how the workmen had got on with reinstalling the altars in some of the side chapels, and on trying to head out, found a full bridal party in the entry having photos taken. We could hardly butt in and force our way past.
