Nearest and furthest purchase

[ingenieur]

What's the closest (excluding friends and family purchases) and furthest you have gone to buy a car?

Closest: Volvo 340 = £27.00 off eBay and was about 3 miles away
Furthest: Saab 9-5 Aero HOT - Aberdeen (from London) by plane to collect, drove home

[anonymous-user]

Picking up the phone and buying from Autotrader. Distance travelled zero miles.

[Lo-Fi]

lancslad58 said:

Picking up the phone and buying from Autotrader. Distance travelled zero miles.

For every single car you've ever bought, right?

[alscar]

Closest - Cat S bought to let my children learn to drive / have fun in a field - delivered.
Furthest - 200 miles away.

[Every day a journey]

Flew to Italy to pick up a car.

Had a fab drive back to the UK

[anonymous-user]

Closest - 0 miles: my brother in law emigrated and we bought his house and the car was part of the deal.

Furthest - 500 miles or thereabouts: Glasgow to Eastbourne for a Merc, saved £thousands on local main dealer prices which paid for a nice overnight stop off in the Cotswolds on the drive home.

[Pitre]

I bought my second Corvette from US Ebay* in about 2004 then flew out for a weekend to check it was as good as advertised.

About 3,500 miles to Greenwich, Connecticut. It arrived in the UK about seven weeks later

( * I wouldn't do it again though, at least not while the orange turncoat liar is still in charge...)

Nearest =0, bought from brother.

Edited by Pitre on Thursday 6th March 11:37

[spookly]

Closest, about 2 miles.
Furthest, about 150 miles.

[MustangGT]

Furthest - Mansfield, travelled from Budapest, where I was living at the time. Road distance c. 1300 miles.

[anonymous-user]

Lo-Fi said:

lancslad58 said:

Picking up the phone and buying from Autotrader. Distance travelled zero miles.

For every single car you've ever bought, right?

No,the question is the nearest, that was the nearest.
Actually done it twice, one last year one during Covid lockdown.

[ingenieur]

lancslad58 said:

Lo-Fi said:

lancslad58 said:

Picking up the phone and buying from Autotrader. Distance travelled zero miles.

For every single car you've ever bought, right?

No,the question is the nearest, that was the nearest.
Actually done it twice, one last year one during Covid lockdown.

It's a novel answer to the question so should be allowed. But the qualifier could be changed that any 'delivered' cars came from whatever area which was in fact many miles away and probably not your closest purchase. Like with anything else you buy you would usually say (when asked) where it came from rather than the method by which it came to you.

[Scootersp]

I walked to my last purchase!

and furthest, from Guildford to Tenby which was my second to last purchase.

I'd love to view a car in deepest darkest Cornwall but have to say the distance is off putting in general these days.

[vikingaero]

450 miles Kent to Glasgow to buy a Daihatsu Shed.

In the ethos of Shedding I travelled as cheaply as possible - £10 National Express coach to the airport, £54 BA flight, and a 13 hour drive back from Glasgow in Storm Katie.

[Riley Blue]

I once drove from Somerset to North Yorkshire to look at a car and not buy.

Closest purchased was two miles from home but after a couple of months decided I didn't like it so sold it back to the vendor and drove from Surrey to Lancashire to buy its replacement, which I kept for several years.

[gtidriver]

Back in the day where cars were cheaper and pre reg was a thing, I took my 6yr old son on an adventure, Birchington to Gatwick on the train then Gatwick to Inverness with easyJet to collect a 3month old pug208 for my Mother, only 45miles and a saving of over £5000 even after expenses. Closes is about 10 miles, a BMW from Canterbury.

[Truckosaurus]

Closest for a new car: I've leased a couple of cars that just magically turned up on a flatbed from some random dealer that I didn't deal directly with. Distance: 100yds to the post box to send the signed documents during the 'buying' process.

Closest for a used car: BMW dealer next door to our office, 2 minute walk.

Furthest from a stranger: Cambridge-ish to Slough-ish for my Volvo S60 from a Volvo Specialist. About an hour around the M25 so not especially far in the grand scheme of things.

Furthest from friends/family: Bought my current car from a mate, which was SE Kent to NE Hampshire - just over 100 miles.

Edited by Truckosaurus on Thursday 6th March 12:12

[pti]

3 miles for a Saab 9-5 Aero.

Flew to Belfast for an MR2 Turbo.

[Ussrcossack]

I bought a new SAAB via a guy in Denmark, from a dealer in Kungalv Sweden, came into UK via imingham then to west yorkshire

[vikingaero]

gtidriver said:

Back in the day where cars were cheaper and pre reg was a thing, I took my 6yr old son on an adventure, Birchington to Gatwick on the train then Gatwick to Inverness with easyJet to collect a 3month old pug208 for my Mother, only 45miles and a saving of over £5000 even after expenses. Closes is about 10 miles, a BMW from Canterbury.

Back when brokers where the thing, I'd use Drive The Deal, Broadspeed, etc for my extended family cars.

If delivery wasn't available I'd collection from some dealership in the Midlands. even if you took off a train ticket, hotel and fuel, you'd still be quids in, AND have a roadtrip.

When I look for car sales I'm sometimes disappointed when cars are just a few miles away.

[DodgyGeezer]

Longest: Essex to Stranraer - lovely drive back

Shortest: about 5 miles


sadly due to unforeseen circumstances, my chances of buying from further afield are pretty much nil