wear and tear

[paps]

Hey, went and saw a 56 plate 2.0sport RC with around 57k miles. Its up for £10k.

The car itself is very appealing, the folding hard top is very trick and it should be more of a laugh than my current car but I have to say that it hadn't worn it's years/miles very well. My car is older has more miles (05 plate Audi A3 with 80k miles) and looks considerably better inside.

The picture below shows the scratches to the drivers side door card/plastics.

Obviously the previous owner was/is a ring wearer hence the scratches on the handle and gear knob.

My question is; is this representative of the breed or a particularly unloved expample?

I know that moving from an Audi to a Mazda my be a bit of a shock but I was expecting the Mazda to be a little more hard wearing? Am I expecting too much?

[Baryonyx]

Mine is 13 years old with 73,000 miles and the door card looks much better than that. And that is remarkable enough as these cars are small inside and if you're any sort of size you'll be very close to the door! More to the point, what is a bloody cup holder doing in there?

[PlayersNo6]

I have read that the interior plastics are delicate in the MK3 ie look at them the wrong way and they scratch.

This doesn't seem to be an issue in preceeding models - but they don't have any sort of matt 'coatings' that the Mk3 may have I'm guessing...

[Don Phil]

That looks pretty unloved to me, regardless if they scratch easy or not! £10k? Aren't they going for about £8k? Just thinking it's a bit pricey?

[paps]

Don Phil said:

That looks pretty unloved to me, regardless if they scratch easy or not! £10k? Aren't they going for about £8k? Just thinking it's a bit pricey?

Yeah I thought that too, but its a main dealer. The sales person was just telling me how lucky I am to find
an RC as they are very popular etc etc. but when she came to show me the car she revealed that the manager had just reduced the price from £10499 to £9999, so it had obviously been on their forecourt for a while.
That car is the first I've seen of that age - hence my question as to whether that much wear is typical or not. Fingers crossed I'll find something in better condition.

[LukeBird]

paps said:

Fingers crossed I'll find something in better condition.

I doubt you'll struggle to be honest.

[JonnyFive]

Baryonyx said:

More to the point, what is a bloody cup holder doing in there?

Its seriously the most idiotic place ever, they've integrated it into the door card on the MK3.5 so its flat there, but still a cup holder. This cup holder will hurt your knee within about 15 minutes of driving.. Try the 5 hours I done driving back from Leeds in one

Where as the 9 hour drive back from Edinburgh in a MK3.5 was more than comfy, so glad they've changed it.