>> uk.autoblog.com/2012/01/31/buy-second-hand-for-a-more-reliable-motor/
Gosh, did you know Humph that you have a 62% chance of a failure if you run a Renault Espace?
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And a much greater chance of ending up in the funny farm to boot.
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Best filed with all the other such self-selecting surveys - in the wickerwork container.
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That piece of journalism will be recycled in the Motoring section of the Telegraph before you get it filed under 'B'.
Whenever I see the name Duncan McClure Fisher it always makes me think of the Simpsons and the news reader.
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such self-help videos as "Smoke Yourself Thin", and "Get Confident, Stupid.".
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Oh granted indeed, however, if one were, say, perhaps, ever so slightly, not terribly seriously, but nonetheless at least examining the possibility of, aquiring an old Porsche Boxter and needed a little evidence with which to justify said notion...
:-)
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Tue 31 Jan 12 at 22:08
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The Tesco approach to justifying Man Maths :-)
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Actually that makes eminent sense.
Any faulty components used in assembly or errors in production will have been found by the first owner and fixed under warranty. The components still on it will all be good for their planned life expectancy.
There's also the owner's expectations to consider. Anyone buying a new car expects it to be right and howls if anything goes wrong, breaks or drops off. You tend to expect the odd niggle with a secondhand car and you ight be prepared to ignore that slight rattle from the offside that only occurs when turning left, for example.
However, I remember when a mate went to test-drive a TVR. On pulling away from a set of lights, the salesman disappeared into the back as the passenger seat had not been bolted to the floor.
The salesman extricated himself, recovered his composure and said: "To be honest sir, I suggest that you purchase one of our used vehicles. That way you avoid the waiting list and also some other poor SOB will have sorted out all the problems for you...."
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Actually that makes eminent sense.
It makes a kind of intuitive sense for just the reasons TC lays out. In the IT world we speak of the 'bathtub curve', where you get a highish number of early failures as the units that were duff when they left the factory are found out (that's the plughole end), followed by a long period with a low number of failures, then a steady increase as old age takes effect and things wear out.
But that's giving unwarranted respectability to a 'survey' that has two aims: (a)to get its sponsor's name in the papers; and (b) to encourage people to buy old cars with the sponsor's breakdown insurance rather than new ones with the manufacturer's warranty. Add small sample sizes to the obvious conflict of interest and you have a recipe for pseudo-statistical bilge. Pah!
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>>we speak of the 'bathtub curve',
Leave my beer belly out of this!
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>> to encourage people to buy old cars with the sponsor's breakdown insurance rather than new ones with
>> the manufacturer's warranty
I gather a WD warranty can only be taken out on cars with under 100,000 miles on the clock. Surely that excludes the *real* bargains then? ;)
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Quite. Anyone want a - ahem - well run-in Volvo?
}:---)
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Ah but... - Zero
