Thanks for the replies... I'm still in the Middle East (Saudi) and underwent financial puragtory over the past 12 months
I have been without a car since I got here, but the family will be coming over to stay within a month so I thought I needed to get a car sorted out asap.
Everyone drives nasty American SUVs and saloons (sorry Sedans!?) or reliable but boring Jap motors and while some of the 2nd hand cars like Audi RS4s are tempting, they way people abuse cars makes me not want to touch the 2nd hand car market at all. So I started thinking about buying a GMC Yukon/Acadia, or Ford Explorer... etc... 4x4 fuel hungry, large engined (which is good
), practical as I have 3 kids now but ultimately a boring and soulless driving experience. Plus everyone I have spoken to here advises me not to even think about buying VW as they are expensive to maintain and have huge depreciation compared to popular American and Japanese marques. So I firmly decided to be sensible and practical about it and went straight to the VW showroom yesterday and priced up a Mk6 GTI
Finding the showroom was a comical experience... I had to stop 5 taxi drivers who had never heard of VW - they kept saying BMW? So I positioned myself next to a VW Caddy van and pointed out the VW badge to the next taxi driver and even then he said... BMW?
I told him to drive to the nearest mechanic garage and asked the mechanic who said..yes, yes... BMW and proceeded to give directions in Arabic... so I gave up and went to the Porsche dealer who pointed me in the right direction.
I can basically get a colour of my choice, full leather (I asked for cloth but it is more expensive because the cars they have are pre-specd and almost fully loaded and cheaper than a custom order?!), rear camera, 18" Monzas, 5 door, sunroof, DSG, RNS 500 or whatever it is - with a full TFT screen like the Sat Nav, Adaptive damping, Xenons... all for 21k pounds..... I priced it up on VW UK and it comes to about 33k pounds. Only problem is that is LHD and if I brought it back to the UK, I would be stuck with it... I could sell it in Dubai when I leave as they sell well over there, but that comes with its own logisitical problems as I don't live there. I did go to the GM showroom after and looked at the GMC Acadia.. its nice enough for a family with a drop-down DVD player and sat-nav and three rows of seats, but I don't fancy driving it tbh.
