I had fun paying for a car park today. Had to use one of those automated phone systems which seems specifically geared to take ages and drive you insane. It was a railway station car park too, so naturally cost a fortune to park for the day.
 
"If the next letter of your number plate is 5, press 4 now" said the automated voice... Just as my train was about to leave.
 
Paying for a car park used to be such a simple process too, but back then it was cheaper and we were more likely to have the change to feed the machine or meter. Nowadays, car parks (especially station/airport/inner-cite ones) are so hugely expensive, that we are unlikely to have around £876 in lose change to pay for it.
 
This is where you'd think a credit card payment option would be available, but some car park owners seem to have foregone the obvious solution of upgrading the ticket machine and instead opted for a hugely elaborate, cashless, telephone parking solution. Which also insists on charging you a 30p handling fee for pleasure.
 
So. It's more expensive, takes longer to park/pay and almost certainly guaranteed to drive you nuts (or miss your train). There must be a better solution, and coincidentally, there just might. Stop me if you've heard this one...
 
A Glasgow man walks into a bank in Glasgow and asks for the loan officer. He tells the loan officer that he is going to Australia on business for two weeks and needs to borrow £5,000. The bank officer tells him that the bank will need some form of security for the loan, so the Glasgow lad hands over the keys and documents of new Ferrari parked on the street in front of the bank. He produces the log book and everything checks out. The loan officer agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan. The bank's Manager and his colleagues all enjoy a good laugh at the rough looking Glaswegian for using a £120,000 Ferrari as collateral against a £5000 loan.

 An employee of the bank then drives the Ferrari into the bank's underground garage and parks it there. Two weeks later, the Glaswegian returns, repays the £5,000 and the interest, which comes to £12.41. The loan officer says, "Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multi-millionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow "£5,000" ?

 The Glaswegian replies: "Where else in Glasgow can I park my car for two weeks for only £12.41 and expect it to be there when I return" 
 
Would this actually be possible – what do you think?

A friend of mine got in touch with me recently via Facebook. Knowing I was 'into cars' he asked for some advise on buying a second-hand Golf. He wanted to spend £2,000 and needed something economical to cruise the motorways with. Although I'm not professing to be a leading expert on car-buying, I would like to think there is some method in my madness, even if my own preferred method of used car-buying is more horticultural than mechanical!

Here's the reply I sent him...

Would gladly help in your search for a new motor - I love this sort of thing, but I'm afraid, I'm no mechanic - just a petrolhead with a rudimentary knowledge of the oily bits.

Having said that, I did buy my last car privately from a bloke in Bournemouth, but my criteria were very simple (and not at all mechanical). For example, the bloke I bought from had owned the car since new (so had all the paperwork - v. important) and lived in quite a salubrious area (so not some punk living on a crime-infested estate). He also had the neatest garden I've ever seen and obviously spent a great deal of time tending to his lawn. If he was prepared to spend this amount of time/money on the grounds, then I figured the car was well looked after. And luckily, it was - I bought it there and then and without an inspection.

Having said that, it was quite a specialist little thing and I doubt a AA (or RAC) vehicle inspection would have been any help. If you're buying a TDi Golf, then things are a little bit more straightforward so a vehicle inspection might be worth considering. However, given you're 'only' dropping £2k on the thing, an inspection is quite a hit to consider (and rather like a survey on a house, tends to read like the car is a wreck).

My advise would be to forget looking in inner-London; get yerself out into leafy Surrey or the suburbs and find someone who has a low mileage, low owner example (and who isn't a trader - or someone pretending to be a private seller). Look for ads on Autotrader which show the car on a driveway (not a cramped street) and you might get lucky and find an old housewife who's husband buys her a new Golf every 2 years. Then go see (and drive) as many as possible).

Of course, this all assumes you're looking to buy a car privately and not from a dealer. TBH, I doubt you're £2k would go far when looking at secondhand motors on forecourts.

You should also swot up on the Golf range; find out exactly which models are in your price range and read as much as you can about that particular model. A good source of information is the Parkers website. Better than the Top Gear site in some respects, though its worth reading reviews on this site too (along with C4's motoring pages). Basically, read all you can about the car you're looking to buy.

Then go armed to view as many as possible. Take a friend too - even if they don't have a clue about cars, its always good to have a second opinion on something. If you know someone who is a mechanic, then take them with you - it would be invaluable to have someone poke around the oily bits, but even without specialist knowledge, its easy to spot signs of abuse on a car.

Following a quick search on AT, I found lots of MkIII Golfs for less than £2k, but if possible, I'd try and pick up a high-miler MkIV - newer the better basically and get a sensible colour too if you can - this looks good IMO.

Ticks all the boxes but maybe not price unfortunately. If you had a bit more cash to splash, then £3,000 would get you something very tidy (but then, there's insurance and road tax to consider too I guess).

Sound advise I reckon – what do you think?