We have decided to buy a used car, with budget of not more than 12k for starters. Part of the budget will be funded by the sale of our current car in Singapore, where we will hopefully get SGD5k, and i suppose we will have to cough up the remaining SGD5k or so, or take out a small small loan.
The plan is to buy a wagon type car. Ideally, we'd want something that we can use to transport bulky furniture (well not that bulky!), the stuff we buy from Ikea, or from garage sales and such. This will save us money on movers, which are supposedly extremely expensive in Australia! (No more cheap labour from Msia across the causeway!).
Seems the premier car site is www.drive.com.au, which, as with ALL Australian websites so far, has been absolutely a breeze and totally intuitive to use. Filters for used cars (once u make some initial selections) go right down to pricing, transmission, mileage etc!. For wagon types, there seemed to be only 2 options that fit our budget - Holden Cruze and Daihatsu Terios. Hubby has long eyed the Terios, essentially a Toyota Rush rebranded by Daihatsu. Unfortunately, Daihatsu stopped selling cars in Australia, and will be assimilated into Toyota. Parts will be a problem.
Holden Cruze (2002- 2006 versions) initially looked a good buy, lots of spare parts, affordable, easy on the eyes, lots of space with the back seats folded away. But on further research, seems like the gearbox gives major major problems and costs major major moolah to repair. So scratched yet again!
We have finally decided that it will likely be a Honda Jazz that we will settle on when we get there. Although smaller than what we initially desired, the apparently spaciousness of the Jazz for carrying cargo, and the rave reviews, and also the reasonable pricetag and good resale value will probably be the ideal way to go. One more item scratched off the list of things to consider... Next up.. Mobile subscriptions!
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