As the title says, I am trying to find the best deals from a reliable source for my Dad. Having looked around, the prices are starting to soften a little - from no discount at all, to around £1500 off with Drive the Deal, a bit more from Broadspeed (any experiences with them?) & then you have the Autoebid type sites. Ideally he'd want to buy locally, but so far the local Arnold Clark isn't offering much encouragement to use them.

Anyone got any suggestions?

My in-laws bought a new one in January. Snap purchase in the bad weather.

They hate it, it's getting traded in for an A3 quattro next week.

The fuel figures are off by a lot more than average 10%. Theirs was to get about 38mpg on paper, they were getting about 20mpg.

They also spoke to someone with a derv version who was also getting pretty appalling mpg.

They also just found it pretty unpleasant to drive. It was good in the snow however.

It also had a complete electrical failure within the first month and Arnold Clark wouldn't supply a courtesy car until they were threatened with a solicitor.

Car was also returned dirty and stinking of petrol after the fix

AC is to be avoided if you can help it, or at least deal with them in the same way as feeding crocodiles with your bare hands.

I have bought from AC in the past without problems but you do have to keep your eyes open.

Don't want to put your Dad off just offer one customer experience.

Get him to take a test drive in a Yeti instead!

I look at the Sportage why I was looking to replace the Freelander, but found it very lacking.

The Sportage feels very disconnected from the road but if you can put up with that and he is not too fussy he will probably like it.

If he has had an Audi, BMW or anything luxurious he will be in for a shock as it's a bit spartan and not refined in the same way...but saying that its not terrble in my opinion, just a little bit noisier than you would expect from a luxury brand.

If he wants an honest reliable car it should be fine.... The 7 year warranty is damn good too and something Skoda could do well to adopt.

Im guessing your Dad likes this too as it means he has very little to fork out other than the purchse price and day to day running.

I have one as a courtesy car regularly and I quite like it. The diesel has really good pull and my mpg was 40+. To me it feels nice and solid although everything is very "black plastic on a budget".

For the money, I think its a not bad.

If you live in the South East I can recommend a really good Kia dealer who is a family firm and pride themselves on customer service. I believe they on the Trading Standards recommended list or something like that where they got an accolade....

Edited 7 March, 201115 yr by Blanes