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Writer's pictureAaron Alleyne-Wake

1 In 5 Regret Their Car Purchase


Have you ever regretted buying a car? Well you're not alone, Kia Motors conducted a survey and found 1 in 5 drivers regret their car car choice and 1 in 10 even stated they had lost their temper with the car and lashed out at it.

Kia Motors asked 1,502 drivers as part of the survey - 20% said the feeling of regret started to set in after just seven miles of driving and around 20% also said they had considered driving their car towards a hedge, tree or even a wall. Blimey, I've owned a car that I wasn't pleased with but at no point did I think about driving it in to the nearest wall.

Another stat to come from the survey is that the average Brit spends just seven days to make a decision. I spend far longer than that, but in truth I research a lot of things I buy so maybe that comes as no surprise. A large percentage of drivers said that hadn't bothered to go on a proper test driver because of lack of time, or the fact that they couldn't be bothered and were desperate to get home.

Make sure you make the right choice when buying your next car

The weaknesses that drivers singled out most on their cars was the cost of repair bills (27%), with service bills coming close behind with a percentage of 20%. Fuel consumption was another annoyance (16%) as was noise being produced from rattling (13%).

Kia Motors UK President and CEO Paul Philpott said: “The research has brought up some interesting findings around the UK’s relationship with their cars, which could have been avoided if the customer invested time into a test drive.”

You say that but I test drove the Renault Clio I once had and I liked it on the test drive, but just three months later I was bored stiff with it. It was a nice car with quite a bit of kit and when I look back on it, the overall package was good value for money, but the car was simply too sluggish. I once commented that it had the 'get-up-and-go of a corpse'.

What was your biggest car-buying regret? Get in touch and share your tales of woe.

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