Yes, I’ve bought a new car. After haggling I managed to save about £3000 off the list price in the end. So, this is what I’ve bought:

(Big breath)SAAB 9-3 Vector Sport Anniversary 1.8t with convenience pack and Hirsch Performance upgrade in a steel grey metallic colour.(Phew!)

The current ETA is probably the 26th/27th March.

All I have to do now is get my old car ready for sale and put it on the market.

Well, yesterday I managed to finally do the last of the furnature re-arranging in my living room.

I’ve moved out the cabinet my Dad made which had the TV upon it and replace it with the TV’s original stand (which allows the centre speaker to be put in its rightful position). I originally had thought that I’d need help from someone else to do the job as the TV is so darned heavy but managed to slide it from one thing to the other in the end.

I did try to find some 2mm steel rod and some wood to make extra shelves in the bookshelves in various DIY places yesterday but unfortunately failed misserably so I may have to look further, at least for the rod.

Oh, and on the car front. I popped into Oxford SAAB but “my” saleman wasn’t in work yesterday. I’ve sort of passed the quandry back to them in a way by saying that I was interested in the pre-registered vehicle (hence they’re leaving the offer open for me for a while longer) but that if they could do a deal on a slightly lower model but special edition new vehicle (which has lots of toys as standard but not quite as powerful an engine) so that the price was close to the pre-registered car we could probably do a deal. (The dealership will get more browny points for selling a new car than selling a pre-registered one so I have more leverage there.)

This morning I popped into Oxford SAAB to order a new dashboard speaker for my car as the left-hand one has stopped working (and it’s easy to replace). Anyway, this particular weekend they happen to be having a sale of newly pre-registered last year’s model cars with delivery milage and 20% off.

Now, my plan was to keep my current car for another 3.5 years (i.e. 10 years in total) and write off the car in terms of resale value. However, I’m now in a quandry. Do I buy one of these “new” cars at the heavily discounted price now, sell my current car privately for around £5000 (the current second hand retail price) and hence have to stump up £14500 but pay that back into my savings over 2.5 years *OR* wait for another 3.5 years, hope for another deal similar to this one and that the prices haven’t gone up a great deal and have to stump up the whole amount then and there. (There’s no point trying to trade my car in as they’re only offering £2700 when I checked this morning.)

I’m leaning towards the buying the new car at the moment as the extra interest I may gain from holding on to my savings now will be far less than the combined depreciation of my current car plus the inflation of prices of new cars. Still, the down sides are that the only cars on offer which I’d consider are 9-3 AERO Sports Saloons, hence the insurance will be a lot more, and the specifications are very basic, i.e. no sat.nav or any other toys and they’re the old model.

See, I told you it wasn’t a simple decision!

This morning my new bookcases arrived, so as well as doing some work I had a whole load of fun removing all the stuff from the old bookcases, pulling all my HiFi stuff and video stuff apart, transporting three big boxes of suff up-stairs (along with the two bookcases) before doing some flat-pack-orama. Oh yes.

Well, now I have all the furnature back in place and the HiFi and video stuff set-up. I’ve also got the PC back in operation (ready for the bi-weekly Skype with my Dad tomorrow). What I haven’t done in find space for the DVDs, games, books and other junk from upstairs. The bookcases came with far too few shelves. As it is, to get the HiFi into the smaller of the bookcases I’ve had to borrow one of the ones from the tall one and I still could do with at least another shelf in that smaller bookcase and another 2-3 in the tall one. Hmmm.

Still, all I need to do to add shelves is:
    Get some beech veneered MDF which is 30cm wide.
    Cut said MDF plank into the correct lengths.
    Find some steel rod of the correct thinkness for the support holes and cut to length.
    Install new shelves.

Hmm… Tricky!

I managed to jury rig my new front speakers last night… Wow! The difference!

Now all I have to do is wait in for my new bookshelves tomorrow, modify the shorter bookshelf so that the back is open for the cabling, remove all the junk from the current bookshelves and the TV cabinet, remove the old bookshelves and TV cabinet, replace the TV cabinet with the original TV stand, install the new bookshelves, put the HiFi back together and install the junk back on the shelves.

Not a lot, really. 🙂

Erm, except that I can’t lift my TV on my own. It’s even a struggle with two people lifting it. Hmmm….. Tricky.

New toy alert!

I’ve just bought myself the basis of a new separates HiFi system, namely an AV Receiver and a set of speakers. (Yamaha RX-V1700 + Wharfedale Evo-2 speakers (2x Evo-2 20’s, 2x Evo-2 8’s and an Evo-2 centre) + Yamaha YDS-10 iPod dock)

The whole lot arrived, as requested, lunchtime on Saturday and, after going down to Maplin’s to get the high quality speaker cable and banana plugs, had the system up and running by 4pm, except for the new front speakers. (The new front speakers are floor standing and this will mean a major re-organisation of the living room to fit them in.)

Even with my old front speakers the system sounds a great deal better than my old Technics EH750 system, especially with surround sound as the Technics only had small speakers for the centre and surround speakers.

I’ve set up the system with my Cambridge Audio DVD as a CD player for the time being connected via an optical cable. I will need to get a tape desk to play my old tapes at some point.