Collection: Colchester or Bust

Getting oneself from the nether Midlands to Colchester on the train is no mean feat. Nor is it cheap. £50 or so in fact.

I don't live near a station so I managed to persuade a friend to give me a lift. Still I had to navigate from Banbury, across London, to Liverpool St and up to Colchester. On the Friday before Christmas. Which threatened to snow.

Got a lift to the trader's 'lot' (actually a portakabin and a few square feet of tarmac) and filled in the paperwork. They were keen to show off the car, but as I'd already committed to buy it, it seemed a little pointless. Plus it was dark so I couldn't see anything anyway.

I did take the trouble to start it up and lift the bonnet. It is incredibly smooth. OK, a straight-six has an advantage in this respect, and I'm used to a rattly old diesel, but even so I was expecting more squeaks and ticks from a 106k mile engine.

Paperwork finished, I set off back to the Midlands. Being a pessimist, I was convinced I'd break down on the way back. In fact, my biggest worry was finding fuel - as usual when buying a used car, fuel isn't part of the deal.

£90 later the needle showed a reassuringly full tank... (that's 10% of the sale price!). I was expecting big fuel bills, and the S90 has a big (80 litre) tank, but even so that came as a bit of a shock.

Still, first impressions were good. The auto box shifts cleanly and the lockup function locks up without drama. I soon realised that the biggest challenge in getting home would be navigational - I wanted to avoid the Friday evening M25 crawl-athon.

Bad points:
- Heated seats don't.
- Remote central locking doesn't (but key works and locks all doors).
- Ignition key is weirdly mashed up - not the metal bit but the plastic bit is all misshaped, like it's been melted chemically (the spare is fine though).
- Bit of vibration under braking (probably needs front discs & pads).

There is a creak/squeak from the interior somewhere, probably caused by the Eighties style hard plastics used inside. Not enough to worry about.

I'm actually pretty impressed, and given that I bought the car 'sight unseen', I feel like I've done OK. There are similar cars with double the mileage on Ebay/Autotrader for more money, and I think buying this sort of car in the week before Christmas is a good idea - nobody wants a gas guzzler (except me) and nobody has any money anyway (including me).

I certainly didn't pay auction price (maybe £500-600) but it has got MoT, paperwork, history and seems straight (ish).