26th February 26. A Two Job, But Relaxing Day
- Mar 27
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 1
A strangely relaxed day as delivering a van from my customer in Aylesbury to a retail customer near Hungerford. It was a brand new Ford E-Courier so electric.
I had a short wait as the sales exec was with another customer. But it gave me a chance to catch up with some ex work colleagues. I have to say of all the places I have worked there is only a handful of people I would talk to and have a laugh with. And most of them work here . Some good people here.
The van was in the large workshop, storage area so I did my appraisal and photos and eventually got the paperwork to be signed off the salesman and got on my way.
The journey from Aylesbury to Hungerford is a journey you can do In a few different ways.
Google maps is usually spot on so I went the route through Oxford to the A34 and south to the M4 then west.
The place was about 5 miles out of Hungerford on the north side of the M4 . With Hungerford on the south
After dropping off the van with it's new owner. And excited new employee driver. I obtained the required signature's on the dealership paperwork.
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That done I had a long wait for an Uber of 20 minutes. But at least I found one. It was a 20 minutes drive to the station in Hungerford. And then a quick train with a stop in Newbury to get to Reading. Where I was collecting another Motability car from the Nissan dealership there. Which was going to Norwich next week. But for today just taking me home. Perfect.
Or not..
The car was a mess. A lot of damage and instantly I knew that. This car was going to be rejected by the buyer when I get there next week.
With Motability purchases, you can make a claim in a certain timeframe on the system. A process which is very important to take advantage of as these cars are very expensive and rarely at "book" or below price. In fact mostly at normal trading times way over book values.
So the prep is vital. However, you cannot claim for damage to bumpers, wheels bonnets or roofs, usually. The trick then is to really try and claim for as much as possible to make it work. This car, however. My first thoughts were reject,
We will see when I deliver it next week.
For now the journey from Reading to Aylesbury is ahead of me.
Again, multiple ways to get from Reading But you can't really avoid the M25 or Oxford. Unless you want to trickle through various smaller places. So it was M4 to A34 and through Oxford. Onwards to Aylesbury, home and parked up the Nissan ready for delivery next week.
Driving through the Oxford ring road is something I'm now getting used to. Having a good customer there, means from living for 64 years and never having visited Oxford previously. I'm now seeing more of it. The centre has no real fascination for me.
To be honest, as I get older and wiser to the way the world works, really don't like entitled and privileged people and Oxford, like Cambridge, where I have spent some time. Is full of them.
I grew fond of Cambridge, having lived there and I guess I was able to ignore that section of society that actually think they are better people than everyone else. They are not.
When people, especially in the media talk about an event or function and it's full of " The "great and good" it makes me wonder how we as a society, measure these things.
By money, birthright, family's so called, standing? To me good people, are good people. And the one's I'm describing here . Are the worst and most horrible people I have experienced. Great and good my arse.
Rant over. But it's fascinating to see the Mini factory driving through Oxford's ring road and I must try and get time to do a factory tour. Anyone who has never done one of these really must.
I've been lucky enough to do a few with manufacturers I have worked for. Land Rover being the one I've done most twice at Solihull and once at Halewood near Liverpool to see the Evoque production line. I was also lucky enough to go to Detroit and see the Ford Factory and the history there is incredible. It builds the F150 truck there now. But that visit, to see where the production line first started and the Henry Ford Museum was a trip if a lifetime. And to see items such as the car Kennedy was shot in and the opera seat, Lincoln was shot in was kinda weird.
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