black or silver ? Decisions decisions ...

[comradestalin]

Hi guys,

I'm on the lookout for a used Scirocco GT and I've narrowed the local choices down to two. The price is about the same on both. One is Nov 2009, 3500 miles and in black and has an MDI. The other is January 2009 in silver, 13000 miles, and it has the fancy leather seats and a satnav, with a six-cd changer in the armrest (no MDI). The paintwork on the silver looks better, there were no scratches, swirls or chips visible. On the black one there were a couple of stone chips on the bonnet and some swirl, but otherwise pretty good.

This may seem like a silly detail but the ability to play music off an SDHC card is important. I'd very happily settle for loading music onto a hard disk. Is there a hard disk built in to the satnav models ? I've read various somewhat confusing things about SDHC compatibility on the nav and not-nav versions of the radio. Satnav is more of a nice-to-have rather than an essential. I never thought I would say this but the reverse parking display on the nav screen is cool as well.

I also like the idea of having 2 1/2 years of warranty left and lower miles on the clock.

I'd welcome opinions on the colour choice. Which do people think is more eye-catching ?

Price wise the VW dealer is not for budging, and their tradein offer on my previous car was pretty crap. I assume that is the general experience. There aren't many of these cars about so I think the guy knows that he won't have trouble selling it and doesn't have to move on the price.

[stuaz]

Personally I prefer darker colors - I feel silver is quite a common color amongst cars (Not just VW's).

I love black - it looks striking from any direction - the only draw back is the dust in this weather we are having at the moment ruins it somewhat and it really does need to be washed properly, but that is the drawback with having a black car.

If one of the cars has swirls (Easily got rid of) but the stone chips - I would demand the dealer to fix them personally.

BTW, if the dealer is offering crappy trade in prices - see if places like "webuyanycar.com" and ebay offer a better option - even check autotrader. Might be better to sell it privately. (But that depends on your trade in car).

[comradestalin]

Thank you for the tips. I'd be great if the dealer was to take the stone chip out, but I don't know if he'll bite. Generally the dealer was pretty dour and didn't exactly go out of his way to try to push the sale.

[stuaz]

I had a salesman like that at my local dealer - in the end I was that unimpressed that I went else where and the Salesman there was far more helpful.

But unfortunately you are limited to which dealer because you are buying used so you may get the crappy ones!

[nd10]

I may be wrong here as I only started looking ar Sciroccos in Feb 2010 but I thought the satnav had the MDI/HDD etc built in as mine has but of course mine is a 2010 model obviously.

[bleedsoff]

I would probably do what Stuaz said. Go for the black as I also prefer the darker colours. Also as you say its newer etc. Just depends if you out weight the MDI for sat nav (can get tom tom for £100 otherwise) or leather seats (again you could get leather else where by getting them reupholstered).

[SciroccoSteve]

Yeh think id go for the black mate, looks meaner i think!

Like bleedsoff said you can always retro fit leather, and to be honest id rather have a custom job

[comradestalin]

Thanks everyone. Off to see the dealer on Tue, we'll see how things go

[Deacon]

Another vote for black here, looks really good on the 'roc!

Deacon

[fun meter]

Personally, Black. But If your willing to go a bit further afield you'll probably find other dealers which good condition 09 cars.

I'd also just speak to another sales person, if the other guy is useless then dont deal through him. If they want your money they should work for it.

[Gilez]

Go for the black mate. For me, the Roc is a good looking car, and needs a bold colour to make it stand out. Silver doesnt do it in my opinion.

[bleedsoff]

Let us know how you get on?!

[comradestalin]

I got on well. Just back from the dealer. Put the deposit down on the black. By coincidence, they had the black out near the front of the dealership and it looked gorgeous - seemed to make it stand out more than it did back on Friday. I saw the same sales guy, same bloke as last time, and he was a bit more cheery - I suspect because he knew he had me hook/line/sinker Took it for a wee spin, it was sharper than the silver, probably owing to it being a bit newer and being ex-VW stock, I suspect that means ex-demo.

I'm happy enough. £21K for a seven month old motor with 3100 miles on the clock. Unfortunately my negotiating skills suck and I wasn't able to conceal the fact that I really wanted the car well enough to be able to get it down any further.

I went up with a 16GB SDHC card stuffed full of music. It was taking too long to figure out what to do with it but it didn't give an error so I'm hoping that the music should work out fine.

When we were on the test drive the guy did the expected spiel on the VW finance and gap insurance. He said that you can take out the finance, cash it in two months later, pay two months interest and then keep the two years of free servicing. I didn't go for either, but I couldn't believe there wasn't a catch of some kind. I reckon that's about £100 in interest.

[comradestalin]

Meant to add - much appreciation to everyone for your help. I think it's the right choice I will post up photos this weekend when I get it ..

[Ian_Mac]

Nice one, mine was ex-demo which doesn't bother me at all, mileage a bit more but price bit less. They did seem keen on promoting the 2 free services when I got mine a couple of weeks ago.

I managed to get cruise fitted as part of the deal. Price wise they tried to tell me it was £800 more to start with till I pointed them in the direction of their web-site!!

Don't think you'll be disappointed.

[comradestalin]

Picked my black 'Roc love today. I love it even more sitting in my driveway Black was definitely the colour to go for. Thanks for the advice guys.

VW dealer fobbed me off on the stone chips by giving me a touch up pen! I've no idea the right way to use this so I'm going to tolerate the chips for a little while until I feel brave enough to test it.

The only thing disappointing me a bit is the SDHC memory card support on the radio. I put in a 16GB SD card, but it takes about ten minutes to scan it, and it's reeeeally slow when navigating around directories especially when you navigate to the top level. I'm going to try using a USB card reader in the MDI interface instead.

The thingy with daytime running lights is really annoying, the manual says "you can't disable this except at a dealer" and then, one paragraph below, it explains a way to disable it - which doesn't work. So I sat there like an idiot for a while with the left indicator flashing and all the wipers and washers going. I will have to get used to it, the sad thing is I can't just leave the car turned on with the radio going anymore - sometimes this is handy to do - as it'll just run flat.

I'll do a photo when I've got some detailing gear and given it a good going over

[stuaz]

Picked my black 'Roc love today. I love it even more sitting in my driveway Black was definitely the colour to go for. Thanks for the advice guys.

VW dealer fobbed me off on the stone chips by giving me a touch up pen! I've no idea the right way to use this so I'm going to tolerate the chips for a little while until I feel brave enough to test it.

The only thing disappointing me a bit is the SDHC memory card support on the radio. I put in a 16GB SD card, but it takes about ten minutes to scan it, and it's reeeeally slow when navigating around directories especially when you navigate to the top level. I'm going to try using a USB card reader in the MDI interface instead.

The thingy with daytime running lights is really annoying, the manual says "you can't disable this except at a dealer" and then, one paragraph below, it explains a way to disable it - which doesn't work. So I sat there like an idiot for a while with the left indicator flashing and all the wipers and washers going. I will have to get used to it, the sad thing is I can't just leave the car turned on with the radio going anymore - sometimes this is handy to do - as it'll just run flat.

I'll do a photo when I've got some detailing gear and given it a good going over

The method of disabling the DRL's works on older Rocs, not the new ones. Vagcom is your only method (The dealer won't bother).

In reference to your query with SDHC - basically the bigger the card the longer it takes to read, etc - simple as!

If your car has the MDI, just get a cheap usbdrive/iPod and stick it in! (Or get a smaller SD card(s))

Gratz on the car btw

[comradestalin]

Thanx Busting to give it a good and proper shakedown.

[comradestalin]

I just tried out a 1GB USB stick. It scanned that almost instantly despite it having several hundred tracks/directories on it. Methinks the built-in SD interface doesn't work so well. I think I'll just buy a big USB stick, or a USB/SD card reader ..

[maisbitt]

Some dealers really are being arses as they know they can sell all the rocs they can get. VW dealers generally give excellent part ex prices on VWs under 3 years old (as they're the cars they like to stock used) but will give you lousy money for anything else.

A good dealer will be friendly even if his hands are tied on a Roc deal. I wouldn't have entertained a dealer who wasn't grateful for an interested customer. Being unable to offer a good discount on a Roc doesn't give him/her the right to be a miserable sod when you try your luck when fishing for discounts.

My local dealers are a cheery bunch even when there's not a lot of leeway in the financials.