Avatar As good as new

A while ago I bought a new car, as you might remember. (It replaced a large tin of beans I was temporarily driving, and is in every way better.) I liked driving a new car. The only sad thing about it is that, once you’ve been driving it for a while, it’s not new any more.

I’ve now learned that there is something you can do about this. Here is what I suggest you do.

First, get yourself into a traffic jam, and make sure the car behind you is being driven by an absolute tool. I chose a really solid jam on the M1 back in April, where I could stop in lane 3 with my handbrake on and nothing at all was moving.

Second, and this is more tricky to arrange, get the absolute tool in the car behind you to stop paying attention. Being an absolute tool, he won’t have put his handbrake on, and instead he’ll be sitting there with his feet on the pedals. When he stops paying attention, his feet will slip and he won’t notice his car setting off forward at not insignificant speed because he’ll be looking at his phone.

Third, use the rear bumper of your car to stop the absolute tool’s car from making any further progress. This will result in a small crack across the width of your rear bumper. If your car is anything like mine, the rear bumper will be the only place you’ve picked up scratches and a couple of chips to your paintwork.

Now, speak to your insurance company. They will get some money off the absolute tool which will pay for a firm of professional accident repairers to pick up your car, take it away, fix the rear bumper and return it.

When your car is returned to your home address, it will not only have been repaired, with a new freshly-sprayed bumper replacing the old one with the scratches and chips in it, but it will also have been valeted inside and out, including cleaning all the tyres and polishing all the interior fittings.

Hey presto! Your car is now just like new.

My plan is that, about this time next year, I’ll get another absolute tool to go into my rear bumper so I can have it all polished up again, and I can drive a brand new car forever.

18 comments on “As good as new

  • You could achieve the same thing by reversing into something every 12 months, although that tends to add mon-wah to the old insurance bills.

  • You’re right about the reversing thing, and I did think about that, but the thing that made this a particularly good way of getting my car cleaned was the bit where I didn’t have to pay for it. I can’t find a way of reversing into, say, a wall that would mean someone else had to pay for it.

  • A rich wall? I don’t think I know any rich walls. Unless it’s a cash point. That’s not a bad idea, I could reverse into a cash point and then use the money that would, presumably, be spraying out into the street like a confetti cannon to have my car buffed.

  • Yes, do that and then sue the wall and/or (presumably) the bank itself for positioning itself in the wrong place when you were trying to reverse.

    Double pay out. Two times the cashback.

  • I’m sticking with the wall strategy. Or I might call up the bloke who went into the back of me last time and see if he fancies doing it again for old times’ sake.

  • None I’m on speaking terms with, no. There’s a couple I’m sufficiently acquainted with to nod at from across the street if we happen to pass.

  • I think I’m only Vinnie Jones on another thread. I’m not Vinnie Jones here, and wouldn’t want to be.

    Bosh.

  • That’s a very limited life. You can only be yourself, i.e. Vinnie Jones, on one space on a very small website?

    How does Vinnie Jones live life to its fullest if he cannot move out of the confines of a web browser, and how on earth did he play football?

  • It’s very hard to say, really. In fact it’s so hard to say that I’ve decided I won’t.

    In other news, it rained a lot and now my car is dirty again. I’m going to need someone to rear-end it pronto. (Wheeeeey! What?)

  • I’m not aware that such a thing is possible, without getting the car sent off to some happy car farm or wherever it goes for mending.

  • That’s the one. Noddy Holder’s Happy Car Farm. I’m too young to remember it but Big Ron at work watched it.

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