The ventos been crashed, not just any vento, a 1 owner 27k miles (when i bought it) full VW service history vento, beyond mint vento has been crased. Doh, my wife is fine, different story, a pre examination by the body shop said the damage will out weigh the value of the car, proper gutted like, and whats my insurance gonna give me for it. i saw a vento on auto trader, 1.8 L reg, 57,000 miles for 200! also i reccomend reading your policies when you get them, they skanked us. my wife did it online, 250 excess, not too bad didnt see on the policy 250* wheres the star * Drivers aged 21 - 24 will incure an inditional 250 for accidental damage completely our fault for not reading i know, but still. kinda makes you think why do we buy insurance when all they do is widdle their way out of it or stick in additional charges here and there! tip for the day, GO CHECK YOUR POLICIES!! might stray from VW next, can only really afford to get up to 2000 ish car next, looking at a diesel, looked at mk3 tdi's with like hardly any extras, and the same money for a 306 D Turbo, with elecy windows, remote central locking and air con. i may be wrong...opions please
Gutted mate sounded like a nice vento! As far as the new car, I would definately recommend the 306. I had a DTurbo for over 2 years before I got my golf, and I loved it! Was a '97 facelift model with all the extras you mention. (I miss having aircon ) The only real mechanical trouble I had with it was the backbox falling off, but it was rotten! Otherwise, it was really reliable, and I think the 306's look good too!
I work for a broker and experience this sort of scenario every day. All we get is people coming in or on the phone saying "I've got a quote this much cheaper on the internet why is that??" Well, that's why - no one ever seems to read the terms, conditions or excesses, they just see a cheaper quote. I've seen people come in with print-outs of internet quotes where the excess is 600, then not being able to understand why we won't quote them the same price with a 100 excess
