Unfortunately this appears to be the end of the road for VO54GMG with me. Haven't had any major updates since I moved into my own house. Have kept the car clean and wet vac'd the seats when we had some warm weather so it could dry properly. Other than that I've just been driving it, not as many nice B roads here, been mostly A road driving to work and back.
I did take it to festival of the unexceptional back in July which is a really great event. Went for the modern carpark, I'm not sure this is old enough or unexceptional enough. Always looks a bit special next to ordinary cars IMO.
Early last Friday morning on my way to work I was waiting at a roundabout and got rear ended by a van, no injuries fortunately. Guy admitted fault to be fair and was very apologetic, but I'm still gutted. I did post about this in the TIDL thread, thanks for all the advice in there.
Bootlid is badly dented inward, but no paint damage, rear bumper is cracked and folded on the left side. Car still drives absolutely fine fortunately. The boot floor is slightly crumped from the impact, which is probably why it seems to now be being deemed a total loss.
I've been planning for a while to retire this from daily duties, I had planned to have some driveway work done, then look at another car in the spring to run alongside this. With this though, I think it's time for me to move the car on, I plan to retain the car, get it fixed up and sell on. Initially I'll try to sell the car with all the nice bits on (wheels, recaros etc.), but if it doesn't go, I'll look to put the original seats back in at the very least. If anyone is interested, please let me know.
I was probably naive to think I could afford to run two cars, so this is a bit of a reality check, if a lot sooner than I expected, also means I'll have to put my driveway work on an indefinite hold.
Not having a car payment (thanks to this car keeping me entertained for over 3 years), is a big reason why I was able to save up enough to buy a house on a single income, so I owe it a lot, not to mention all the driving across the country I did visiting my Mum while she was ill a few years ago. The car hasn't let me down once since I've owned it, despite being on over 150k now, not even had an MOT advisory in my ownership. It's been a hobby for me, as well as something I could be a bit proud of, the car has always gotten a lot of compliments which is always nice. It's only metal at the end of the day, but I'm really attached to this car, so I'll be very sad to see it go.
Thanks for reading, as well as all the sage advice I've received on here over the last few years.