When we first arrived in Australia, we had a few weeks of looking around on the second hand car market to find a decent family car that was pretty low maintenance to run and fairly economical, with lowish mileage and not too expensive. So, basically the perfect second hand car for a young family!
Anyway, we did end up finding one in a Kia Cerato sedan... normally, we have had hatchbacks or smaller, so a sedan size is just a little bit bigger than what we were used to. And this one was automatic as well, which was a first... plus it had a little screen for Android Auto and all of that sort of fancy stuff.
We were hoping that we would be able to manage with electric bikes instead of going for a second car... but it appears that our schedules are chaotic enough still, and with the additional distances in Australia compared to Netherlands (and the less good bike infrastructure, although it is better in Canberra than other places!)... it was starting to become apparent that we would need a second little car as a run-around.
We had been borrowing cars from the extended family, but that wasn't going to be always possible in the longer run, as people started to return back to work from maternity leave or they were aiming to sell their cars as petrol prices started to rise.
I had an offer from my brother to ship up a SUV that they were just getting rid of... but that sort of car is just not really the sort of thing that we were looking for... too expensive to run, and a petrol hog as well. So, we had to politely decline...
... today, we finally narrowed our search down to two very similar cars. A Kia Rio and a Hyundai i20. Apparently, they are essentially the same car underneath everything... however, the main differentiator was that one was hail-damaged whilst the other was slightly more expensive, had more kilometres on it, and was with the dealer that we already knew and liked.
We tried out the one at the dealer that we already knew... and it was okay. They were offering a discount as we were returning customers, and we already had good experiences with them... so, we were almost sold on the spot. However, we did think we should end up checking out the other car, the hail-damaged one.
Canberra does see some hail, and there have been some really larges in the near past that have really hurt some cars that have been in lots or generally unprotected from the sky. Sometimes, the damage is severe... but at other times, the damage is pretty much cosmetic dings that don't break the paint work. It appeared that this was one of the latter ones.
Anyway... as we were driving to the hail-damaged car dealer, we were having second thoughts. We liked the last dealer, and we have had good after-sales experiences with them... and the car was decent enough, even if it had more kilometres and a slightly higher price tag. But in the end, we thought... we see the hail damaged one, but it would have to be much better for us to change to it...
... and when we took it for a test drive. Well, it was much better... much smoother and more solid feeling. Perhaps that had something to do with the difference in mileage? Or perhaps it was just luck of the draw? Anyway, the dings were really quite minor... so, the car was better to drive, cheaper, and had less mileage as well. So... for us, it was enough to switch.
Now, our only concern was that the car might not have been possible to insure as it had existing damage already. However, when I called up the insurer... they had said that it was possible to insure for market value... but from today, there was a change in policy, and it was also possible to insure for agreed value as well! Well, that was fortunate! I assume it is because there have been so many hail storms recently and there are just too many cars with little dings in them now!
So, we figured that we would just go with the hail-damaged car as our little second car for those runs where we only needed a single person. A nice little car, and manual as well... which will be nice as we don't want to forget that! The e-bikes will still be in use for when we have more time for travel... or for the shorter trips to the shops. Meanwhile, we are still trying to figure out what to do with the bakfiets... it is definitely functional, but the brakes might not cope with the extra speed and hills, which might make it a bit of a deathtrap!
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Handy Crypto Tools
Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!
