Car purchase in Christchurch

Unfortunately, there was a nasty surprise when buying the car.
We had already looked at a car in Christchurch from two German backpackers and had a general check done by a workshop. As this check was largely positive and we had a good feeling about the fancy Mazda MPV, we were happy to have found a car. The two guys wanted to travel around the South Island with the car for another 3 weeks before bringing it to us in Ashburton and selling it.
However, one week before the 'handover', we received a message from the sellers that they had a rear-end collision and that a repair would no longer be worthwhile.

So we had to quickly search for another car because we were supposed to start heading south in 2 weeks. After contacting several sellers from a Facebook group, we made an appointment the next day to view a car with a couple from Munich who had a Honda Odyssey from the year 2000 for sale. We also had this car checked by a workshop. The Honda was overshadowed by the Mazda only in terms of kilometers driven. While the Mazda had only done 140,000 kilometers, the Honda already had 230,000 on the clock.

The mechanic had nothing to complain about except for a necessary repair to the radiator and considered the car to be in good condition. We negotiated a little with the sellers about the price, but it quickly became clear that the repair costs would be deducted from the purchase price. We decided to buy the Honda, which, apart from a bed, was also equipped with a lot of camping accessories. After Axel took a short test drive together with the seller, we went directly to the post office to transfer the car to us. We agreed to pick up the car from the couple in Christchurch two days later so that we still had enough time to have the repair done.

To avoid having to hitchhike to Ashburton again, we convinced our roommate Steffen to take a trip to Christchurch with his car. Two other roommates, Nadja and Benjamin, also joined the trip. We arrived in Christchurch and then only the keys were handed over and we were ready to go. We had chosen a viewpoint that was recommended to us by the woman who had given us a ride while hitchhiking.
After an adventurous tour up the mountain, we finally arrived at the top and enjoyed the beautiful view of the city of Christchurch.

The drive home went smoothly and the next day we took the car directly to the workshop so that it would be ready for our trip to Invercargill on Saturday.