General Chat

My first car was a hillman minx with column change and a front bench seat. I thought the bench seat was a great feature too but poss not for the reasons mentioned by Sharron. For some daft reason I upgraded to a mini.

I used to borrow one of the original Smarts in Paris. It was often possible to park nose on to the pavement. Not having to search long for a space saved a lot of time.

One of the many joys of driving a two seater Smart is that you can, with care, slide across to the other seat if necessary.

Ah know that feeling well Ann. We too have a two door car a Merc (an old one). Those doors are very long and so many modern cars are very wide and car park spaces are too small for modern cars.

Very True Ann. We get a lot on the winding country lanes around us and they come towards you, far too fast and are over the middle of the road. What with that and the tractors churning the edge of the lanes into deep potholes it leaves you nowhere to go!! I have a two door RCZ and the CTs are so wide and park badly in the supermarket carparks I can't open my doors wide enough to get in my car sometimes.

I do think a lot of them don't seem to know the width of their cars. And probably shouldn't be driving them.

Chelsea Tractors used to make OHs blood boil. He'd regularly use a rural road just about wide enough for vehicles to pass each other with care. He'd often come face to face with CTs who'd expect him to go into the hedge rather than move over 12 inches. He laughed his socks off after following an beaten up agricultural Land Rover. The on coming CT stopped dead and squeezed against the hedge. :-D

Oh dear Chris but it could equally have been male. You can only hope it did as much damage to their own car.

"Chelsea Tractor Brigade"

Bl**dy women who only go 'off road' at Waitrose! Or in my case Sainsburys

My last car had a large scrape removing the paint from the front wing, leaving traces of their car. It was obviously caused by a high car reversing out of their space next to me.

Thankfully I didn't get it resprayed as a couple of weeks later it was partially filled in by another high car.....Just a shame it wasn't the same blue as mine.

Chris :-(

Anninglos I completely agree with you.
I get an ex lease/demo model which knocks 30% or more off new.
'cos of the Corsas and stolen Golfs etc I have most of the exterior badging removed.
These shed drivers are not the only primal forms of grief though the Chelsea tractor brigade are right up there.

result, Ann.........
Bob

Which also means you want ease of access into the back to save lifting up heavy golf clubs etc.

I am not worried about him crashing - i.e. being the cause, I am concerned about the young (and yes they are usually young) idiots in Corsa's and the like (male and female), to whom cars like Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, Jags etc driven by older people are like so said red rag to a bull. They simply must overtake, no matter what the speed limit or road conditions, foot through the floor boards, steering all over the place, undertake, overtake grinning like mad. Luckily he is very alert and has avoided them so far. That is when I am glad to have a well built car that can get us out of trouble if necessary. We have always had large cars (never had a new car prefer to buy older up market models) and won't contemplait downsizing, just want to go down in power a bit. The one we have is the two door sports version.

Oh I also have a Hyundai i30 which we use around town so the mileage on OH's car is reasonably low.

Sharron, I hate car buying, always the feeling of 'out of the frying pan'. And there is a big proviso as well. The boot has to be quite big to take all our stuff when we travel to daughter or son's we never travel light. And also to take golf clubs, trolley etc.

If you're worried about crashing...slow response time etc....make sure it's got really top rate airbags!

I recently sold a Jagv6 which had the same starter motor as the Merc. 180 000 miles with no major failures.
Larger more powerful cars are a much better bet as you get older compared to Golf Focus Clio etc.
They as are easier to drive all have power steering and many a/c.
I always go for the electrically adjustable seat great for my back. heated seats even better.
Powerful brakes powerful lighting.
Far safer in any kind of crash.
Quiet.
If your milage is low 5-10 000 pa fuel use not a big factor.
Young drivers rushing around in uninsured "sheds" Corsa etc no licence prove the driving style goes with the driver not the car.
Battery. Brakes, tyres are running costs. The Jag had a huge appetite for susp bushes which I fixed by changing to neoprene.

We only had a look in the garage on a whim. Put it down to poor timing.

So you have to go through the car buying rigmarole again. Good luck!

Better he drives like a 40 yr old rather than a 20 yr old :-)

Good to hear garage guessed it correctly for you.

Sharron pity he didn't trade it in before he had whatever he had done, done!

Rollo, yes unlucky, but to be fair to the car, it has cost us very little in repairs. Well unless you count four new tyres and now it needs a new battery before winter but I don't count those as repairs really. It is a lovely car to travel in (and OH says to drive as well), it is so comfortable. We know we need to change it for a less poweful one as OH will be 79 this year and shouldn't be driving like a 40 year old. His reactions are really good but these things can creep up on you and we are aware of that so, later in the year we will be looking to change.

On Monday, OH paid a £200 bill on the Clio which he has just traded in for £100 against the new Smart!

V unlucky indeed

for anyone who cares :-D Car all fixed (£428),It was a new starter motor. £35 of the bill was for the recovery of the vehicle (garage is 5-10 minutes depending on traffic lights,) straight down the main road. we collected it this morning.

Hopefully all will be well now