It has been the last week of the school year for our children and for Raymond this has also been his last week at Primary School. It doesn’t seem very long to me since I was taking him to his first week in P1 but for him it seems like a lifetime ago. I suppose time seems to go faster the older one gets.
When I finished school there was an end of year school disco and also a special evening of square dancing for those that were leaving for Middle school. Raymond’s school had something similar but for some reason these nights have been rebranded with the American term "Prom Night" (which I always understood to be a High School graduation party). Obviously this is the influence of US TV and film (although this is an event I originally knew from the film Carrie) but at least with Raymond’s school the whole event is restricted to formal attire (a dark blazer and formal trousers or kilt) rather than some of the excesses that other local schools seem to participate in.
I think many of the stories may be apocryphal but it isn’t that hard to find out about people whose daughters have spent hundreds of pounds on a prom dress or even travelled especially to London to chose one (obviously there are no department stores in Glasgow!) I did see a few stretch limousines floating about with over privileged brats in the back but I didn’t see any at Raymond’s school. I think this is just as well as not every family can afford these excesses. I did hear one of his friends mention that they had wanted a fancy chauffeur-driven German car (as I dropped them off in the Golf) but fortunately the head-mistress at Raymond’s school does seem to have a sense of perspective and from what I can tell a jolly time was had by all.
I’m wondering what kind of social occasions they have at the High School? He seems to be looking forward to it although I still suspect he will find it something of a culture shock - in scale if nothing else as there are well over 2,000 pupils attending there. For now we have the annual family holiday to look forward to in sunny Norfolk.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Sunday, 23 June 2013
It's Like A Golf
I’ve now been the owner of a Volkswagen Golf Mk6 for 5 days. So what’s it like? Well, if you have ever driven, ridden in or even vaguely seen a Golf, it’s like that. Whilst some manufacturers will drastically alter their models from generation to generation, VW’s designers are locked away in a room for years at a time and rack their brains as to what exactly they should be producing: and then they always seem to come up with a Golf. To this extent, it is very difficult to tell the different versions apart. The first two look distinctly different from the later versions with their round headlights and their 1970s origami styling. The Mk2 is slightly bigger than the MK1. The Mk6 that I have looks almost identical (to my eyes) to the Mk5 except that it loses the plastic protection strips at the side. The Mk4 looks pretty much like the Mk5 except it has smaller headlights and the Mk3 looks like the Mk4 except it will have broken down. There is now a Mk7 which replaces the one I’ve just bought which is possibly slightly longer but whatever they have done it is still unmistakably a Golf. The end result of producing exactly the same car for the best part of 40 years is that they seem to have got very good at it.
I picked the car up on Tuesday night and, after paying for it with my debit card as if it were a packet of cornflakes from the local Asda, I drove off somewhat nervously and gingerly through late rush hour traffic in Glasgow. By the time I had made it to the motorway I was feeling a little more confident and put the radio on. This was my first rather happy surprise with the car as Radio 6 came on. I didn’t know it was available on FM in Glasgow and it isn’t: the car comes equipped with a DAB radio which was one of the few features that I wouldn’t mind having but which I assumed the base models would be without. I made it home easily enough and also made a mental note of a few things that are different from the Toyotas: the windscreen wipers work the other way around and the rear one does intermittent only rather than continuous only which strikes me as a much better arrangement. Also, reverse gear is on the other side which does get some getting used to – personally I think sticking it below 5th is more secure but most cars now allow for a 6-speed gearbox: I had better get used to it.
Although the car came with a fair amount of fuel (£50 rather than 50 litres) I thought it would be a good idea to top up to get a good feel for the consumption. I parked up at the local filling station and then re-parked as VW have the filler cap on the other side. I then ended up looking a complete idiot as I had to consult the owners manual (translated directly from German to Gibberish) to work out how to open the filler cap. I also reset the trip computer so I could see what the accuracy of it is like. The trip computer is rather good and the mpg figure gives both a long term reading which can be manually reset and an individual trip reading. It also has functions such as average speed, miles left on the tank, duration of journey and something that bleeps every time the car goes over 20mph. This last feature is excessively annoying as I don’t want a nagging German car commenting on my driving like my nagging German mother-in-law. Fortunately, another quick reference to the Gibberish manual advised how to switch this feature off (the speed warning, that is, not the mother-in-law).
After getting used to the very long gearing and turbo lag on the engine the first thing that strikes me about the Golf is how smooth the whole thing is. Whilst most of the gears are very long, 1st gear is very short which allows for very refined slow speed manoeuvring with the car capable of moving off slowly from idle. What it doesn’t allow for is very fast starts at junctions so that does have to be taken into account when turning right or joining roundabouts. The other thing that struck me on my first drive into work is how well the car handles speed bumps. Part of this will be down to the greater width of the car compared to the Yaris and partly down to the more sophisticated suspension set-up. The difference between the two is remarkable. Whilst I am used to getting back pain at whatever speed I negotiate the things at, with the Golf I can barely feel a thing. Also much improved is the amount of cabin noise. It’s not perfectly insulated but it is rather Radio 3 friendly. I tried an Arvo Pärt CD which is almost unlistenable in the Yaris and yet is quite audible in the Golf – not perfect by a long way but still a huge improvement.
I’m still waiting to see how the costs pan out but so far it looks promising. According to the trip computer, I have been averaging around 55mpg driving to work and 60mpg on the way home (this difference is accounted for by the fact I work at an altitude which is 100 metres higher than where I live). I will get a better idea of the accuracy of those figures once I have used a full tank of fuel but it shouldn’t be that far away from the Yaris. In terms of reliability and durability it remains to be seen. The vehicle feels quite substantially built although some of the switches and dials feel a little fragile. This is not really something that can be determined from a new car but older VAG vehicles still feel well put together so I can hope it will last. Depreciation is also something VW’s are meant to be good for but since I have just bought a 10 month old car that has lost 40% of its value I can only hope that I’ve bought it at the right time (otherwise the car would end up valueless before the warranty expires).
It’s worth, at this point seeing how much the Yaris has cost me in the 5 years I have owned it. I typically cover 1,000 miles per month so that makes things easy to calculate but depreciation worked out at £78/month; warranty and breakdown cover £20/month; repairs, servicing, tyres and other consumables around £38/month, tax & mot £15/month; insurance £13/month and fuel (52mpg avg at £1.35) £118/month. That comes to a total of £282/month or 28.2p/mile. Writing all this down makes it sound a lot and, in truth, it is - it is part of the reason why I have always said that if I didn’t need a second car for work I wouldn’t have one. However, as a necessary evil, it needs to cost as little and cause as little trouble as possible. I’m hoping that the Golf will live up to that – driving home on Friday with Miles Davis’s Milestones playing I did, at least, feel happy with my purchase.
I picked the car up on Tuesday night and, after paying for it with my debit card as if it were a packet of cornflakes from the local Asda, I drove off somewhat nervously and gingerly through late rush hour traffic in Glasgow. By the time I had made it to the motorway I was feeling a little more confident and put the radio on. This was my first rather happy surprise with the car as Radio 6 came on. I didn’t know it was available on FM in Glasgow and it isn’t: the car comes equipped with a DAB radio which was one of the few features that I wouldn’t mind having but which I assumed the base models would be without. I made it home easily enough and also made a mental note of a few things that are different from the Toyotas: the windscreen wipers work the other way around and the rear one does intermittent only rather than continuous only which strikes me as a much better arrangement. Also, reverse gear is on the other side which does get some getting used to – personally I think sticking it below 5th is more secure but most cars now allow for a 6-speed gearbox: I had better get used to it.
Although the car came with a fair amount of fuel (£50 rather than 50 litres) I thought it would be a good idea to top up to get a good feel for the consumption. I parked up at the local filling station and then re-parked as VW have the filler cap on the other side. I then ended up looking a complete idiot as I had to consult the owners manual (translated directly from German to Gibberish) to work out how to open the filler cap. I also reset the trip computer so I could see what the accuracy of it is like. The trip computer is rather good and the mpg figure gives both a long term reading which can be manually reset and an individual trip reading. It also has functions such as average speed, miles left on the tank, duration of journey and something that bleeps every time the car goes over 20mph. This last feature is excessively annoying as I don’t want a nagging German car commenting on my driving like my nagging German mother-in-law. Fortunately, another quick reference to the Gibberish manual advised how to switch this feature off (the speed warning, that is, not the mother-in-law).
After getting used to the very long gearing and turbo lag on the engine the first thing that strikes me about the Golf is how smooth the whole thing is. Whilst most of the gears are very long, 1st gear is very short which allows for very refined slow speed manoeuvring with the car capable of moving off slowly from idle. What it doesn’t allow for is very fast starts at junctions so that does have to be taken into account when turning right or joining roundabouts. The other thing that struck me on my first drive into work is how well the car handles speed bumps. Part of this will be down to the greater width of the car compared to the Yaris and partly down to the more sophisticated suspension set-up. The difference between the two is remarkable. Whilst I am used to getting back pain at whatever speed I negotiate the things at, with the Golf I can barely feel a thing. Also much improved is the amount of cabin noise. It’s not perfectly insulated but it is rather Radio 3 friendly. I tried an Arvo Pärt CD which is almost unlistenable in the Yaris and yet is quite audible in the Golf – not perfect by a long way but still a huge improvement.
I’m still waiting to see how the costs pan out but so far it looks promising. According to the trip computer, I have been averaging around 55mpg driving to work and 60mpg on the way home (this difference is accounted for by the fact I work at an altitude which is 100 metres higher than where I live). I will get a better idea of the accuracy of those figures once I have used a full tank of fuel but it shouldn’t be that far away from the Yaris. In terms of reliability and durability it remains to be seen. The vehicle feels quite substantially built although some of the switches and dials feel a little fragile. This is not really something that can be determined from a new car but older VAG vehicles still feel well put together so I can hope it will last. Depreciation is also something VW’s are meant to be good for but since I have just bought a 10 month old car that has lost 40% of its value I can only hope that I’ve bought it at the right time (otherwise the car would end up valueless before the warranty expires).
It’s worth, at this point seeing how much the Yaris has cost me in the 5 years I have owned it. I typically cover 1,000 miles per month so that makes things easy to calculate but depreciation worked out at £78/month; warranty and breakdown cover £20/month; repairs, servicing, tyres and other consumables around £38/month, tax & mot £15/month; insurance £13/month and fuel (52mpg avg at £1.35) £118/month. That comes to a total of £282/month or 28.2p/mile. Writing all this down makes it sound a lot and, in truth, it is - it is part of the reason why I have always said that if I didn’t need a second car for work I wouldn’t have one. However, as a necessary evil, it needs to cost as little and cause as little trouble as possible. I’m hoping that the Golf will live up to that – driving home on Friday with Miles Davis’s Milestones playing I did, at least, feel happy with my purchase.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Car Dealers - Make Your Mind Up Time
I got my Yaris MOTed this week. It passed – which rather surprised me. In fact it nearly didn’t. I’d checked everything I reasonably could at the weekend and cleaned it up with the intention of getting a valuation. On the morning of the test I quickly checked the lights again and to my utter annoyance the licence plate light had blown. I checked the glove box but I was out of that size of bulb. However, I remembered that there was a car accessories place at the end of the road and I nipped down to pick up a spare. They were only 99p each so I bought 2 and also picked up a bottle of wax – it was probably a couple of quid more than I could buy off the internet but if it keeps my local parts shop in business it is money well spent. For all the money that can be saved online I really do value small businesses like this.
So the car passed it’s MOT. There were a couple of advisories regarding suspension bushes but nothing relating to the disturbingly unpredictable nature of the brakes at speed: the number plate light would have failed it, of course, so that is clearly a far greater risk to safety compared to being unable to stop at 70mph. Ideally I was looking at getting the car part-exchanged but I am really fed up with being offered derisory trade-ins from dealers. I rang up an auction house in Glasgow to get an idea of what I could expect at auction. They were very helpful but at first there was some confusion as to when the MOT expired (they quoted for July 2013 rather than July 2014). The difference was an astonishing £500 so my MOT fee of £25 (a dodgy online offer) was well worth the money. They quoted a figure of £1900 in average to £2200 in perfect condition. Given a couple of bits of flaking paintwork on the plastic bits I would be looking at the lower figure rather than the higher and taking into account the auction house fees I would realistically be looking at figure of £1700-£2000 so I could use this as a guide for a fair trade in price.
The next stage was to decide what I was going to buy. I arranged for test drives of the Auris and Yaris. The Auris really is a nice car after it’s recent remodelling but one feature really has put me off. No matter how I adjusted the seat I couldn’t get in a comfortable position without my head touching the roof. This is not a problem in the latest Yaris which is a much more grown up car than it used to be although not quite as refined as the Auris. I had a quick look around for suitable nearly new models but they don’t come cheap. In fact the nearly new Golfs in the base trim are not a dissimilar price and do everything that the Yaris does in the higher trim levels. I thought I would give the VW dealer another try.
I phoned the Volkswagen dealership in Stirling and the salesman was as helpful as ever – unfortunately, they had no petrol engined Golfs in stock. It’s a pity as I wouldn’t have minded putting some business their way but I returned to Autotrader to see what I could find. There seemed to be two possibilities: Other VW dealers around Glasgow and the Motorpoint car supermarket, also in Glasgow. I had a look on the Motorpoint website and they had a 9 month old model with 11,000 miles on the clock in “Steel Grey” - a colour which I couldn’t quite place; images on the internet didn’t really seem to help with this as it appeared as everything from a slightly darker silver through to near-black. Motorpoint didn’t actually have the car in Glasgow at that moment but offered to send me a valuation on the Yaris. I still wanted to have a try of the Golf before committing so I rang a VW dealer in Glasgow who had something similar in stock (also at a pretty reasonable price and in silver).
At the Glasgow dealership I was met by a young chap called Gary who took my details and also asked about possible trade-ins (which seems a rather back-to-front way of doing things). Anyway, I got in the Golf and had a fairly extensive test drive with Gary acting as navigator (and also as ballast as I was keen to test the car with a passenger on board). Having driven the hire Golf before I was keen to see how the car compared directly to the Toyotas – previously I had really just driven up and down the motorway to Dumfries. My first reaction was something of a disappointment as the car appeared to have practically no power – until I noticed that the rev-counter was barely above 1,000 rpm. Having been so used to the variable timed engines of Toyota and Honda, the VW is really quite a different beast with lots of low down torque but practically no top-end. It does red-line around 6,000 rpm but it doesn’t do anything much useful above 4,000 and the gears have been set very, very long – almost like the set-up of a turbo-diesel car but without the noise. Once I had taken this into account it drove rather nicely.
I checked the car over at the end of the test drive but I was quite sold on it. It’s not flashy, it’s not exactly a ball of fire to drive but it is refined and generally a nice place to be. I asked about what deal they were prepared to offer and it turned out that the trade-in price was about what the auction house quoted for a non-MOT vehicle. Having done my homework, I did have some ammunition to back up my case but I hate haggling. Just at that point, I had a spot of luck – Motorpoint texted me with a valuation of the Yaris: £1,800. This was bang on what I should have been expecting and I was tempted to walk out there an then but this did prompt the manager of the dealership to budge. They didn’t match the Motorpoint price exactly but threw in extras like a free service and tank of fuel which made the cost to change almost identical (within £50 anyway). What clinched it, though, was that I asked the salesman to show me what “Steel Grey” looked like. It’s battleship grey. I may be colour blind but I’m not going to be stuck with something that dreary.
I’m meant to be picking the car up on Tuesday night. I’m looking forward to it although I have a few reservations as to what the reliability of VW is like compared to Toyota. From the surveys I’ve seen the Golf VI doesn’t seem that different from similar Toyotas in terms of reliability (at least for the base models) but I don’t know whether VW are as good to deal with when things do go wrong. That is one count I couldn’t fault Toyota on. However, I have two years of warranty left on the Golf and I think I’ve got a fair deal from the dealership. Having said that, I rather like Motorpoint’s way of doing business – offering a no-haggle trade-in price up front. I may well go back to them when it comes to change our other car (hopefully not for a few years yet). I’ll post more thoughts on the Golf once I’ve had a few real-world ownership experiences of it although I checked back to my blog post in March when I described the Golf as the “car to buy when you don’t know what you really want." What does that say about me?
So the car passed it’s MOT. There were a couple of advisories regarding suspension bushes but nothing relating to the disturbingly unpredictable nature of the brakes at speed: the number plate light would have failed it, of course, so that is clearly a far greater risk to safety compared to being unable to stop at 70mph. Ideally I was looking at getting the car part-exchanged but I am really fed up with being offered derisory trade-ins from dealers. I rang up an auction house in Glasgow to get an idea of what I could expect at auction. They were very helpful but at first there was some confusion as to when the MOT expired (they quoted for July 2013 rather than July 2014). The difference was an astonishing £500 so my MOT fee of £25 (a dodgy online offer) was well worth the money. They quoted a figure of £1900 in average to £2200 in perfect condition. Given a couple of bits of flaking paintwork on the plastic bits I would be looking at the lower figure rather than the higher and taking into account the auction house fees I would realistically be looking at figure of £1700-£2000 so I could use this as a guide for a fair trade in price.
The next stage was to decide what I was going to buy. I arranged for test drives of the Auris and Yaris. The Auris really is a nice car after it’s recent remodelling but one feature really has put me off. No matter how I adjusted the seat I couldn’t get in a comfortable position without my head touching the roof. This is not a problem in the latest Yaris which is a much more grown up car than it used to be although not quite as refined as the Auris. I had a quick look around for suitable nearly new models but they don’t come cheap. In fact the nearly new Golfs in the base trim are not a dissimilar price and do everything that the Yaris does in the higher trim levels. I thought I would give the VW dealer another try.
I phoned the Volkswagen dealership in Stirling and the salesman was as helpful as ever – unfortunately, they had no petrol engined Golfs in stock. It’s a pity as I wouldn’t have minded putting some business their way but I returned to Autotrader to see what I could find. There seemed to be two possibilities: Other VW dealers around Glasgow and the Motorpoint car supermarket, also in Glasgow. I had a look on the Motorpoint website and they had a 9 month old model with 11,000 miles on the clock in “Steel Grey” - a colour which I couldn’t quite place; images on the internet didn’t really seem to help with this as it appeared as everything from a slightly darker silver through to near-black. Motorpoint didn’t actually have the car in Glasgow at that moment but offered to send me a valuation on the Yaris. I still wanted to have a try of the Golf before committing so I rang a VW dealer in Glasgow who had something similar in stock (also at a pretty reasonable price and in silver).
At the Glasgow dealership I was met by a young chap called Gary who took my details and also asked about possible trade-ins (which seems a rather back-to-front way of doing things). Anyway, I got in the Golf and had a fairly extensive test drive with Gary acting as navigator (and also as ballast as I was keen to test the car with a passenger on board). Having driven the hire Golf before I was keen to see how the car compared directly to the Toyotas – previously I had really just driven up and down the motorway to Dumfries. My first reaction was something of a disappointment as the car appeared to have practically no power – until I noticed that the rev-counter was barely above 1,000 rpm. Having been so used to the variable timed engines of Toyota and Honda, the VW is really quite a different beast with lots of low down torque but practically no top-end. It does red-line around 6,000 rpm but it doesn’t do anything much useful above 4,000 and the gears have been set very, very long – almost like the set-up of a turbo-diesel car but without the noise. Once I had taken this into account it drove rather nicely.
I checked the car over at the end of the test drive but I was quite sold on it. It’s not flashy, it’s not exactly a ball of fire to drive but it is refined and generally a nice place to be. I asked about what deal they were prepared to offer and it turned out that the trade-in price was about what the auction house quoted for a non-MOT vehicle. Having done my homework, I did have some ammunition to back up my case but I hate haggling. Just at that point, I had a spot of luck – Motorpoint texted me with a valuation of the Yaris: £1,800. This was bang on what I should have been expecting and I was tempted to walk out there an then but this did prompt the manager of the dealership to budge. They didn’t match the Motorpoint price exactly but threw in extras like a free service and tank of fuel which made the cost to change almost identical (within £50 anyway). What clinched it, though, was that I asked the salesman to show me what “Steel Grey” looked like. It’s battleship grey. I may be colour blind but I’m not going to be stuck with something that dreary.
I’m meant to be picking the car up on Tuesday night. I’m looking forward to it although I have a few reservations as to what the reliability of VW is like compared to Toyota. From the surveys I’ve seen the Golf VI doesn’t seem that different from similar Toyotas in terms of reliability (at least for the base models) but I don’t know whether VW are as good to deal with when things do go wrong. That is one count I couldn’t fault Toyota on. However, I have two years of warranty left on the Golf and I think I’ve got a fair deal from the dealership. Having said that, I rather like Motorpoint’s way of doing business – offering a no-haggle trade-in price up front. I may well go back to them when it comes to change our other car (hopefully not for a few years yet). I’ll post more thoughts on the Golf once I’ve had a few real-world ownership experiences of it although I checked back to my blog post in March when I described the Golf as the “car to buy when you don’t know what you really want." What does that say about me?
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Fathers Day
Today is Fathers Day – or, at least, I am reliably informed it is by a multitude of retailers aiming to sell their worthless tat to an unsuspecting public. I find that many of these celebration days are merely commercial entities designed to make money for greedy, faceless corporations at the expense of a public who may genuinely feel that they want to celebrate their fathers on a special day or, more likely, are cajoled into buying thoughtless tat by retail peer pressure and not wanting to be seen by family and friends as being a miserable, uncaring git. In fact, having had a quick look, it would appear that Fathers Day was first given an official seal of approval by President Richard Nixon in 1972. Thanks for that one, Tricky Dickie.
It’s quite curious to see what our retail emporia actually think the typical hardworking dad would like to receive on their special day. It would appear that the status to which they hold the fathers of this world are that of a either a necessary carthorse or an indecipherable antiquity. In the first category we have “things for work”. What better present could there be for one's father than a new white cotton shirt and silk tie. “Yes, Dad. Your worth to us is to go to a brain-deadening office and while away your remaining few hours on this planet so that you can buy us the latest consumer trinkets and we can bitch about them.” Nearly as bad as this are the DIY tools. Now, I’m all for having a pile of tools around the house and a new cordless drill would be quite nice. Mainly, this is so I can play around in the shed and pretend it is a ray gun. But for a present it is essentially saying “We will tolerate your existence in this house provided that you actually fix the place up for us. Now, here are some power tools – go and put those shelves up.”
The secondary category of presents are those that at least show some sort acknowledgement of the hard work that fathers put in but seem to show a complete ignorance of any interests that fathers may have outside of breadwinning or domestic servitude. Slippers have to be the naffest present that could possibly be created – shoes for the inside. I don’t wear shoes in the house and, since I can now afford carpets and central heating I have little requirements for such footwear (although they may offer some protection if inadvertently standing on Lego bricks). One step up from this is the joke T-shirt. What could be better than a T-shirt with a superman logo on it? Maybe this is a suggestion that one will soon be serving with “Fathers For Justice”. The other curiosity is the Dad CD. This assumes that all fathers actually want to listen to is “Dad Rock” which consists of Bachman Turner Overdrive, REO Speedwagon and Eagles tracks which can happily be listened to whilst driving to the office of a morning. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this as such but, if at all interested in this music, it is quite likely that your average father will already have these tracks in a multitude of formats. What’s wrong with a box-set of Rudy van Gelder remasters or “Now, That’s What I Call Scandinavian Death Metal vol 2.”
So what did my children get me? Not the preferred option of “Stop bloody fighting for 10 seconds”, that’s for sure, but there is always the old favourite of a bottle of whisky. This present probably says “We bought this for you because we think you are a borderline alcoholic.” This could be construed as being somewhat hurtful but I’m not going to complain. As it was, I did have the choice of what to have breakfast today so I decided to inflict porridge on everyone.
Postscript: My family have just informed me that Fathers Day is, in fact next weekend and they messed the days up. Oh joy!. It head better be a single malt and full Scottish breakfast in bed! At least that explains why the shops are still full of thoughtless tat.
It’s quite curious to see what our retail emporia actually think the typical hardworking dad would like to receive on their special day. It would appear that the status to which they hold the fathers of this world are that of a either a necessary carthorse or an indecipherable antiquity. In the first category we have “things for work”. What better present could there be for one's father than a new white cotton shirt and silk tie. “Yes, Dad. Your worth to us is to go to a brain-deadening office and while away your remaining few hours on this planet so that you can buy us the latest consumer trinkets and we can bitch about them.” Nearly as bad as this are the DIY tools. Now, I’m all for having a pile of tools around the house and a new cordless drill would be quite nice. Mainly, this is so I can play around in the shed and pretend it is a ray gun. But for a present it is essentially saying “We will tolerate your existence in this house provided that you actually fix the place up for us. Now, here are some power tools – go and put those shelves up.”
The secondary category of presents are those that at least show some sort acknowledgement of the hard work that fathers put in but seem to show a complete ignorance of any interests that fathers may have outside of breadwinning or domestic servitude. Slippers have to be the naffest present that could possibly be created – shoes for the inside. I don’t wear shoes in the house and, since I can now afford carpets and central heating I have little requirements for such footwear (although they may offer some protection if inadvertently standing on Lego bricks). One step up from this is the joke T-shirt. What could be better than a T-shirt with a superman logo on it? Maybe this is a suggestion that one will soon be serving with “Fathers For Justice”. The other curiosity is the Dad CD. This assumes that all fathers actually want to listen to is “Dad Rock” which consists of Bachman Turner Overdrive, REO Speedwagon and Eagles tracks which can happily be listened to whilst driving to the office of a morning. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this as such but, if at all interested in this music, it is quite likely that your average father will already have these tracks in a multitude of formats. What’s wrong with a box-set of Rudy van Gelder remasters or “Now, That’s What I Call Scandinavian Death Metal vol 2.”
So what did my children get me? Not the preferred option of “Stop bloody fighting for 10 seconds”, that’s for sure, but there is always the old favourite of a bottle of whisky. This present probably says “We bought this for you because we think you are a borderline alcoholic.” This could be construed as being somewhat hurtful but I’m not going to complain. As it was, I did have the choice of what to have breakfast today so I decided to inflict porridge on everyone.
Postscript: My family have just informed me that Fathers Day is, in fact next weekend and they messed the days up. Oh joy!. It head better be a single malt and full Scottish breakfast in bed! At least that explains why the shops are still full of thoughtless tat.
Monday, 3 June 2013
Car Dealers - Revisited
After last week’s car viewing debacle I decided to take a day to tour the local car dealerships and assess the state of the new (or at least not too old) car market. I also took Nina along for moral support and also as a second opinion. I maybe perfectly capable of determining my bhp from KW and mpg from l/100km (not to mention CO2 g/km) but it is often the small details I miss – would the dog be able to jump in an out of the hatch, how well do the seats adjust and so on. My requirements are actually pretty simple: a 5 door hatch with enough space for 3 children in the back and dogs in the boot. On top of that I would like something pretty reliable and fairly efficient. I would also like remote central locking, a nice CD player, some sort of air-conditioning, electric windows at least at the front and preferably not diesel (the official fuel of Hades). I think that’s the base-line. Thinking of our other car, I do miss electric mirrors and I really like the cruise control function but that tends only to be available on the more expensive variants.
Rather than repeat my misery from Edinburgh I though the best bet was to head for the Springkerse Estate in Stirling which is one of those big industrial-retail parks where all the major car dealers tend to cluster around. This gave us the chance to look around lots of different cars in a short time. We gave the first couple of dealers a miss. Nissan don’t make anything I like in the size of car we are looking for. The Note is OK but is, essentially, an MPV version of the Micra which is not quite what I was looking for and most of the rest of the range strikes me as completely pointless. The other was Renault who I would have dismissed for dismal reliability but this is seemingly much improved. However, the design of the Megane doesn’t really lend itself to comfortable canine transport and I’d like to wait a couple of years before giving their new found reliability the thumbs up.
The first dealer we stopped at was Honda – the same dealer where I bought a Jazz from in 2004. In fact, the Jazz was on my shortlist as something that may work for me as I had the original model and used it more or less as a family car – which works with 2 kids but not 3. The new model is bigger and better and it passed many of my tests with flying colours: the boot is huge and has a relatively low lip for dog access and the rear seat space is generous with me being able to easily sit behind the driver’s seat when it is adjusted for me driving. The only problem was that I really struggled to get in and out and, even with the steering wheel and drivers seat fully adjusted, I kept catching the wheel on my knees. So that made it a non-starter and the other models in the range are either not suitable, too expensive or both. It’s a pity as the young salesman was both polite and helpful.
I gave the Peugeot dealer a wide berth (on the advise of our local independent mechanic) and Mitsubishi don’t do anything that fits the bill. However, we did look in Kia and I was quite impressed with the Cee’d (having previously only seen it being abused by stars with The Stig). I wasn’t so impressed with the salesman who wouldn’t give us space and seemed desperate to flog me anything he had in stock even though I’d explained exactly what I wanted and explained in great depth that the type of driving I do will probably kill a ****ING DIESEL CAR. I could tell that Nina was a bit uncomfortable with him so we moved on. I also noticed that it was the last day of the month so he may well have had a sales quota to fill. I don’t think he had sold a single thing all month.
We moved on from there to a VW dealer. I was a little weary of this after the surly treatment I received in Edinburgh but the reception I received in Stirling could not have been more different. The salesman let us browse the cars in the showroom in peace but was on hand to answer any questions. The Golf VII is really out of my price bracket at the moment but it is a fantastically well designed car – even down to little details in the boot lip and rear seat access. I also looked at the Polo which, to my eyes, looks nearly identical but the one main difference was glaring. I adjusted the drivers seat to see if I could sit behind it. I don’t think anyone could sit behind me – not even my 5 year old daughter. I asked about the used cars outside and the salesman came back with a variety of keys so that we could look inside. We were particularly taken with the Golf VI and Golf Plus but the latter is probably out of the question as most are diesel. However, the experience was pleasant and we have one more for the shortlist.
I gave the Audi dealership a bye, as they are essentially just overpriced VWs, and gave BMW and Mercedes a miss as I dislike rear wheel drive (although the Mercedes B-class looks decent if a little pricey). I had a quick look around Citroen but, whilst I like their MPVs, their current batch of standard hatches don’t really stand out for me. I was going to pop into the Hyundai dealer but I’ve had an i30 on hire and, whilst the car is quite decent, there were too many little niggles with it to tempt me further. That brought us round to the Ford dealership. I quite like Fords and I am usually quite happy to get a Focus or Fiesta as a hire car but both models are not particularly dog friendly with their sloping hatch doors. The B-Max and C-Max are both good cars in their own right but not quite what I was looking for.
That brought us around to the last main block of dealerships. I gave the Mazda a miss after my dreadful ownership experience with them and wasn’t much enamoured with the Volvo models which just strike me as being overpriced Fords (but not as good). That brought us around to the Toyota dealer. I had checked out the Auris Hybrid model at my usual Toyota place in Falkirk (actually the longest established Toyota dealer in the UK.) I had somewhat gone off this as most of the models appeared to come with daft 17” wheels rather than the standard 15” one. I say daft as they would add around £800 to the cost once I purchased Winter tyres and they also appeared to be the wrong circumference for the car. However, I am quite taken with the latest Auris model which I think is the best looking of all the models I have seen. It does pretty much everything I want but the only off-putting thing is the dashboard which is a perpendicular slab of shiny plastic which looks as if it comes from a 1970s Mercedes. It’s not of substandard quality – it just appears to be out of kilter with the sleek exterior. The other Toyota model which really surprised me was the Yaris. It’s considerably bigger than the original model that I currently own and, on closer inspection, is almost the same size internally as the Auris.
I had definitely narrowed my shortlist down but the Toyota salesman (part of a well known Scottish chain) offered me a pre-reg Auris model that they had in stock. It was £2,500 less than the list price (taking into account the paint finish) which is a fantastic discount for a model that has only been out for a few months and significantly less than a similarly equipped Yaris. I was tempted but I was also determined to keep to my plans and it became clear that he was prepared to offer me practically nothing in terms of a trade-in. He seemed bothered when I suggested that I could just pay cash and sell the Yaris privately so I ended up making my excuses and leaving. In fact I was put out by his general attitude which was rather bullying towards me and downright sexist towards Nina – she was there for valued automotive opinion and not just to decide which pretty colour she liked (although given my lousy colour vision that is a valid input).
I called in briefly at SEAT and Skoda garages which were more off the beaten track but I think I’ve got my shortlist sorted and I am very much favouring the Golf or Auris (and possibly the Yaris if I can find a decent discount). The next step for me is to get my Yaris MOTed – either to maximise it’s trade I value or to make it easier to sell privately. I’d also like to have another test drive in the Golf as I’m not entirely sure which engine I had in the hire car. After that, it’s a case of keeping an eye on Autotrader and seeing when something suitable comes up.
Rather than repeat my misery from Edinburgh I though the best bet was to head for the Springkerse Estate in Stirling which is one of those big industrial-retail parks where all the major car dealers tend to cluster around. This gave us the chance to look around lots of different cars in a short time. We gave the first couple of dealers a miss. Nissan don’t make anything I like in the size of car we are looking for. The Note is OK but is, essentially, an MPV version of the Micra which is not quite what I was looking for and most of the rest of the range strikes me as completely pointless. The other was Renault who I would have dismissed for dismal reliability but this is seemingly much improved. However, the design of the Megane doesn’t really lend itself to comfortable canine transport and I’d like to wait a couple of years before giving their new found reliability the thumbs up.
The first dealer we stopped at was Honda – the same dealer where I bought a Jazz from in 2004. In fact, the Jazz was on my shortlist as something that may work for me as I had the original model and used it more or less as a family car – which works with 2 kids but not 3. The new model is bigger and better and it passed many of my tests with flying colours: the boot is huge and has a relatively low lip for dog access and the rear seat space is generous with me being able to easily sit behind the driver’s seat when it is adjusted for me driving. The only problem was that I really struggled to get in and out and, even with the steering wheel and drivers seat fully adjusted, I kept catching the wheel on my knees. So that made it a non-starter and the other models in the range are either not suitable, too expensive or both. It’s a pity as the young salesman was both polite and helpful.
I gave the Peugeot dealer a wide berth (on the advise of our local independent mechanic) and Mitsubishi don’t do anything that fits the bill. However, we did look in Kia and I was quite impressed with the Cee’d (having previously only seen it being abused by stars with The Stig). I wasn’t so impressed with the salesman who wouldn’t give us space and seemed desperate to flog me anything he had in stock even though I’d explained exactly what I wanted and explained in great depth that the type of driving I do will probably kill a ****ING DIESEL CAR. I could tell that Nina was a bit uncomfortable with him so we moved on. I also noticed that it was the last day of the month so he may well have had a sales quota to fill. I don’t think he had sold a single thing all month.
We moved on from there to a VW dealer. I was a little weary of this after the surly treatment I received in Edinburgh but the reception I received in Stirling could not have been more different. The salesman let us browse the cars in the showroom in peace but was on hand to answer any questions. The Golf VII is really out of my price bracket at the moment but it is a fantastically well designed car – even down to little details in the boot lip and rear seat access. I also looked at the Polo which, to my eyes, looks nearly identical but the one main difference was glaring. I adjusted the drivers seat to see if I could sit behind it. I don’t think anyone could sit behind me – not even my 5 year old daughter. I asked about the used cars outside and the salesman came back with a variety of keys so that we could look inside. We were particularly taken with the Golf VI and Golf Plus but the latter is probably out of the question as most are diesel. However, the experience was pleasant and we have one more for the shortlist.
I gave the Audi dealership a bye, as they are essentially just overpriced VWs, and gave BMW and Mercedes a miss as I dislike rear wheel drive (although the Mercedes B-class looks decent if a little pricey). I had a quick look around Citroen but, whilst I like their MPVs, their current batch of standard hatches don’t really stand out for me. I was going to pop into the Hyundai dealer but I’ve had an i30 on hire and, whilst the car is quite decent, there were too many little niggles with it to tempt me further. That brought us round to the Ford dealership. I quite like Fords and I am usually quite happy to get a Focus or Fiesta as a hire car but both models are not particularly dog friendly with their sloping hatch doors. The B-Max and C-Max are both good cars in their own right but not quite what I was looking for.
That brought us around to the last main block of dealerships. I gave the Mazda a miss after my dreadful ownership experience with them and wasn’t much enamoured with the Volvo models which just strike me as being overpriced Fords (but not as good). That brought us around to the Toyota dealer. I had checked out the Auris Hybrid model at my usual Toyota place in Falkirk (actually the longest established Toyota dealer in the UK.) I had somewhat gone off this as most of the models appeared to come with daft 17” wheels rather than the standard 15” one. I say daft as they would add around £800 to the cost once I purchased Winter tyres and they also appeared to be the wrong circumference for the car. However, I am quite taken with the latest Auris model which I think is the best looking of all the models I have seen. It does pretty much everything I want but the only off-putting thing is the dashboard which is a perpendicular slab of shiny plastic which looks as if it comes from a 1970s Mercedes. It’s not of substandard quality – it just appears to be out of kilter with the sleek exterior. The other Toyota model which really surprised me was the Yaris. It’s considerably bigger than the original model that I currently own and, on closer inspection, is almost the same size internally as the Auris.
I had definitely narrowed my shortlist down but the Toyota salesman (part of a well known Scottish chain) offered me a pre-reg Auris model that they had in stock. It was £2,500 less than the list price (taking into account the paint finish) which is a fantastic discount for a model that has only been out for a few months and significantly less than a similarly equipped Yaris. I was tempted but I was also determined to keep to my plans and it became clear that he was prepared to offer me practically nothing in terms of a trade-in. He seemed bothered when I suggested that I could just pay cash and sell the Yaris privately so I ended up making my excuses and leaving. In fact I was put out by his general attitude which was rather bullying towards me and downright sexist towards Nina – she was there for valued automotive opinion and not just to decide which pretty colour she liked (although given my lousy colour vision that is a valid input).
I called in briefly at SEAT and Skoda garages which were more off the beaten track but I think I’ve got my shortlist sorted and I am very much favouring the Golf or Auris (and possibly the Yaris if I can find a decent discount). The next step for me is to get my Yaris MOTed – either to maximise it’s trade I value or to make it easier to sell privately. I’d also like to have another test drive in the Golf as I’m not entirely sure which engine I had in the hire car. After that, it’s a case of keeping an eye on Autotrader and seeing when something suitable comes up.
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