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Living with the new car
Posted by dan in just me wittering on June 11th, 2009
As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve bought myself a new car, and picked it up last Monday morning. On the whole, I’m impressed! Here are the good and bad points:
The features I like:
- I’m averaging 54mpg out of the car. This is really impressive, considering the sort of driving I’m doing. My journey to work is half motorways and half hilly country roads. I’ve driven a couple of hundred miles in it so far, and only used about a third of the tank!
- The car is comfortable, easy to get in and out of, and looks fantastic.
- There’s a warning beep if you drive away without putting your seat belt on.
- The trip computer. This is the first car I’ve had that’s had one of these on, and it’s interesting to find out what the instant mpg is, the total mpg for the trip, the trip time and so on.
- You can set an alarm to buzz when you go over a certain speed.
- There’s a useful “mute” button on the steering wheel for the radio.
- The lights turn off when you switch off the ignition, this means it’s impossible to leave the lights on and wear the battery flat.
The things I’m not so keen on:
- It doesn’t have Blue&Me. This is because it’s a 2008 model, and Blue&Me was an optional extra last year. So I still have to use the wireless radio adapter for the iPod. I’m not overly bothered about the bluetooth thing, I hardly ever need to use the phone when I’m driving, but the iPod functionality would have been nice. My fault this one, I should have checked before I bought the car (not that it would have stopped me, probably)
- The Astra had wider door pockets, with a curve at the front big enough to put a bottle or can in. The Punto has drinks holders, but I’m not convinced they’re deep enough to hold a bottle upright when going round a sharp bend!
- The clock in the Astra was connected to the radio’s RDS system, so it always kept itself up to date. I don’t think the clock in the Punto does this.
- There’s no light in the boot.
- There doesn’t seem to be a spare wheel, only some sort of compressor to fix punctures by the side of the road. I’ll have to check this with the dealer.
- I can see part of the dashboard trim reflected in the tinted windows when I look in the wing mirrors.
But these are minor quibbles (well, everything but the spare wheel is a minor quibble!). So far, though, I think I’ve made a good choice with this car.
A word from the wise…
Posted by dan in Things that happened today, family on June 7th, 2009
My son said today that the reason I wear a baseball cap on my head on sunny days is that if I didn’t, the sun would burn a hole in the top of my head, then in the back of my head, because there’s nothing in the middle to stop it….
Talk about saying it as you see it!
You’re hired
Posted by dan in just me wittering on June 3rd, 2009
I think we should put all the fired Apprentices in the cabinet, they’ll do a much better job than the current lot!
Saving time
Posted by dan in Things that happened today on June 2nd, 2009
The stockroom guy at work said it would take two people a month to enter the prices for all the stock items into the new accounts/stock system. I spent three hours preparing the data and importing it, thereby saving nearly 300 man-hours of work. Will I get a thank you? Will I get a bonus? Will I get I warm fuzzy feeling of a job well done?
One out of three ain’t bad.
Bought a new car!
Posted by dan in just me wittering on June 1st, 2009
After five and a half years and over 85,000 miles (plus the 22,000 miles the car had on it when I bought it), I’ve decided that it’s finally time to trade it in for a newer model. I’ve been extremely impressed with the car (a Vauxhall Astra), it’s still solid and reliable, although it’s now starting to show signs of age. There’s an intermittent squak from the wheels, and the ride isn’t as good as it used to be. These things could be fixed, but it’s probably better to change the car before I have to spend lots of money keeping it going, rather than after! When I bought the car I said I was going to keep it until it had done 100,000 miles, and it’s done that admirably. Part of me will be sorry to see it go!
So, what to get as a replacement? I know car dealers are getting a bit desperate to shife stock at the moment and there are some stonking deals to be had on a brand new car, but most of them are still out of my price range. I visited a few dealers, picked up a few brochures, and had a test drive in a Toyota IQ. This is a really nifty little car, perfect for town driving, it’s tiny on the outside but more than big enough on the inside for a driver and passenger. It felt like a bigger car when I drove it as well, I didn’t feel that it was going to tip over on the corners or anything like that. But (there has to be a but, doesn’t there?) I don’t think it would be suitable for the relatively high mileage I do, and it was also quite expensive. The car has only just been launched, so there aren’t any second-hand ones available on the market yet.
Another car I was tempted to look at was the new Ford Fiesta. This car has had excellent reviews, and I read in What Car magazine about a chap who’s bought one who does about 200 miles a day, so at least he’s pinning his hopes on it being solid and reliable! Again, it’s a brand new car and there aren’t any used ones available yet, as a result I discounted this car on the basis of price.
I found an internet broker (www.buyacar.co.uk) and had a look at their prices for different makes and models, and happened to look at their prices for Fiat Puntos. Wow, very impressive, might be worth a look, this one! Off I went to the local dealer, picked up a brochure, and booked a test drive for the next day. I’d decided I wanted a diesel car this time round, the sort of driving I do would make a diesel cheaper in the long run, even after the higher initial price and higher cost of fuel. The test drive I had in the car was very short, the dealership was short-staffed that day, but they asked me to come back the following weekend and I’d be able to take the car out on my own for an hour.
I wasn’t initially too impressed with the car, the gear change took a little getting used to, and I stalled it once or twice, but that was probably because I wasn’t used to driving a diesel, or maybe the pedal in the Fiat was a little stiffer then the one I was used to in the Astra. I was willing to give the car another shot, though.
The next weekend I went back and as promised, was given the keys to a car and asked to bring it back in about an hour. I took it on the route I use to go to and from work every day, which is a route that provided a mixture of motorway driving, country roads, and start/stop town driving. I worked out how to use the trip computer, and used to tell me the average fuel consumption for the trip. When I returned the car to the dealer it was reading 59.8 miles per gallon.
By now my mind was pretty much made up. The car was nice to drive, it had all the bells and whistles on it that I wanted (specifically somewhere I could plug my iPod into!) so the only thing left was to work out a deal. I didn’t need to haggle with the guy, he gave me a decent trade-in on my car, and offered me a price I was prepared to pay on a car with the level of trim that I wanted. Actually, it was the car I’d driven on the short test drive the previous weekend. First registered 11 months ago, the car had stood on the dealer’s forecourt and only been used for short test drives in all that time. It’s only got 77 miles on the clock! He’s giving me the full three-year warranty and will make sure the car has been checked over and is in tip-top condition before I pick it up, which should be next Monday if the finances go through without a hitch.
Even though the car was registered last June, I’m still treating it as a brand new car, because even if you buy one that’s only got delivery miles on it, it could have been sitting out in the elements for several months anyway.
Roll on next week!
Still not grown up
Posted by dan in just me wittering on May 31st, 2009
Following on from this post, I can tell you that I have since bought myself… er, my son (cough, cough) one of these Mindstorms sets. Actually, I ended up buying two from eBay, as both auctions ended about the same time. Haven’t sold the other one yet, it’s sitting on top of my bookcase at home. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I made that original post though!
The lesser spotted fantastic bank holiday weekend
Today was a good day. In fact the whole weekend’s been pretty darn good. Saturday I spent the day with my son at my parents house, copied some of my dad’s old cine film to dvd, copied it from there onto my PC, and started playing around with tidying it up. More on this in another post I think.
Yesterday I got out on the bike and rode 60 miles, up onto the hills, took some photos and rode all the way back again! Have a look here and here for a couple of pics. I also took a car for a test drive, as my car has now done 107,000 miles and I think it’s time I changed it before it fall apart. Again, more about this in a future post.
And then today my ex and I took our son for a day trip to Morecambe, where we played on the beach, soaked up the sun, and ate far too much junk food. Take a look ay my favourite pic of the day.
And to cap it all, the sun shone. Sheer perfection, couldn’t have wished for anything better.
Test of embedded video on youtube
Ok, so it may not be so impressive to some, but this is the first time I’ve done this!
This is a short clip from a Super 8 cine film my dad shot on my first birthday, back in December 1967. I had hair on my head back then!
Oh, and don’t be thinking your speakers have broken… dad’s cine camera didn’t record sound