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Archive for the ‘Cars’ Category

For a few weeks we’ve been considering replacing our Volvo S60 as our requirements have changed somewhat.  Looks like we’ve done it!  We’re picking up the replacement on Saturday all being well.  We’ve gone for a Mini Cooper convertible, not quite the BMW Z4 3.0 I wanted but SWMBO is very happy. Pictures to follow……

Picked up the iQ2 last night from Inchcape Toyota of Basingstoke.  So far so good, the automatic gearbox is light years ahead of that in the Aygo or the smarts we owned.  Updates to follow……

Was digging through some photos recently and found one of my first car.

It was a 1978 Mercedes 230 in ‘English Red’.  A lovely car and built when Mercedes over-engineered everything on their cars.  I haven’t come across any other car that was as solid as this one.  I ran it for a couple of years and sold it on at a small profit.  This was followed by a 1984 Mercedes 190E which was just as good.  Unfortunately the 190 was written off in 1999 when I was rear-ended at 50mph by a Hyundai.

We pick up our new iQ on the 2nd March.  Ordered an iQ2 with CVT automatic gearbox in white.   I won’t be that sorry to see the Aygo return to the dealer, it’s a mode of transport rather than a car that has a personality.  I’m sure the iQ will be treated differently!

The Fiat 500 didn’t cut it in the end, nicely built and a fun drive but I just can’t get past the fact that it looks like a Nissan Micra from the back.

For the last few years our second car has tended to be something small and funky.  We ran several smarts including a couple of cabrios and the cars were great fun.  They were however mechanically suspect as we had 3 engine failures in 3 different cars, all under 10k miles but that’s another story.

The final straw came when the cabrio roof failed and smart wanted close to £2.5k to fix it.  A smart independent dealer sorted it out and the car was subsequently sold.  Our needs had changed somewhat and we needed something slightly bigger than a smart so ended up with a Toyota Aygo Blue which is cheap as chips to run and has been utterly reliable.  It is a cheap car and built to a price so the interior is a bit ‘plastic’, it’s noisy on the motorway and there is very visible evidence of cost cutting.

I’ve been tracking the launch of the new Toyota iQ and last weekend we finally had a test drive courtesy of Inchcape Toyota at Sandhurst.  What a fantastic little car!  Yes it is pricey but you get toys that are normally the reserve of much bigger cars; heated and folding mirrors, automatic xenon lights, auto wipers, keyless go etc etc.

On the road it was fine, the little 3 cylinder 1.0 engine was more than adequate, the wide body with a wheel at each corner gave it a stability that the smart just can’t compete with and it was very refined for such a small car.  It coped very well at motorway speeds and wasn’t noisy at all.  It is in a different league to the Aygo altogether.

Our Aygo goes back to the leasing company in a few months and I’m seriously tempted by the iQ but we do have a test drive of Fiat 500 lined up.  It’s going to be close……….