Cars are shrinking ... at least, mine are!

I’ve noticed that my taste in cars is shrinking.

About eleven years ago I purchased my first car. A red VW Polo. As a 1.4CL model, it was perhaps slightly overpowered - at least for me at the time. But eleven years ago, a bit of oomph under the bonnet, electric windows and a decent radio (albeit with cassette) was attractive. We only let go of the Polo a few months ago, and until this year, it was very reliable.

Then there was a Mini. A company car. Yellow - to be easily spotted in the airport car park - and a joy to drive. The radio still had cassette and no CD - too expensive to get it added at the time. But on its fourth birthday, it came of age and was reclaimed to go to the great fleet sales auction.

The Smart Roadster was a bit of an accident. Never quite getting around to ordering another company car in time to meet the twelve week lead time, I ended up giving the Mini back without having anything else to drive. Translink and the bus service didn’t overly appeal. But there was a Smart on the reallocation list - cars given back by people leaving the company that aren’t yet four years old - and it seemed like a fun idea for six months.

Fun = wet seats, automatic transmission (which I at first hated and now love) and ice on the insides of the windows when it gets cold.

But it had the virtue of being small. Though its shortness in length was better than the incredibly low driving position which you get used to after the first time you nearly drive under a lorry in the queue at traffic lights.

The Smart is being MOTed this week, which means it’ll be coming of age in August. I’m going to miss the electronic speedometer - I like knowing that I’m driving at 31mph, rather than just a shade over the thirty mark. I’m not going to miss the car radio that I still can figure out how to programme the stations into the buttons, and the front boot that holds shopping as long as you don’t buy a baguette!

With six weeks to go, I needed a plan. I hadn’t realised that Charles Hurst ran the vehicular equivalent of Disneyland down at 62 Boucher Road. You could nearly test drive a car without leaving their premises. Showroom after showroom after showroom.

Having dispensed with the fanciful notion that I should order a Mini Clubman, I ended up wanting a small, repeat small, five door car, the choice became a simple one between three identical cars: Peugeot 107, Citroën C1 and Toyota Aygo. Identical, in that the mechanics are the same. Built in the same shared factory in Czechoslovakia the Czech Republic, the cars only differ in the bundles of accessories and pricing. And they share the same £35/year road tax.

Having test-driven all three within 18 hours ...

• The Toyota Aygo felt the more comfortable drive - probably down to some tweaking of the gears/pedals and slightly more carpet which baffles the engine and road noise.
  
• The Citroën C1’s drive felt really basic, and the salesman didn’t really have the people skills on Saturday morning to sell me a car. Their accessory bundles weren’t appealing either. Despite the three cars having identical dashboards, Citroën managed to replace some of the black plastic trim with shiny chrome that really looks out of place in a bottom-of-the-range car!
  
• The Peugeot 107 was nice, and drove quite well.

But the Toyota Aygo ended up a better overall match, with a package that included indoor goodies and minimised the external flash-ness. (After all, I can’t see alloy wheels when I’m inside the car, so why would I want to pay for them!)

It’ll be blue, and it should be waiting for me to pick up when I give back the Smart in August.

Did I mention the £35 a year road tax?

And the pattern is that my cars continue to get progressively shorter.

Hopefully in seven-ten year’s time, I’ll be looking for suggestions for another car. I’m guessing that by then the market will be concentrating on chasing the small car market, rather than the tanks and 4x4s that are the current fashion.

But is there a point where cars can’t get any smaller and still stay practical?

Doing the SMART thing?

Company car schemes are good and bad. At their best, they’re convenient and admin-light with car tax, MOT, servicing all someone else’s problem. The flip side is that they’re basically a big hole into which you drop money and have nothing to show for at the end of four years. Oh, and they give you the loan of a car to sweeten the four year payment plan! And standard commercial leases – often for much shorter period – are no better.

The little yellow Mini that has been a joy to drive – and pretty easy to find in airport car parks – celebrated its fourth birthday in early January and on Wednesday I left it back to the workshop so it can be auctioned off.

Now I’m no petrol head, and have no real interest in cars other than I like them to be reliable, hassle free, reasonably comfortable and get me from A to B with as little fuss drama as possible.

So maybe that’s why last Autumn I didn’t quite generate enough enthusiasm to get around to placing an order for a new car to be delivered in January, allowing for the 12-16 week lead time. That, and a moment of wondering whether being a one car family would be possible.

But in the end, I wimped out of the eco-friendly sacrificial ideal and looked at the reallocation list ... cars not yet four years old but left back by people leaving the company that are available for shorter periods until their auction date.

Two choices: a Honda estate or a SMART Roadster. Umm ... a practical family car that’s nearly as long as a bendi-bus – though is still expensive even with the reallocation discount – or a two-seater that’s even more impractical than the Mini Cooper which used to be advertised as the car that can accommodate a strategically folded cow in its boot!

Slight snag that the Roadster is a soft top and had been sitting outside unloved and exposed to the November/December elements for about six weeks, resulting in mouldy seats and a general dampness. Dried out and cleaned, it didn’t look too bad when I swapped keys on Wednesday afternoon, though I have had to cook the owner’s manual on the bedroom radiator to dry out the soggy pages.

My first reaction on getting down (very much down) into the Roadster was that someone must have stolen the clutch pedal! It’s advertised as a semi-manual/semi-automatic – which translates to it being an automatic with a handbrake. Not being schooled in driving an automatic, I’ve now retained by left foot to sit still and enjoy the ride, instead of jabbing on the brake pedal. And I’ve learnt to be patient at roundabouts – as you inevitably brake coming up to the give way, the car will start to change down gear, just at the moment you put your foot down to power away ... except the car’s still in-between gears!

Ten minutes into my ownership, there was an awful moment going up the M2 sliproad at Mallusk where the car refused to go any faster than 20mph despite my foot being right down to the floor. Arghh ... I’d knocked on the speed limiter (how was I to know there was one) when I’d turned on the wipers.

And having driven up from Belfast on Friday morning, I arrived at Magee College in Derry to discover my bum was wet. If you sit long enough, the damp still inside the drivers seat rises up and meets your trousers ... might need to keep the seat heaters on for a week or two.

But after the 150 mile round trip to the north west, we’re now on friendly terms. The car stereo is fine in a car park or at low speeds, but the small speakers are drowned out byt he roar of the engine which is just behind the front seats. It has all the attractiveness and styling of a De Lorian – and probably much of the same build quality. (Leaking soft top is a feature, part of its charm rather than a problem that gets fixed.

Our child seat miraculously fits the passenger seat – and meets the safety constraints of being snug, secure and far enough away from the airbags – and I’m growing used to its “smart” automatic headlights and “smart” wipers that come on when the car decides they’re needed. And most of all, I’ve learnt to keep the seat heater on! Though I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to putting my laptop bag in under the bonnet ... where most cars have their engine!

Better start thinking about what I do in August when this car goes back ...

An afternoon in a Mini Clubman

Having attended the Mini Clubman launch back in November, I managed to test drive one the Friday before Christmas. Though picking up a car from Boucher Road at lunchtime on the day that everyone escapes from work early wasn’t the best idea of the year! And leaving it back at 5pm was even worse.

(I didn't take any photos of the car - but then discovered it was one of the launch models and I'd some handy snaps from November.)

The alpine white Clubman I drove was 24cm longer than the standard Mini Cooper that I’ve been driving for the last four years. The extra side door beside the drivers door – often dubbed the suicide door – gives much better access to the back seats. Combined with the extra 8cm of legroom, it’s particularly useful for fitting a car seat and getting a toddler in and out. (Big hit with a three year old!)

The split back doors give good entry into the boot. Despite the extra length, you’ll only fit the smallest of buggies into the diminutive boot. You can accommodate a regular one by putting down one of the split back seats – but it brings a bit more road noise into the car interior.

I’d wondered if the split door wouldn’t badly obscure the view out the back window ... but the door frame is thin enough that stereo vision (two eyes looking at slightly different angles) compensates and you’ll not miss anything – other than a very slim signpost!

There’s a new BMW engine in the Clubman – it’s a lot quieter than the Cooper from four years ago, and allegedly less thirsty for petrol. Not sure why it needed a sixth gear though? The petrol model I test drove features eco-start/stop. So when its out of gear and travelling less than a couple of miles an hour the engine cuts out. And then when you put your foot down on the clutch it starts up again. Causes you to be a bit heavy with your right foot at the start, but I adapted within an hour.

There have been a few other less favourable “improvements”. The indicators no longer move up and down properly, making it hard to cancel or just blink briefly. And radio’s been integrated into the central dial, creating oodles of buttons but much harder to control.

But it drives well, and it is tempting to order one in the New Year to replace the Cooper that has to go back on its fourth birthday in January to be sold on some lucky punter.

Unusual objects through the front door - and a quick look at the new Mini Clubman

It's been an unusual week for post.

First there was the pink toothbrush that smile.co.uk (an online bank I thoroughly recommend) decided to bestow upon its customers to encourage them to stay happy.

And then this morning a table tennis bat wrapped in clear plastic clattered onto the mat.

Despite two different people promising to send out an invitation to the launch event for the Mini Clubman around in Bavarian's Boucher Road showroom this afternoon, no invite ever arrived.

But at least the Mini marketing department managed to get their mailshot to existing Mini drivers out on the same day as the launch ... and they're right - it's like nothing I've received in the post before!

Never one to let the lack of an invitation card stand in the way of a freebie, I headed down to Boucher Road at 2.30pm for the launch. The "unusual" theme stretched to the food on offer in the opulent Bavarian showroom (the big one - not the tiny Mini one up the street). Crocodile and kangaroo meat on skewers sat alongside a bowl of juicy strawberries and a couple of chocolate fountains. And in a surprisingly non-alcoholic drinks table, smoothies sat beside pretty exotic fruit juices.

Better say something about the car. It's basically a slightly longer Mini, which means that the boot is deeper, but no wider. The "unusual" features are the split doors at the back and the little side door behind the drivers door that allows better access for back seat passengers.

(Story goes that in mainland Europe the extra door is on the passenger side. But to avoid having to move the fuel tank for the UK market, we get the door on the wrong driver's side. No bad thing, as it will also make getting children in and out of a car seat mounted behind the driver much easier too.)

The boot's a little disappointing. Unless you have a very dinky buggy, don't expect to get strollers or prams into the boot. However, if you've no children or they're a bit older, the boot does look a lot more useful for runs to the supermarket, with space for bottles in the back doors, and a flat boot floor that should make lifting boxes in and out of the boot much easier.

They had a beautiful old Mini Countryman on display too - still in use too - along with the PSNI demonstrating satellite tracking of cars by chasing a Mini up and down Boucher Road!

Thanks Bavarian - it was fun ... and I'm still half tempted by the Clubman.

Mini adventure … and I only wanted to change the wipers

You’d think that changing your wiper blades would be a trivial exercise. No.

15 or so years ago I heard a story that suggesting that Ford Sierra’s were built to last for no longer than ten years. Although the technology was available to manufacture quality parts and put together a car that would last for twenty or thirty years, it wasn’t in the car industry’s interests to slow down the buying cycle.

I wonder if BMW have taken this approach with the new Minis? Mine passed it’s third birthday in January, and immediately all the windscreen wipers broke. Now the frost has something to do with it, but within days of the inclusive three year warranty expiring, the plastic on the wiper blades tore leaving big sections of the front and back windows untouched. (The service warranty may not even have covered wipers anyway, probably classing them as consumables.)

So on a Saturday afternoon, I called in at Halfords to buy some new blades. For £3 extra, they’ll even fit them. £3 to save getting your hands dirty? What has the world come to!

But the fellow in Halfords wouldn’t sell me them for the Mini. Oh, they’re listed, but too fiddly to get on yourself. We won’t even do it. Nip up to Bavarian and get the real thing. Note to Halfords – consider incentivising your sales staff, or at least sending them on a sales course.

Half a mile up the road, and the Mini showroom and main Bavarian garage was closed. Saturday afternoon of course. No one would be free and want to buy something.

Went back round on the Monday afternoon. The Mini showroom is surrounded by colourful Minis. It has a big sign beside the door saying “Mini Parts & Accessories”. But inside, can they sell you a wiper? No. There are some on display (apparently justifying the “parts and accessories” sign) but you have to go up the road to the main Bavarian garage to purchase them!As I left, it was tempting to lift (no make that, steal) some off one of the mass of colourful Minis that surround the little showroom.

Up to Bavarian. The Customer Service desk could arrange for them to be fitted, though the guy was too embarrassed to quote the full price. But you need to talk to the parts department if you want to buy them and DIY.

Twenty five pounds and three plastic0bagged wiper blades later. At least it was no dearer than Halfords.

Fiddly little devils. Finally gave up trying and consulted the car’s instruction manual. The front ones were easy enough. But the back one doesn’t get any easier when you follow the instructions. “Pull back to the stop.” What stop. Should read “use brute force to pull old wiper off”. Finally got them changed, though a plastic tab went flying off in the process. But it doesn’t look like the wiper will fall off anytime soon.

So thank you Halfords. You were right. They’re awkward to fit.

And thank you Bavarian. You were as efficient as usual. (My measure of efficiency is the Customer Service call that they make every 6 months or so. “Are you happy with your Mini”. “Yes, except that the boot doesn’t always close properly, and although you changed the catch within the first year, it’s really no better.” “Oh, I’ll get someone in the service department to phone you back.” And no one phones back. Twice they’ve taken my story. I can’t be bothered to chase it. And neither can they.)

And the biggest, most genuine, thank you to Cornell Finch for the accompanying picture that’s released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Bugs and Minis

While Northern Ireland recently managed to clock up a record-breaking 250 Minis in a mosaic (there are links to find John Self’s car amongst the line-up in the comments in my previous posting), it looks like around 200 owners of nice pictures of the VW Bugs.

Mini adventure at an airstrip in September

Having been away for a week, I was trawling through the post this evening to find the credit card bills and get them paid before the interest kicks in. (Is it my imagination, or do HSBC really have a much shorter time to pay than other card providers?)

One of the white envelopes that wasn’t seeking money was from BMW, looking for Mini owners to join them at Newtownards Airfield on Sunday 10 September 2006 at 1pm to attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest car mosaic.

It’s a follow-up to the successful MINI Italian Job in 2003 when Minis lined up the hill up to Stormont and Parliament Buildings. (I was going to link to an image of the Stormont event, but I can't find one online!)