Cars!

Whooor stingray envy

 

Should have known by the foot note, and the Jag driver

 

Love the C2, and the red, wow

 

Some of you may remember back in 2016 just after moving here to the Highlands Mr S and I bought a Nissan Juke. She's now seven years old and it's time to change. We were going to change last year but decided with Covid lockdown not to bother. She still only has 47,000 miles on the clock which isn't too bad. That said we've had various makes of cars down the years, somewhere between 25 and 30 vehicles. This was our first Nissan and will be the last.

But what are we going to buy? Something of similar size or smaller with a decent boot and hopefully better rear view. The Juke has a terrific blind spot around the struts between front and rear doors and combined with the front passenger seat headrest created almost 2ft of blind area. So much so I've had a few near misses on roundabouts and multi lane roads. The mirrors being no help at all.

We have no idea what we want as yet but we have a fairly free rein on price, new, used or possibly hire, depending on the car. In Tesco's car park today I was drooling over the Maserati that pulled in next to me.... I wish!

We have all the dealerships here but unfortunately a number of those are held by Arnold Clark. No problem with his cars but apparently after sales service is not good. We'll be looking for petrol engine, manual gearbox and preferably a telescopic steering column but I don't know if they are still available.

It's now a case of watch this space, I'll report back as things move along.

 

@Sheal

Would expect most new cars to have fully adjustable steering wheels these days ... the possible exception being some very small city cars ?

To help with your choice before visiting the car showrooms, you want to look on Ytube at the in depth reviews, there are good ones by What Car and another by CarBuyer who now seem to be renamed as CarWow.

Some links below, one for the New Corolla which gets very good reviews and the dealer network usually has very good ratings.





https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars/driver-power/95238/best-cars-to-own-driver-power-results

 

Thank you FC and Ricky. Input is always good.

Mr S will be looking at Kia's next Tuesday when he takes the Juke in for repair. Typically, just before selling, he hit a pheasant on Tuesday gone and it's smashed the front grille. The price of the grille isn't bad, it's the labour cost that's extortionate as the front bumper has to come off to replace it.

Hyundai, Ford and Renault are on the to do list too. But I can safely say those that aren't are Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen, VW and Audi at the moment.

 

We've had several Renaults in the past with no real issues, but I'll take note of your comments. We both like the new Ford Puma so intend to check that out. We also past a new Skoda on the road yesterday which looked like a possibility but I can't remember which model it was. So again a visit to the dealer is a must. Luckily here in Inverness we have a 'magic mile' or two, all the dealers except Nissan are on the same road so we can nip in and out of each one.

I know Toyota are always good, but they've never had that 'buy me' sign on them regarding looks. We came close to buying one of the original Yaris' years ago, it was perfect for me to drive. I could alter the steering column and get a decent seat position, something I need to accommodate an ankle that isn't fully functional. The drawback was for Mr S - his head scuffed the roof.

 

The only real bad car i had was the Jag XE in 2015 when they came out. Long story short plagued with electrical faults, owned it for eight months only drove it for three rest of time spent in loan car, Jag bought it back from me then put it on a wagon and sent it back to the factory it was built at.
Sandy

 

I had 3 Ford Fiesta's in the past 15 years, none ever let me down.

 

Mr S and I went shopping today. Our first stop was to look at Ford, Mazda and Hyundai all on the same plot. We didn't get beyond Ford. We've bought a new Puma ST line petrol/hybrid.