THIS IS A LONG, AND POSSIBLY BORING POST. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED :-)


Just had a call from my mum. She's decided she wants to change her car.
She's fed up with buying new
and only wants to spend around £4-4500.

Here's what she's looking for.

light to drive/easy to
4 doors with legroom for a 5'6" aunt in the back
economical - "preferably a diesel"
Small ish - she asked me if they do a 4-dr Ka(!!)
Reasonable stereo
Good ground clearance - the top entrance to our road is a very steep
downhill unmade road all of literally 4 yds long, but it goes
"flat-steep-not so steep" very quickly. Too steep to drive UP in anything
other than a 2CV or 4WD. A Berlingo van has enough clearance, the mondeo
bottoms out , the Saab has no chance!

And... it "hasn't to be too normal. I don't like all these boxy hatches".

My mum has had 5 cars in her driving career.

2 2CVs
A lada 1200 saloon
A Vitara (bought new)
A Jimny (bought new)

She wants a car nicer on the motorway than that lot too. She does about 6k
per year, mostly around town. Takes my doddery gran out quite often.

Now, here's the crunch. My mum's weird. She will NOT trail round car dealers
and private sales looking at each car. She treats the car like an appliance,
not a vehicle. What it is, how it drives, is not important to her at all as
long as it does what she wants. She is not interested in shopping for a car.
I have to do that for her. She has better things to do with her time. She
hates driving, in that it is a waste of her time. She is actually a good
driver.

Example - she saw Jimny in the paper, and said "I want one.. sort it out.
Here's the cash". So I did. I told her it was a pile of shit, and I told
her she should drive the bloody thing first. I had to get them to bring the
car to her though for her to finally do so. I still told her it was shit,
but she said "well, it's a lot lighter than the Vitara"... I'll have it.
Refused point blank then to try a "normal" car instead - because of the
ground clearance issue and bought it. New. 12 months ago. Now, she's finally
twigged it's shit, and wants to get rid and get a conventional car! This
only happened as she got forced to use a Ka as a courtesy car, and much
preffered it. So that is my task.....

Any ideas what car I should get her? She usually keeps them for a while
too - the Vitara she bought new and had for 11 years..

She is a PITA to deal with too.. but hey, she's my mum, and she's that
strange that it's funny!


Any ideas gratefully received!

Mike

Hi Mike,

Not sure about the ground clearance but my mum has a Toyota Starlet 3dr
which she is very happy with.

I know there is a 5dr version and hers is very nippy with power steering.
The boot is not the largest but it will do.

She got it from my cousin 3/4yrs ago who works for VW and its never had one
fault. Very reliable.

I considered getting it but it was just too small for my liking, so ended up
with a Octavia instead.

As the Starlet's not been around a while it may be better to check out the
Toyota Yaris instead as it seems to get good reviews as well.

Cheers,
Stephen
"Mike P" <stickit (AT) up-uranus (DOT) com> wrote

"Stephen Leslie" <stephenleslie (AT) blueyonder (DOT) co.uk> wrote


Thanks for the suggestion Steve. The Yaris was something I'd not thought
about. Having a look on Autotrader they
look like they might have enough clearance - long wheelbase cars suffer more
on that road - they bottom out in the middle because of the initial drop.
Pricewise they look spot on, and we all know they don't break down.

Mike

"Mike P" <stickit (AT) up-uranus (DOT) com> wrote

oh well, there goes my suggestion (corsa 1.7 diesel)

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 23:20:30 -0000, "Mike P" <stickit (AT) up-uranus (DOT) com>
wrote:

<snip>
"And... it "hasn't to be too normal. I don't like all these boxy
hatches"."

?
--
Pete
Cut out the carp to reply.

"pete boyall" <pboyall.spamblock (AT) _nospam_ (DOT) IHATESPAM.lineone.co.uk> wrote in
message news:3fe4215a.2996408 (AT) news (DOT) btopenworld.com...
Exactly. You don't know my mum :-) a Yaris doesn't look normal to her....
Fiesta, etc does. I know they all look similar, but this is my mum we're on
about.. don't try and make sense of it please. You can't. I've been trying
for 30 years!

Mike

"JM" <me8 (AT) privacy (DOT) net> wrote

Not necessarily. My brother and I are slowly convincing her to get a more
conventional car.. at least we've got her away from the Suzuki 4WD stuff...
lets see how far we can get her to normality!

Cheers

Mike

"Mike P" <stickit (AT) up-uranus (DOT) com> wrote


Daihatsu Terios

Budgie


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"Mike P" <stickit (AT) up-uranus (DOT) com> wrote

Micras - I have learnt to drive in one of the old one (low and crap) and one
of the new ones (feels like the Starship Enterprise). It is a lot higher and
handles superbly on dual carriageway and around town - new sleek lines too -
nothing like the old type - well worth a look. I know about low cars - I
have a Rover 214 - feels like your sitting in a go-cart and handles like one
too.

Gaynor