|
Post by racingteatray on May 20, 2024 16:37:49 GMT
Looks-wise, that's an improvement. But I confess it's still not a car that I can get excited about, particularly in London where every Uber is either a Prius or a 3. I have driven a friend's one and...it was ok. Mostly I absolutely detest the interior plus the fact that for a car that looks like a fastback, it in fact has a rear opening arrangement that I thought went out with the Allegro.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 17, 2024 14:38:06 GMT
Good luck! Assume an Audi RS3 is too pricey?
I always wondered who liked the styling of the EV6. I think it's a mess along with that large electric Hyundai that looks like it escaped from the bar scene in Star Wars.
My wife has the option of the salary sacrifice scheme (we also have one but as a partner I'm not eligible) and we looked into it and there was nothing there that Mrs M felt justified the cost. The 500 is starting to feel old (indeed it will be 11 yrs old in October) but for pottering around inner London it still does the trick.
There are certainly days when I consider selling the Macan and using the cash to buy myself a proper sportscar instead, but of course I'd want that with a manual gearbox and then we'd be living in central London with two manual cars and there are times on a longer journey / stuck in traffic when a good automatic is just what you need and want. I'm also not terribly interested in realising the residual loss on the Macan any time soon, which while not as bad as most other cars, is still a fair amount.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 16, 2024 16:47:20 GMT
I'd still take the M2, in black to best disguise all the hideousness and put on some much nicer wheels. Job done. Depends. If you want a manual, it must be the M2. Otherwise I'd have the M240i. I keep looking at the Z4 M40i manual. But then I remind myself that a lightly used Boxster GTS manual is not hugely more.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 16, 2024 16:44:39 GMT
There is a lot I like about it, but it does need a windscreen. It's available as an option.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 16, 2024 11:54:07 GMT
I’d rather have an M240i than M2. Me too. The M240i has the bonnet bulge and the flared arches without the stupid M2 addons and having seen a few being given full throttle on the road they are plenty quick enough. My mother's neighbour bought one in Portimao Blue last year - well-optioned with sunroof etc - and I have to say it looks very smart. Has a great stance and just harks back to the E30 325i in appeal.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 16, 2024 11:49:59 GMT
Sounds like SEAT still do what they do. Smart looking exterior. Bit sporty to punt. But the interior - oh dear. That looks awfully plastic and nasty, but SEAT interiors have always been of pretty low rent. It wasn't great. I just couldn't fathom the choice of back-lit red plastic around the vents - it appeared to be made of the same sort of flimsy cheap plastic as supermarket Halloween fancy dress.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 16, 2024 11:47:27 GMT
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 15, 2024 14:00:17 GMT
Only for a mega-discount - 40d engine has been (or is being) discontinued in the UK I think.
The residuals on M2s are not good - you can get a nearly new nicely-specced manual (and the manual costs more) for a shade over £50k. Clearly the fact that they are fugly is not helping matters.
The M240i looks heaps better - more than butch enough without the XM-alike titivation (still think an XM is a Citroen rather than a gopping BMW SUV).
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 14, 2024 21:07:00 GMT
It’s been a while since I last rented a car but we’ve just come back from a long weekend in the Cinque Terre, flying in and out of Genoa. Avis kindly upgraded me from a Class C to a Class D, which turned out to be a fairly box-fresh Seat Arona 1.0 FR in metallic grey. Now I’ll admit that I may have known that such a thing as an Arona existed within the VAG kingdom but I couldn’t swear to it. It wasn’t a bad-looking thing in FR spec - rather smart with vague shades of Matro Ranchero about it to my mind. It was also interesting in that it felt bigger inside and felt bigger to drive than it actually was. And in fact it was pretty spacious - definitely a car for our hat-wearing brethren. On the topic of the interior, this was merely ok - generally rather a drab design which some junior designer had tried gamely to liven up with red stitching, large slabs of silver plastic and some very dubious translucent red plastic of truly Christmas cracker quality that lit up at night - oddly the illuminated side air vent dimmed on the relevant side whenever you indicated. I didn’t care for the rather messy digital instruments either. Seats were comfy though and the leather-rimmed steering wheel nice to hold. This one, despite being in relatively ritzy FR spec (so bright lights, snazzy alloys, snazzier trim inside and out, adaptive cruise control etc) had the smallest 95CV 1.0 petrol triple with a 5spd manual gearbox - old skool! So it wasn’t exactly a ball of fire. One-up, it punted along just fine once up to speed and it could be coaxed along a twisty road surprisingly fast - third is very flexible for a small engine if you keep it in its torque band. Four-up, it struggled a bit more - especially faced with steeper inclines - but less so than I would have expected. It is a bit grumbly-sounding at low speeds but revs out cleanly and was refined at speed, notwithstanding 5spd gearing. What I wasn’t expecting at all was for it to handle really quite keenly. I flew down after everyone else, so picked this car up alone from the airport and then drove down to join them. The last 30kms were twisty mountain roads along the southern Ligurian coast below Portofino. It was dark and I was late, and no-one else was about on a Thursday night. So I made progress and unexpectedly really quite enjoyed chucking this most unlikely of cars around. It just handled satisfyingly and dealt with rough surfaces and odd camber changes pretty fluently, the automatic high beam doing its thing well. It also had a nicely weighted manual box and clutch, and generally steered well - even the flat-bottomed steering wheel didn’t annoy - when twiddling the wheel that much it almost made sense. It was also the first car I’ve ever driven with adaptive cruise control and so it was interesting to experience it working - I didn’t realise it had it until I realised it was keeping us at a constant distance from the car in front despite the cruise control being on. It used about 15 litres of petrol over 250kms of driving, so that’s around 47mpg, which is reasonable given it is a touch underpowered. I looked up how much an Arona FR would set you back and, for the 115bhp 6spd manual which seems to be the cheapest version you can get in Blighty, it’s about £25k. To be honest, that seems quite good value these days for something that isn’t exactly exciting but is smart, a sensible size and drives surprisingly well.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 14, 2024 14:15:53 GMT
Not sure I could live with that cheap looking Fisher Price interior. This is an issue I have with all modern cars with screen everywhere. I must admit, though, the driver screen on Mercs is a bit meh. It's the unnecessary disco lighting that I object to - I prefer the Saab "black panel" approach. Nice looking car except for the front, which is better than the BMW for sure, but still not nice. It would look so much better with a modern interpretation of the traditional grille and gunsight star.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 3, 2024 10:50:57 GMT
This is why I bought a new Macan. There was just not a big enough price difference between a new one and a 3yr old one.
And prices are continuing to climb. The RRP (with options) on my Macan GTS has gone up 9% in the 14mths I've had it (from just shy of £79k to just shy of £86k).
When I bought mine, Gentian Blue was a standard metallic shade priced at £685. It's now listed as a "Dreams" shade at £1,185... Copper Ruby, which I also considered, is now a "Legends" shade at a mere £2,250.
The base metallics (now £741) are white, silver, grey and black...so basically colour costs...
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 3, 2024 10:20:27 GMT
Our local vote is only to chose a Police Commissioner Think that's the same here in Horsham District. I'm so uninterested you could fit all the fucks I give in a thimble with plenty of room to spare. As for London. Looks like Siddiq will get back in but what's he going to do after the general election? He can't keep blaming his failing on the government if his own party's in power! No greater demonstration of why the Tories are flat out of time can be found than their London mayoral candidate, a person who is not just to the right of the Tory party, but one who expresses admiration for Truss and Trump. How any one in their right mind thought she was a candidate capable of winning election as mayor in London of all places is unfathomable. She literally only has any kind of chance because Khan is so universally loathed. It was the most open of goals and the Tories are at risk of not even connecting foot with ball!
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on May 3, 2024 9:39:34 GMT
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 17, 2024 21:00:55 GMT
Thought of you yesterday - we went to the Members Meeting at Goodwood and walked past at least six Yaris GRs in the carpark, four of which were a sort of wine red colour. The wine red colour is called 'Scarlet Flare'. When the GR Yaris first came out, I thought I would order one in that colour. In some light conditions it looks fantastic but in other light conditions I'm not so sure. So I ended up choosing Precious Black, which at least makes the front look like Darth Vader's helmet If I'm able to get an allocation for the Mk2 version, I will go for the new Precious Metal (metallic grey) colour which I think will suit the new shape pretty well. Done about 110 miles in mine today at an average of 32 mpg (Cheltenham to Coventry return trip for my current contract job). Interesting. I had to drive up to visit a client near Leicester today which was a round-trip of around 215 miles and got almost exactly the same average fuel consumption from the Macan. I think you can thank large chunks of 50mph average speed monitored roadworks on the M1 for that though...
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 16, 2024 22:02:32 GMT
Those bastards at Capri Sun have been getting away with it for decades. Never mind them, what about Ford with their Cortinas, Granadas, and Capris. They even named the Escort and Fiesta after a couple of Jazz mags FFS. Not a minge to be seen between them. But possibly quite a few mingers...
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 15, 2024 20:58:19 GMT
Very pretty. All my cars are particularly filthy at the moment! Thought of you yesterday - we went to the Members Meeting at Goodwood and walked past at least six Yaris GRs in the carpark, four of which were a sort of wine red colour.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 15, 2024 17:08:10 GMT
So, Milano no longer and not Tychy either, but not far off…. The Alfa Romeo Milano was revealed just last week as the Italian marque's very first pure electric vehicle, but it seems the Italian government wasn't too keen on its name. As a result, the new compact SUV has been renamed entirely to 'Junior' before the first cars had a chance to hit the road.
In an official press release, Alfa Romeo confirmed that despite the firm believing the Milano name met all legal requirements, a government official declared the use of the Milano name illegal. The logic behind this ruling is that the new model will be produced in Poland, contravening a law that prohibits the sale of products with Italian-sounding names that aren't produced in Italy. The current Italian government isn't quite as batshit as ours (things you never imagined you'd write, huh?), but it isn't far off. Melons herself is quite a smart operator, but she's got some proper nutters in her party (not to mention in her coalition partner, Lega, led by Matteo "Putin Fanboi" Salvini) and she has to keep them on side with this sort of tabloid stuff. Plus it must be said that Italians have noticeably cooled on Fiat and associated brands ever since it become Stellantis and b*ggered off to pay its taxes in Luxembourg, which did cut through with the Italian public and generally went down like a bucket of sick.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2024 15:33:51 GMT
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2024 12:45:12 GMT
It looks nice enough for what it is (a small SUV I assume) but there's nothing really 'Alfa Romeo' about it is there. If you stuck a Renault badge on the front it'd be easy to assume it genuinely was one of those small Renault SUVs I've seen a few of recently. Quite.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2024 12:43:39 GMT
Mrs Tim got a speeding fine from Germany in summer 2020. Has something changed since then? Rental car or own car? But remember that Brexit took effect at end of Jan 2021 when the transition period ended - that's when EU law ceased to have direct effect.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 19:12:24 GMT
Being someone who is rapidly heading towards midlife fuddiness, I'm not sure I care for this development.
One of the things I liked about the Macan is that, being based on fundamentally ancient architecture, it was a rare car you could buy new that had most of the modern tech that I wanted with largely none of the modern BS that I didn't.
You can't, for instance, have a heads-up display on a Macan due to some element of the ancient platform. Do I miss that? Not in the slightest. I've had a car with a head-up display and I simply found it a bit irritating.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 19:07:03 GMT
The Austrian one is a pain but you can just stop in the first petrol station you come to then buy one. Switzerland also has a physical sticker, they make you buy it at the border however! Switzerland also has the advantage that if you rent a car there, you can drive into some of the EU countries and not get fines when you get caught on a flash cash speed camera. I’m not advocating this, but found out about it after I was caught in France on one of those 130-90-60 kmh stretches that seem to happen within about 500 metres. Nothing passed on to the rental company so I didn’t have to pay. ALERT!! Not any more - recent change in EU law means apparently the Swiss are going to have to be more law abiding from now on. So for now, Brit (and other non-EEA) plates are the only ones that confer this "immunity"...I say "for now" as there will doubtless by some killjoys here in the UK and in the EU beavering away to put together a new post-Brexit accord for swapping driver details.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 19:04:17 GMT
Morris Oxford….. Although that was intended to express the grandeur of a University City along with its stablemate, the Austin Cambridge. Ha. I'd forgotten those. It got me thinking about the possibility of a Rolls Royce Silver Sussex...but I feel the word "Sussex" has become a tad tarnished... Ford was probably wise to go for Capri over Brentwood.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 16:34:59 GMT
It amuses me this Italian thing of naming cars after their home cities and getting away with it - Ferrari Modena, Alfa Milano.
The Jaguar Coventry just wouldn't quite have the same ring. I suppose Vauxhall did do the Luton, but that was appropriately enough a van.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 12:44:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 9, 2024 9:12:37 GMT
A good choice, again I'm no fan of the front end but the rest of the package makes up for that and Tanzanite is a close second to that lovely green they do. Its why BMW are well ahead of most of the competition. It can't be hard to tool sales people with the right equipment to close customers. I was in car sales over 20 years ago and it seems that nothing has changed and that most dealers have a guy who has no power to make decisions and has to refer you to the sales/business manager. If that BMW was in the Jag showroom you would still be waiting to do a deal and probably never get round to it. Yes, the customer service I've had from Porsche during and since buying it has only been ok...definitely not as good as BMW. I know I was a repeat customer of Vines but I was spending half the money and I wonder how people get and keep new customers if you don't treat them extra-well upfront. Whenever we have a new client, I work on the basis that we have to actually deliver a better and more responsive service than that client expects in order to distinguish ourselves from our many competitors. Simply being "as good" doesn't really cut it in today's hyper-competitive environment.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 9, 2024 2:10:09 GMT
Excellent choice and a nice colour/ interior combination too. It will be interesting to compare the whole ownership experience. Indeed. "All-nighters" are mercifully rare these days but this is one of those times and I am sat here waiting for a Canadian legal point to be settled in something urgent, so went back to re-read my thoughts on the (lesser) i4 I tried knocking on for two years ago: themotorforum.co.uk/thread/3114/bmw-i4It's definitely a car that looks better on the bigger wheels.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 8, 2024 20:47:00 GMT
Ooh i4 M50....nice.
If I had to have an electric car, that would be my choice. I'm still not a fan of the buck-toothed front but one of our neighbours has one in Tanzanite Blue with the blacked out grille and it does look good.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 7, 2024 13:14:28 GMT
I am of course talking about Italian motorways - the cruising speed is, shall we say, more spirited...
We were also three up with luggage, but I confess I don't drive with even half an eye on economy. Mrs Racing eeks far better mpg figures out of any given car than I do.
|
|
|
Post by racingteatray on Apr 7, 2024 8:06:36 GMT
That is pretty good, but it is a diesel. I’ll just leave this reminder of what a 4.4 litre V8 petrol engine can do….at a decent average speed too Yes BMW achieves a level of cruising parsimony with its larger engines that is apparently unobtainable witchcraft for other manufacturers. Much of that methinks is the 8spd ZF auto but then again other makes use that box too without the same results. I did a run from Mantova to Fano before Easter in the Mini (1.5 turbo triple), a distance of around 170 miles and nearly all motorway, and used roughly one-third of a 45 litre tank, so that's something like 50mpg, albeit at an average speed of around 70mph.
|
|