Post by Big Blue on Apr 26, 2022 10:11:32 GMT
Well this is possibly the only holiday rental this year worth writing about until Christmas as we're not going to Spain (Turkey instead) and intend to drive across in the summer as we did last year. I did have one rental already (a Fiat 500 Hybrid in Nice which was unmitigated shit) but it was not worthy of writing about.
So this time I got a Peugeot 5008, as mentioned elsewhere. I could start by saying that "blah blah blah.... worthy family lugger.....blah blah blah.... I'd never buy one......etc. etc." as I always do but that's not the point, maybe more so in this case.
Let's start in the dark car park at Vienna's Schwechat Airport. As we walked to the parking space number given it was apparent that this thing is HUGE. As tall as me and as long as a bendy-bus (remember them?) So a quick once over of the interior based on that impression and later inspection. I can sit behind myself and the girls still have space in row 3 (I found out it had a third row of seats on day 2). Using row 3 totally negates luggage carrying ability though so it's a seven seater car but you can either FedEx your luggage ahead or buy a roof box. It has a flat floor which means the middle (individual) chair in row 2 is a proper adult seat - a bonus when visiting family, as we were. The row 2 outer seats also recline and the middle row slides fore and aft (individually) to give more or less leg and boot space and there are nice touches like fold down tables.
As with all things children related they insisted on being at the very back even though there was no one in the middle!
To my delight the car had cloth seats. They're not quite Eva's seats (probably not as good as the Mini's actually) and were not as supportive as I’d like, but then I’m spoiled by Eva’s items but I so want to have full spec luxury seats in my next car covered in cloth of some sort. The driving position, is a bit “sitting-round-the-family-table-ish”, but then that plays dividends when in 7 seat mode and in five seat mode there is a huge amount of space in the rear seats. One thing that I did find very noticeable was the tiny steering wheel. Now just because it looks like a bus I don't expect a Routemaster-style 30" steering wheel but this was like holding a joy-con for a console! Even W2.0 mentioned that I looked ridiculous with some kind of pinwheel in front of me. More on that in a bit....
In terms of family ownership the huge tailgate needs power assistance! Fine to open on gas struts but I'm over 100kgs and there were several occasions where I failed to close the boot in one fell swoop. Without being all-Tory MP misoginistic about it it would be almost impossible for a smaller lady to fully close it I reckon, especially as she tried to distract me by crossing her legs. Another family related issue is the Climate Control. On the way from Vienna I found it nigh on impossible to cool the cabin enough, even though some subsequent journeys were OK. The individual outlet control is also bollocks: instead of a mechanism to partially restrict output from each vent you need to turn the vent to the side to close it meaning it's either blowing a gale or off (dependent on fan settings). In full auto mode the Climate control doesn’t cut the mustard in my opinion.
On to the current bane of life for motorists of a certain age: the interfaces. Firstly there are buttons for various elements of the screen display (the top row) and other useful functions (bottom row) but the buttons are not well lit so the first journey (at night remember) was filled with rear screen, display changes, hot seats and heating controls as W2.0 and I stabbed in the dark. The issue was that the top row are faux-rocker switches and the bottom row are front-push buttons below the icons themselves and set back from the leading edge of the rocker switch row.
This entire set-up further adds to the argument elsewhere that the iDrive controller in BMWs is so much better than anything else out there (like arseholes we all have an opinion
). On to the screen Display element, which had no real ease of sub-menu finding but was very responsive. After a week I was used to it and the nav screen was good. One major issue I had was making the music shuffle all songs. See that little "all" in the bottom left: I had to go onto Google to find out how to do it.
As you can also see I carry a usb stick on holiday with (currently) 4,609 songs on it. Fortunately the thumb wheel on the steering wheel flicks to the next song as I'm not always in the mood for Persian disco music or early synth music by D.A.F.
I will say that the screen always displayed the heating settings and a quick touch sent you straight to them. Whilst the climate control is not that good the on-screen control of it is miles ahead of the Volvo I had in summer 2020 and probably the first touch screen heating control I've not wished for analogue control alternatives. Well done Frenchy.
So, the instrument binnacle. Firstly it has a separate binnacle, which I guess owes more to a design signed off before all-flat-screen cockpits were de rigueur. You have probably all guessed by now that I hate the idea of the driver's view screen not being in a binnacle, making me an old fogey so let's look at the old fogey setting for the clocks:
When we were parked in the Vienna Airport car park I thought that huge square in the middle was some kind of signal not to move. It is of course a zero, as this is the digital speed read out - making the clock on the left utterly redundant. Also notice that the rev counter, whilst round, goes anti-clockwise (i.e. backwards) and with the car having an 8-speed auto was also utterly redundant. You can also see from the red line that this is some kind of diesel (I have no idea what kind). The only time this reading (and all but one of the others) was used was to take these photos to write thisrant section.
At the other end of the spectrum, the minimalist view. Just the digital speed, the gear and the fuel gauge. Probably very sensible for the non-car loving, because-I-have-to-drive driver.
Then there was this "car" setting. For the life of me I had no idea what this was supposed to be advising me. Looks like the fly-behind view on Real Racing 3, the most interesting aspect being the speedo and rev counters on either side being in sliding scales designed to emulate those old Americana gauges with a fixed red line and spinning number-wheel from the early-mid 1960's.
The Nav view would be a good alternative to HUD as it fills the screen with the map and junction advice, retaining those aforementioned Americana gauges.......
.....but for the personalisation setting.
The circle on the left normally showed me the song playing, very useful as I used the centre screen for the navigation and the one on the right flashes up junction information at the critical points. This therefore rendered the Nav view utterly pointless to me (but I can see why others would like it, especially if they opted to turn off the centre screen for night driving). As you can see there is no pointless rev counter or speedo dial; just a big number telling you the speed (and also the Cruise setting when set underneath). The oddest part is the clock timer on the extreme right: this tells you the cumulative time that the engine has switched off in traffic during the journey. What one is to do with this information is anyone's guess.
So after all that I stand by my view that rev counters are utter wank in modern cars with auto boxes, rotary speedos are pointless when accompanied by digital speed read outs and am forced to agree with Martin that if the info isn't relevant why is it there at all? The pilot home agreed.......
Amazingly on the day before we flew home T5 asked why there were no "lady pilots" and we explained that there are lots but she never sees them. Then our first officer on the flight home was a "lady pilot" so I told the head of cabin crew and the girls spent about ten minutes chatting to them when we landed. Looking at that A321 cockpit and going cross-eyed I think we should go with HUD only in our cars and get rid of the binnacle or driver screen. I shall write to Munich.......
I suppose we should look at what is likely the last consideration when buying a thing like this: what's it like to drive? Well it cruises on the motorway with no issues and is actually utterly stable, gathers speed well and never seems stretched or anything other than relaxed - a proper mile munching family wagon. But then I took it down a familiar road in sport mode, alone. WOW! is the only word I can reasonably use. How can such a leviathan be so surprisingly agile and sprightly? Then that smaller steering wheel made much more sense, as it made the car feel like a Golf to chuck about through a series of curves. I can also see where the whole SUV being easy to place on the road comes from as it was no more difficult than said Golf to put in the exact spot you wanted it to be on. Despite this size it's actually 375kgs lighter than Eva and a whopping 565kgs lighter than the Gorilla, so that explains this fleet-of-footness.
Which then leads us to cost cutting. There were some very clear signs of cost cutting, noticeably the main area of the door cards being very cheap looking and feeling plastic:
There were other things like the gaps in the seats in row three being exposed, hardly any USB charge points and the cover over the rearmost seats (which fold into the floor) was so flimsy I reckon it would be in the bin by the end of the first summer.
So economy. I did 1100kms ish and the first tank, which included town and village driving, a trip though the mountains to Zlin in Moravia and is the most representative of normal use managed 48.40mpg and the second which was basically just straight on the Hungarian M1 and the A4 in Austria was 47.37mpg. Normally I'd say this was incredible for a car like this and the like but having recently done a decent journey in Eva I'll say the PHEV petrol did 39/44 mpg (a mixed tank average and motorway-only average), and weighs more so pretty comparable. However I don't think there is trouble suggesting a diesel is a far better prospect for huge intercontinental driving than a petrol or a PHEV. Taking it further to electric only, I discussed with my nephew the lack of Teslas or electric cars in Czech and Slovak cities and he explained. A friend of his had a Tesla but the total lack of charging and those that exist not being super chargers makes them utterly unviable. He reckons Zlin, a very modern industrial city of 75,000 inhabitants has about 5 Tesla owners in total as there is no way the up and coming Czechs are going to wait around for their car to charge on the long trips to see relatives who invariably move to the rural areas when they retire, or to holiday cottages that are in the mountains or the Austrian lakes. I'd imagine if I tried to charge my car at the in-laws house, built in '74, the electrical system would either trip out or catch fire which is another consideration for the legislators.
So back to the start where I said I'd say I'd never buy it etc. Not as true as might be the case. If I had the need, the space and the justification for having a car just for family trips this would be very high up the list, especially at about £35k for a decent spec one brand new. I was so pleasantly surprised by it in terms of usability, drivability and all round functionality that I can't just dismiss it as a car for "other people". That said, it hasn’t lost its Frenchness. All week I was frustrated at there being no dimmer for the screens then on the way back to Vienna I saw it hidden, unlit, to the left of the instrument binnacle. On the right side was the trip reset, which I had also not seen and used the start mileage as my datum point for mpg. Who thinks up this button randomness?
Anyway, here it is in a very new car park where the spaces have been designed for modern cars. I can't think I've seen such a thing in the UK anywhere, no matter how new the car park.
This one is a new spa, built when a developer broke some land and found a 65ºC spring under it, which is not uncommon in Slovakia. The hot pool is cooled to 39º, the middle pools to 35º and 29º and the cold one is 18º. I spent a couple of afternoons there, just sitting in the sun and the volcanic waters looking forward to retirement when I shall do this kind of thing all year round.
Overall a pleasant spring break with a very pleasant car for transport.
So this time I got a Peugeot 5008, as mentioned elsewhere. I could start by saying that "blah blah blah.... worthy family lugger.....blah blah blah.... I'd never buy one......etc. etc." as I always do but that's not the point, maybe more so in this case.
Let's start in the dark car park at Vienna's Schwechat Airport. As we walked to the parking space number given it was apparent that this thing is HUGE. As tall as me and as long as a bendy-bus (remember them?) So a quick once over of the interior based on that impression and later inspection. I can sit behind myself and the girls still have space in row 3 (I found out it had a third row of seats on day 2). Using row 3 totally negates luggage carrying ability though so it's a seven seater car but you can either FedEx your luggage ahead or buy a roof box. It has a flat floor which means the middle (individual) chair in row 2 is a proper adult seat - a bonus when visiting family, as we were. The row 2 outer seats also recline and the middle row slides fore and aft (individually) to give more or less leg and boot space and there are nice touches like fold down tables.
As with all things children related they insisted on being at the very back even though there was no one in the middle!
To my delight the car had cloth seats. They're not quite Eva's seats (probably not as good as the Mini's actually) and were not as supportive as I’d like, but then I’m spoiled by Eva’s items but I so want to have full spec luxury seats in my next car covered in cloth of some sort. The driving position, is a bit “sitting-round-the-family-table-ish”, but then that plays dividends when in 7 seat mode and in five seat mode there is a huge amount of space in the rear seats. One thing that I did find very noticeable was the tiny steering wheel. Now just because it looks like a bus I don't expect a Routemaster-style 30" steering wheel but this was like holding a joy-con for a console! Even W2.0 mentioned that I looked ridiculous with some kind of pinwheel in front of me. More on that in a bit....
In terms of family ownership the huge tailgate needs power assistance! Fine to open on gas struts but I'm over 100kgs and there were several occasions where I failed to close the boot in one fell swoop. Without being all-Tory MP misoginistic about it it would be almost impossible for a smaller lady to fully close it I reckon, especially as she tried to distract me by crossing her legs. Another family related issue is the Climate Control. On the way from Vienna I found it nigh on impossible to cool the cabin enough, even though some subsequent journeys were OK. The individual outlet control is also bollocks: instead of a mechanism to partially restrict output from each vent you need to turn the vent to the side to close it meaning it's either blowing a gale or off (dependent on fan settings). In full auto mode the Climate control doesn’t cut the mustard in my opinion.
On to the current bane of life for motorists of a certain age: the interfaces. Firstly there are buttons for various elements of the screen display (the top row) and other useful functions (bottom row) but the buttons are not well lit so the first journey (at night remember) was filled with rear screen, display changes, hot seats and heating controls as W2.0 and I stabbed in the dark. The issue was that the top row are faux-rocker switches and the bottom row are front-push buttons below the icons themselves and set back from the leading edge of the rocker switch row.
This entire set-up further adds to the argument elsewhere that the iDrive controller in BMWs is so much better than anything else out there (like arseholes we all have an opinion
). On to the screen Display element, which had no real ease of sub-menu finding but was very responsive. After a week I was used to it and the nav screen was good. One major issue I had was making the music shuffle all songs. See that little "all" in the bottom left: I had to go onto Google to find out how to do it.As you can also see I carry a usb stick on holiday with (currently) 4,609 songs on it. Fortunately the thumb wheel on the steering wheel flicks to the next song as I'm not always in the mood for Persian disco music or early synth music by D.A.F.
I will say that the screen always displayed the heating settings and a quick touch sent you straight to them. Whilst the climate control is not that good the on-screen control of it is miles ahead of the Volvo I had in summer 2020 and probably the first touch screen heating control I've not wished for analogue control alternatives. Well done Frenchy.
So, the instrument binnacle. Firstly it has a separate binnacle, which I guess owes more to a design signed off before all-flat-screen cockpits were de rigueur. You have probably all guessed by now that I hate the idea of the driver's view screen not being in a binnacle, making me an old fogey so let's look at the old fogey setting for the clocks:
When we were parked in the Vienna Airport car park I thought that huge square in the middle was some kind of signal not to move. It is of course a zero, as this is the digital speed read out - making the clock on the left utterly redundant. Also notice that the rev counter, whilst round, goes anti-clockwise (i.e. backwards) and with the car having an 8-speed auto was also utterly redundant. You can also see from the red line that this is some kind of diesel (I have no idea what kind). The only time this reading (and all but one of the others) was used was to take these photos to write this
At the other end of the spectrum, the minimalist view. Just the digital speed, the gear and the fuel gauge. Probably very sensible for the non-car loving, because-I-have-to-drive driver.
Then there was this "car" setting. For the life of me I had no idea what this was supposed to be advising me. Looks like the fly-behind view on Real Racing 3, the most interesting aspect being the speedo and rev counters on either side being in sliding scales designed to emulate those old Americana gauges with a fixed red line and spinning number-wheel from the early-mid 1960's.
The Nav view would be a good alternative to HUD as it fills the screen with the map and junction advice, retaining those aforementioned Americana gauges.......
.....but for the personalisation setting.
The circle on the left normally showed me the song playing, very useful as I used the centre screen for the navigation and the one on the right flashes up junction information at the critical points. This therefore rendered the Nav view utterly pointless to me (but I can see why others would like it, especially if they opted to turn off the centre screen for night driving). As you can see there is no pointless rev counter or speedo dial; just a big number telling you the speed (and also the Cruise setting when set underneath). The oddest part is the clock timer on the extreme right: this tells you the cumulative time that the engine has switched off in traffic during the journey. What one is to do with this information is anyone's guess.
So after all that I stand by my view that rev counters are utter wank in modern cars with auto boxes, rotary speedos are pointless when accompanied by digital speed read outs and am forced to agree with Martin that if the info isn't relevant why is it there at all? The pilot home agreed.......
Amazingly on the day before we flew home T5 asked why there were no "lady pilots" and we explained that there are lots but she never sees them. Then our first officer on the flight home was a "lady pilot" so I told the head of cabin crew and the girls spent about ten minutes chatting to them when we landed. Looking at that A321 cockpit and going cross-eyed I think we should go with HUD only in our cars and get rid of the binnacle or driver screen. I shall write to Munich.......
I suppose we should look at what is likely the last consideration when buying a thing like this: what's it like to drive? Well it cruises on the motorway with no issues and is actually utterly stable, gathers speed well and never seems stretched or anything other than relaxed - a proper mile munching family wagon. But then I took it down a familiar road in sport mode, alone. WOW! is the only word I can reasonably use. How can such a leviathan be so surprisingly agile and sprightly? Then that smaller steering wheel made much more sense, as it made the car feel like a Golf to chuck about through a series of curves. I can also see where the whole SUV being easy to place on the road comes from as it was no more difficult than said Golf to put in the exact spot you wanted it to be on. Despite this size it's actually 375kgs lighter than Eva and a whopping 565kgs lighter than the Gorilla, so that explains this fleet-of-footness.
Which then leads us to cost cutting. There were some very clear signs of cost cutting, noticeably the main area of the door cards being very cheap looking and feeling plastic:
There were other things like the gaps in the seats in row three being exposed, hardly any USB charge points and the cover over the rearmost seats (which fold into the floor) was so flimsy I reckon it would be in the bin by the end of the first summer.
So economy. I did 1100kms ish and the first tank, which included town and village driving, a trip though the mountains to Zlin in Moravia and is the most representative of normal use managed 48.40mpg and the second which was basically just straight on the Hungarian M1 and the A4 in Austria was 47.37mpg. Normally I'd say this was incredible for a car like this and the like but having recently done a decent journey in Eva I'll say the PHEV petrol did 39/44 mpg (a mixed tank average and motorway-only average), and weighs more so pretty comparable. However I don't think there is trouble suggesting a diesel is a far better prospect for huge intercontinental driving than a petrol or a PHEV. Taking it further to electric only, I discussed with my nephew the lack of Teslas or electric cars in Czech and Slovak cities and he explained. A friend of his had a Tesla but the total lack of charging and those that exist not being super chargers makes them utterly unviable. He reckons Zlin, a very modern industrial city of 75,000 inhabitants has about 5 Tesla owners in total as there is no way the up and coming Czechs are going to wait around for their car to charge on the long trips to see relatives who invariably move to the rural areas when they retire, or to holiday cottages that are in the mountains or the Austrian lakes. I'd imagine if I tried to charge my car at the in-laws house, built in '74, the electrical system would either trip out or catch fire which is another consideration for the legislators.
So back to the start where I said I'd say I'd never buy it etc. Not as true as might be the case. If I had the need, the space and the justification for having a car just for family trips this would be very high up the list, especially at about £35k for a decent spec one brand new. I was so pleasantly surprised by it in terms of usability, drivability and all round functionality that I can't just dismiss it as a car for "other people". That said, it hasn’t lost its Frenchness. All week I was frustrated at there being no dimmer for the screens then on the way back to Vienna I saw it hidden, unlit, to the left of the instrument binnacle. On the right side was the trip reset, which I had also not seen and used the start mileage as my datum point for mpg. Who thinks up this button randomness?
Anyway, here it is in a very new car park where the spaces have been designed for modern cars. I can't think I've seen such a thing in the UK anywhere, no matter how new the car park.
This one is a new spa, built when a developer broke some land and found a 65ºC spring under it, which is not uncommon in Slovakia. The hot pool is cooled to 39º, the middle pools to 35º and 29º and the cold one is 18º. I spent a couple of afternoons there, just sitting in the sun and the volcanic waters looking forward to retirement when I shall do this kind of thing all year round.
Overall a pleasant spring break with a very pleasant car for transport.
