Bumpf

Sssssh, That's going to cost you

I just got a call from one of the owners of the crash repair place that  was assessing the damage to Mini.  They did a really good job of respraying the car a couple of years back when I was refurbishing her so they were my first port of call after her recent incident. Barry had just got back from holidays and recognised me and my cars details in the office so he wanted to call me himself.

The problem is Mini is an old car and damage is difficult to assess and requires particular skills to complete.  Those skill are not needed on modern cars and so are in short supply even in top-notch car repair centres.  Barry's asked if I can leave the car with him for a day so that they can take take off the light, the front grill and wheel; get it up on the car lift and give it a good going over for an accurate assessment.

While he's erring on the side of too much, his guess is as much as €2,000...(it could be less).  No insurance company is going to cover this.  This is getting depressing.

Need Speed

Listening to a Billy Joel's "Everybody Loves you Now" and it's frenetic piano has flicked my speed switch - need to drop a gear, drop a wing, open the throttle, feel the G, wind in my face, blur blue and green, sideways, skyward.   Let everything go. Free. Air.

Testing 1-2

It's going to be a week of tests.  Mini, went for it's NCT on Sunday and, after a wedge of a cash for servicing and a nervous half hour of testing, it passed.  Now starts the preparation for the next one in two years time - it looks like I should be budgeting for a new rear sub-frame.

Friday sees me sit my PPL theoretical exams -again.  I passed these over two sittings over three years ago but despite that fact that I've been flying regularly since then, the powers-that-be have deemed that I need to sit them again.  Fantastic.  So it's an unpaid day off work for me on Friday and another €120 to the IAA.

Car Tax

Me'n'She have been thinking of buying a car lately.  Entranced though we were by a two year old Alfa, we weren't too keen on loan repayments.  So I've been looking for low-cost alternatives.   An old but tidy Merc or BMW appealed.

Sure enough one turned up the other day.  A lovely 1993 BMW 3-Series; Calypso Red, automatic and the clincher for H, heated leather seats.   For four thousand Euro, it would have been a perfect choice.  So why haven't we gone to check it out?  Irish road tax is fantastically expensive!  I was a 2.5 litre car and the road tax alone for the year would be €961.  Insurance would be the guts of another thousand, bringing the running costs to close to the repayments on a much newer Alfa.

The car was originally bought in the UK.  What was the tax on it there, about €250.  This country makes insane amounts from taxing motorists.  Yet somehow, it can't afford to build roads without resorting to Public-Private-Partnership projects which results in further motoring expenses in the form of road tolls.

Where do our taxes actually go?

Mmmmmazda

The new Mazda MX-5 is the first car on my radar out of the Geneva motor show.  It's certainly becoming a little more sophisticated in the cabin but overall it is still keeping to a simple design on the exterior.
It's regularly referred to in this part of the world as a hairdresser's car and I'm wondering  if this year's model been face-lifted to address this.  From the rear it still resembles the out-going model and the characteristic top curve of the  windshield is retained.  Everywhere else though is much more masculine.  The curving waist-line is less pronounced in this year's model and with the wheel arches being more flared, in the style of the RX-8, the car just looks beefier and more purposeful.   

We like it, but she says "not much luggage space".

Avoid bashing the Bentley

So the '04 registered Bentley GT caught my attention.  My word it is a stunning looking car;  beautifully imposing.  What kept my attention was the idiot driving it.  Sir, if you can afford €150k car, then you most certainly can afford a hands-free kit for your mobile phone.   Buy one.

Think of how much easier it will be to make right-hand turns at junctions with both hands on the wheel.

Nanny State or Ninny State

Aparently Dublin's new tram system, the Luas, was involved in 22 traffic accidents every week during it's first six months of operation, almost one a week.   Quite frankly, I'm not surprised.  People haven't gotten the concept of not breaking red lights, nor of not entering a marked junction area unless you can exit it immediately.  I think people need a couple of smacks with a large blunt object moving at 50 kph.    It's a tram.  It runs on tracks.   The tram cannot swerve because it is on tracks.  The tracks are signposted and there are traffic lights at the junctions.  If you have mastered the skill of driving these are not at all difficult concepts and will aide you in completely avoiding being hit by one of these new-fangled tram things.

Now I know that everyone wants to feel represented by somebody.  And normally I think the Automobile Association makes reasonable representation for the motoring public but this is what they said on the eveing news;

"It is human failure rather than system failure that's happening but you have to design as system to cope with the fact that it's human beings that use it. And that, I think, means better signposting, better warnings and certainly better policing "

Better policing !!!  Do we want the "Boys in Blue"  to ensure that our shoe-laces are tied properly every morning so that we don't trip and fall?  Are people this helpless?  We don't need more signposting, we don't need better warnings.   People just need to follow the rules that are there and that are  designed to prevent accidents.
Why do we always call for the police and other authorities to do something about problems that are in our hands to solve?

As if the motivation of not being hit by a tram isn't enough.

Cuore Sportivo

What car would I buy with €10,000.  It's not as easy a choice as you might think, particularly if you're looking for something relatively new, with a bit of character and something that you wouldn't mind spending several hours of weekend traffic in. Sure, a Volkswagen Golf or Toyota Corolla are both very good cars but they don't have much in the way of character.  A slightly older BMW 3-series or Audi A4  would certainly be a nice enough place to be while driving cross country but still, they're a little dull.  My little one-litre Mini may not be the the most comfortable car to be tackling the lesser roads of Ireland in but at least when I get to where I'm going, it's an arrival.  Driving is more than just a matter of A to B and my car has to reflect that.  It has to have spirit.  Hmmm, spirit.

If anyone "does" spirit, it's the Italians.  An Alfa, that'd be nice.  Sporty, distinctive and engines with voice!  An Alfa Romeo 156 would fit the bill but there are quite a lot of them about these days.  I'd like something a little less familiar.  With only a couple of hundred sold every year, that would have to be the Alfa 166.  A quick internet search found two.  Each was a 2000 model and both where a little either side of my imaginary €10,000.

Now the detractors will say, "Alfa, no way!".  Bear with me though.  Yes, they have a reputation for not being the most reliable of today's cars but I've spoken to plenty of owners who've never had any hassles. Those that have had problems, have said that they are mostly niggles, rattles and associated noises.  Apart from under the hood,
the biggest noise an Alfa 166 makes is the sound of it's value plummeting.  Take the model I found  for example; fully equipped with leather, air-conditioning and satellite navigation, the 2005 price of that car is just shy of €50,000 and on the forecourt today, it's yours for €12,000. For Joe Car-buyer, that means a luxury liner for sturdy saloon money.

I took one for a test drive this week.  When I saw where it was parked on the dealer's yard I nearly didn't. The 166 is a big car and  I didn' t think I could reverse it out of its spot but as my neighbour used to say, "it didn't grow in there".  I nearly gave myself whiplash looking backwards over each shoulder but I eventually got it out on the road. " So this is an Alfa Romeo, niiiiice", I though to myself as I made myself comfortable in the plush leather surroundings.  I didn't have the code for the stereo but that just meant listening out for things that shouldn't be there.  Over the speed ramps on an nearby residential road and sure enough, even at low speed,  something in the vicinty of the front  suspension objected.  That was disappointing. 

Left, onto a main commuter route and into traffic.  This is one of the situations where I can see the merit of  owning an automatic but I am looking at this car as a long-range machine.  And,  after all, nothing, but nothing beats a Mini around town.  There wasn't much I could test in these traffic conditions so I played with the interior toys.  The Alfa has a lovely cabin, a lot brighter that it's Tuetonic counterparts but the the switch-gear doesn't feel as if it has the same kind of granite-like endurance as Audi's or  BMW's.  That said, neither does any older Toyota I've been in and Toyotas break even less than many of the luxury marques.  Left at the next set of lights and its normally a clear stretch even at this hour of the day.  And it's clear!  First, second, I'm glad I have no stereo this is a georgous engine note and I'm heading for 60 kph before I can find third.  Ease off a bit to a safer 50kph.  Very peppy indeed.  The road is still clear so I let the speed come back to 30 to 35 to see how it pulls away in third.  It's a little reluctant but to be fair this is a 2.0 litre engine hauling a big car not a sports saloon.   There is an occasional noise from the rear of the cabin but that may just be the dealer's sign rubbing on the upholstery.  I do like this car.  Heading back to the forecourt and I'm surprised at how easily I've adjusted to the size of the 166.  Parking it would still be a challenge but having reversed out of a space that I would  have been careful about in  a Mini, I think it's manageble proposition. 

Having parked back in the same spot I decide to have a quick poke around the rest of the car.  Many of the reviews that I've read say that it's a bit cramped in the back.  At 1m72 (5'7")I'm not particularly small and I had loads of room.  If you were a 1m80 (6'0") driver maybe there would be less room but if it were my car, my passengers would be looking for planning permission for townhouses.   So I've gone and ruined a pefectly lovely looking car by putting my surfboard  rack on the roof, can I carry my luggage and the wet-box for the wet-suit in the boot?  Absolutlely.  The opening is a little narrow but the boot lip is low offering easy access and  ,because the car sits relatively low, slighly bulkier items  can be dropped in from above the opening.  One unusual feature that I noticed is that that battery box is in the boot of this car.  That may sound odd but since that's where it sits in the Mini I can tell you that it can be quite convenient for jump-starting should the need arise.  Certainly, it's a lot  cleaner to access.

This is not a car you buy with your head and definitely not as a new car.  It is a car that could you love, though.  Just let someone else run the car in and pay for the depreciation.   Yes, it squeaked on speed bumps but with the stereo on and the engine on-song who's going to hear a squeak.  Sit back, smell the leather and enjoy the drive.

Mini'n'Me

I stopped outside the modest terraced house, shaded from the low morning sunlight, the grass still crisp from the previous night’s frost.
Despite looking a little forlorn in the damp, shady driveway I could see the potential. It was a deep cherry colour with black and gold carriage stripes along its sides.  And then there was all that chrome.  This car would not look out of place in any driveway, in any neighbourhood.  As I got closer, gaping rust holes in the door subdued my initial enthusiasm but I remembered my research; check the boot for rust, check under the carpets and rear seat and, most importantly, look for rust on the sub-frame, whatever that was.

Despite the suspect doors, the more I looked, the more this car looked to be sound.  I sat into the driver’s seat to start it up.  I really had no idea what to look for.  I had notions of looking for loads of black or white smoke from the exhaust or gunk under the oil cap but I wasn’t at all sure what it meant other than those signs would be a source of future trouble. And something did happen when I started her up. I heard the sound of a real engine coming to life.  This wasn’t a modern, homogenous, humming motor.  There was something organic about this little car that said it was more than just mechanical. There was no doubt; I was smitten. As I sat in the drivers seat looking around at the black leather and deep red carpets I was nodding quietly to myself “yeah, I can see me in this car”.   I could never have not owned a Mini.

Tags: cars,personal