Tag: cars

For all intensive purposes

No, this isn’t going to be a post about commonly mispronounced sayings and phrases, although that may form the basis of a future post – I suppose that depends on whether I could care less or not.

This post was inspired by this post that I came across today on Catherine’s blog, and I thought driving lessons and tests would make a good topic for today’s waffle.

Son, we can do this the easy way or the hard way

It was 2002. I was 19, and I figured now was the time to learn to drive. Up until now, the only exposure I’d had to driving was playing the Gran Turismo series on the PlayStation, and driving my brother’s Vauxhall Cavalier around the car park at Morrisons at the age of 15 – during which I vividly remember exclaiming, “This is nothing like Gran Turismo! How can they call it the ‘Real Driving Simulator’?! Beggars belief.”

So I did some research and decided that, as I would be leaving college imminently and that a driving licence would help me find a job, doing an intensive driving course would be the way forward. I figured it would be easier to get it all done and dusted, rather than protract it out longer than needed. BSM (the British School of Motoring) were offering 30 hour intensive courses, with the driving test at the end, and I dutifully signed up.

The 30 hour lesson programme basically took place over the course of 5 days, but as the test was on the afternoon of the 5th day, with a two hour lesson beforehand, I basically had to cram in 28 hours of driving lessons over 4 days.

At the end of it, my instructor (Neville Blake, not sure if he’s still teaching!) was happy that I was test-ready and packed me off to the Driving Test Centre in Shrewsbury.

It didn’t go terribly well.

17 minors, 2 serious faults, 1 dangerous fault and a partridge in a pear tree

For context, if there’s anyone reading who doesn’t know how the UK driving test works, you are tested on a huge variety of driving tasks – it’s widely regarded as one of the hardest driving tests in the developed world.

If you make a mistake, that’s a minor fault. You are allowed to make up to 15 minor faults in your test and still pass, although if you repeat the same mistake too many times that can fail you.

There are also serious faults and dangerous faults, and just one of either of these is an automatic, instant fail.

The partridge in the pear tree is by-the-by.

I can’t remember what all of my minor faults were for, but I know I got at least three for “undue hesitation”, as I remember being a bit annoyed at being marked down for being too cautious, thinking that extra caution was a good thing. Of course, since then I’ve come to realise that good driving is not only about being safe and making progress, but also not impeding others who also want to make progress.

I’ve also forgotten one of my serious faults. The other one, however, is really annoying. I was driving down a narrow-ish road lined with parked cars, in a residential area. My speed was appropriate for the conditions, that much I am sure, but all of a sudden a small kid (is there any other kind?) rode out into the road on a little pushbike, shooting out from behind a hedgerow in his garden.

There was no way I could have predicted it – I couldn’t see movement under the hedge in the same way you’d be able to with a parked car – but I remembered my training and instinctively went to perform an emergency stop.

Unfortunately, I felt the brake pedal move away from underneath my foot as I went to stomp on it – the examiner had got there first. Again, if the examiner has to take physical action, it’s an instant fail. I was a bit aggrieved by this, as my reactions as a learner driver are bound to be a little bit slower than a seasoned professional, but never mind – the other faults meant I would have failed regardless, even if I’d completed the stop without help.

The dangerous fault was for pulling out of a (very short) slip road on to a dual carriageway and (apparently) causing a HGV to slow down to accommodate my manoeuvre. The fact I don’t remember even seeing the HGV is more worrying, so I’ll let that one slide.

So, what went wrong?

I was test ready. I felt ready. I knew the theory (I scored 35/35 on the theory test, although as that’s mostly just common sense I’m not sure how people don’t) and I could perform manoeuvres to perfection – even the parallel park, which I’m terrible at nowadays on account of hardly ever having to do it.

I think the problem I had was that I simply did not have enough “on the road” experience. 30 hours of non-stop learning would tire anyone out regardless of the
subject matter, so it’s hardly a surprise that I clearly didn’t take
enough in.

One of the first things my instructor said to me was that he wasn’t teaching me to drive, he was basically teaching me to pass the driving test, because you never stop learning how to drive. And he was right.

I stopped learning to drive after my test, until the spring of 2004 when I resumed lessons – one a week, this time with Geoff Young (who I think is still teaching, I see him about occasionally) and with lots of private practice in between to build up my “road hours.”

It turns out that there are a huge number of variables and scenarios that you will encounter when out on the road that learning to drive in such a short space of time just cannot prepare you for.

I passed my second driving test in August 2004, with just 4 minor faults this time. Interestingly, during this test, we came upon a “fresh” accident on a dual carriageway, and my examiner – to his credit – advised me on how best to deal with the obstruction as if he was my instructor, not my examiner.

TL;DR

My advice to anyone looking to learn to drive is, put simply:

  1. Don’t do an intensive course unless you’re 100% sure it’s right for you
  2. Get in lots of private practice
  3. Do your research, and choose a driving instructor that you get on well with (this guy comes thoroughly recommended if you’re in the Shropshire region)
  4. Don’t be disheartened if things don’t go as planned – as said above, you never stop learning so don’t worry too much
  5. Once you’ve passed, look into things like PassPlus or even Advanced Driving courses

And finally, enjoy yourself! Driving offers you unprecedented freedom to go and do whatever you want, it’s worth the effort.

Turning over a new Leaf

As I mentioned in one of my posts just the other day, I’ve been driving for 11 years now – I passed my test in August 2004. Since that time, I’ve gone through cars like most people go through underpants – 22 of them to be precise – pretty much two a year.

I started out with fairly small and slow cars, as would befit a newly qualified driver, and slowly progressed through to 500bhp monsters like the V10-powered BMW M5.

My tastes over the last few years have been for Vee-engined BMWs in general, to be honest – primarily V10 and V8 gas guzzlers, to be precise. The two V10 M5s would regularly achieve such heady heights of 12 miles per gallon – which, at today’s petrol price (£1.07 per litre), with my current work commute (18 miles each way) would see me spending a whopping £14.57 per day to get to work and back – assuming 20 work days per month, that’s nearly £300 a month – and that’s just for my work mileage, not even taking into account other journeys.

My last BMW, a 750i, which I sold on Friday night, got around 22mpg on average, so that’s better but is still £7.95 per day.

Plus of course, there was tax to consider – £505 per year for the BMW. Plus servicing and maintenance/repairs costs, which could have potentially been a wallet-killer on an older BMW – I once had to pay near enough £3,000 for a clutch and flywheel replacement on my first M5.

On top of all that, there’s the money to pay for the car in the first place. In other words, owning these damn cars hasn’t been cheap.

Something had to change.

Why don’t you make like a tree, and leaf?

So, it was with some excitement and also nervousness that I approached my local Nissan dealer a month and a bit ago and enquired about loaning one of their Nissan LEAF electric vehicles for a four day test drive.

I’d been following the development of electric vehicles with much interest over the last few years, a pal of mine up in Scotland* has long been a proponent of EVs, and often posted on Be Excellent To Each Other about his latest custom projects, but they never really appealed – probably because of the Clarksonist tripe often spouted about them.

However, the media coverage of the Tesla Roadster and Model S, and the frequent musings of Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge star Robert Llewellyn, another strong advocate of EVs, made me sit up and pay attention.

Anyway, Greenhous Nissan in Telford were more than happy to loan me a LEAF for a few days. It ended up being a 48 hour test drive as they unexpectedly sold the demo car and had to have it back for preparation, but my experiences over the 48 hours convinced me that EVs are the future, and I paid a visit to the dealership the week after handing the car back and placed an order for my own LEAF.

I picked it up yesterday, and here it is, resplendent in the free Flame Red paint, because I was too much of a cheapskate to pay extra for metallic paint and the only other option would have been white – and cars don’t look good in white unless they’re also covered in Castrol livery!

So, let’s cover off a few of the questions that are often raised about electric vehicles – and again, as with my Eggheads appearance, I’ve been asked quite a few questions, so here they are in roughly the order in which I’ve been asked them the most:

Q. Electric? Have you gone mad? I thought you were supposed to be a “petrolhead” – the clue’s in the name!

A. Yes, it’s fully electric, and no I haven’t gone mad. As for being a petrolhead – I would argue that a petrolhead is someone who has an interest in cars in general, so that hasn’t changed. There’s no denying that the LEAF is interesting, and besides, I’m keeping the Celica.

Q. How far will it go on a single charge?

A. Official figures are 120 miles (on the New European Driving Cycle) but these figures are always a bit out of whack. Real-world usage by others suggest a realistic maximum of around 85-90 miles depending on driving style, weather conditions, outside temperature etc.

Q. That’s hardly anything!

A. Well, not compared to most petrol/diesel cars, no. But the LEAF will be fine for 95% of my day to day driving, and if I do need to make any longer journeys, then a number of options are open to me:

  • Use the Celica
  • Use Jem’s Honda Jazz
  • Rent a car
  • Borrow a car from Nissan themselves, they have a programme setup for this
  • Go in the LEAF, but plan the journey to include recharges

To be fair, I’d probably take one of the first two options simply for convenience – but they’re all viable.

Q. How long does it take to recharge?

A. That depends on the charger, and of course how full the battery is already. From 0% to 80% would take around 11 hours on a 3-pin domestic plug socket, or around 4 hours on a dedicated home charger, or 20-30 minutes on a rapid charger.

I’m having a home charging unit installed tomorrow (at a greatly reduced cost, as the Government provide grants for doing so) and Ecotricity have a growing network of rapid chargers installed at most motorway service stations, so a quick 20 minute stop off every hour and a half isn’t too much of a problem.

Plus there are loads of publically accessible charging points dotted all around the UK – see Zap Map for proof!

Q. It’s not the best looking car, is it?

A. It’s alright – the arse end is a bit challenging, but I quite like the look of it.

Q. What’s it like to drive?

A. At first, quite odd. It’s almost completely silent, it is incredibly smooth and vibration-free. Even at speed there’s almost no wind noise
and the ride quality is incredible. After taking my 48 hour test drive I got back into the BMW and starting the engine felt positively neolithic
with it’s loud burbling and vibrations – and I like the sound of V8s!

Q. How much money is this going to save you?

A. In terms of the cost of paying for the car, it’s about as much as I was paying for the BMW, but the LEAF is brand new. Consequently, it comes with a full manufacturer’s warranty so I don’t have to worry about paying for repairs. Maintenance is virtually non-existent thanks to there being almost no moving parts and fluids, so servicing costs are minimal. It costs me nothing in VED (road tax) as EVs are exempt, and even my insurance is cheaper.

The best part though is that to “refuel” I just have to plug it into my house, and I’ll end up paying around 2p per mile – meaning that my daily commute will cost me, at most, just 75p or so per day.

Q. Coming from a 7-series BMW, this must be like driving a Lada by comparison, right?

A. Not at all. It has just as many mod-cons as the 750i, and even some more on top. A BOSE sound system with Bluetooth audio capabilities and iPod/USB playback (not even the 750i had those!), heated seats, a heated steering wheel, reversing cameras (and even an “All Round View” camera which shows you your entire surroundings:

(picture from the teslamotorsclub.com forums)

Plus, of course, I can plug the car into the house to charge and have it set to warm itself up for me in the mornings so that by the time I get into it to go to work, it’s already nice and toasty warm – it’ll even turn the heated steering wheel on for me for 15 minutes before departure if it’s cold enough.

Q. It’s not really that environmentally friendly though, is it? I mean, the electricity is still being generated by coal!

A. Well, I’m not doing this for the environment (although it is a side benefit) – but consider that most internal combustion engines are, at most, approx. 20% efficient – i.e. for every litre of fuel they use, only 20% of the energy released goes towards moving the car. Electric vehicles are closer to 65% efficient – so even though fossil fuels are still being burned to power them, you’re getting more for less – and of course, as more green energy sources are used, electric vehicles become greener without needing to change anything on the car.

Q. Yeah, but if everyone drove electric vehicles, the National Grid would crumble under the strain!

A. Not really. It takes a huge amount of energy to refine crude oil into petrol and other fuels. If everyone switched to EVs, we wouldn’t need to refine as much oil so that energy usage would be brought right down, making more capacity for EV charging!

You’re a convert, then?

Yeah, pretty much. The technology can only get better, battery life (and therefore range) can only increase – it’s an exciting time to get in on the ground floor.

Hell, my lease on the LEAF lasts for two years and then I have to hand the car back (or buy it I suppose, but that won’t make much sense as technology will have likely moved on by then) – so in theory I may have even saved enough in fuel costs etc. that I’ll be able to switch it for a Tesla Model S

* hello, kalmar!

Driving me up the wall

As regular followers of this blog will know, I love cars and I love driving. The feeling of freedom, of being able to go and do whatever I want in any part of the country (provided I have enough fuel and money to get there of course) coupled with the sheer fun of some roads is very addictive.

But, of course, as with all good things, there are many bad things that balance things out. So, this post is about some of my pet peeves on the road – some of them to do with other people’s driving skills, and some other niggles and thoughts!

Poster-children for the Carphone Warehouse

This seems to be something of a pandemic at the moment. When I’m out driving, or even when I’m walking through town, I will regularly see drivers take their eyes off the road and glance down at their lap – clearly with some sort of phone or other mobile device tucked down there that they’re texting on or something like that. I see this in all ages, but there’s a definite bias towards younger drivers – which is even more frightening as arguably they are the exact group of people that should be concentrating more.

Studies have regularly shown that the dangers of driving while using a mobile phone or other handheld device are very real. Unfortunately, it seems that the rampant cuts to police budgets (as well as an apparent indifference amongst many officers) means that the semi-recently introduced laws surrounding the use of hand-held devices in a car just aren’t being enforced, and people are obviously starting to wise up to that fact.

When you confront people about this, if you don’t get a torrent of abuse hurled back at you, they usually try and defend themselves with logic like, “it was only a short message” or “I had to call to let them know I was going to be late back”, neither of which are really good excuses. Some people like to state that it’s “no worse than talking to a passenger in the car”, which is clearly rubbish of course as passengers can work out when to shut the hell up based on road conditions or the body language of the driver.

Now, despite all my ranting here, I can’t plead complete innocence myself. I sometimes get my phone out of my pocket while driving, but it’s almost always to move it somewhere else so that I can use it as a sat-nav, or to make my leg more comfortable. I’ve certainly never had a phone call while holding the device, that’s what Bluetooth was invented for – although I’m even starting to turn myself off those calls, as it very clearly affects my concentration on the road ahead.

Touch screens in cars

Many modern cars now include some form of “infotainment” system in the dashboard, often containing a satellite navigation unit, stereo controls, car settings menus etc.

However, a rather disturbing trend is for many of them to not have physical buttons to operate them, but instead to use entirely touch-based input. This is a retrograde step for one simple reason – physical buttons can be memorised and their position “felt” without looking. With touch screens, you don’t get any of this physical feedback so you need to look at the screen to work out what button you’re about to press, which seems very dangerous!

The most extreme example of this in recent times is, in my opinion, the Tesla Model S – the interior of which is pictured above. A truly groundbreaking car in many respects – I think it’s the first production full-electric vehicle capable of going 200 miles on a single charge, and it’s certainly the first production EV to be able to sprint from 0-60mph in under 3 seconds.

But look at the size of that touch screen on the centre console. Sure, it might look impressive, but are you seriously telling me that this won’t be a distraction!

Tailgaters

A nice quick rant, this. I really hate people that glue themselves to my arse. I get this a surprising amount, especially in the Celica, which – looking as it does – probably goads people into thinking they can get me to race them.

Sod off, I’m not interested, and if you’d like to climb out of my rectal passage at the same time, then that’d do me just fine.

My usual method of dealing with this problem is simply to gradually slow down until they overtake – I’d rather have an idiot in front of me where I can keep an eye on them, than behind me where I can’t.

The “M6 TOLL CLEAR” sign

Regular travellers on the M40/M42 will be familiar with the sign that gives an update of the level of congestion on the M6 Toll. Which is to say, that it almost always seems to say “M6 TOLL CLEAR” and nothing else.

I don’t particularly have a problem with that, per se, but it would to my mind be far more useful for it to tell me how congested the M6 is, so that I can decide whether to use the toll road or not.

I’ve been reliably informed that in actual fact, the sign does warn of congestion on the M6 too, and that if the sign simply says “M6 TOLL CLEAR” then the main M6 is fairly clear too. But it still rubs me up the wrong way.

The “how dare you overtake” club

I’ve been driving for over 10 years now, and (touch wood) in all of that time I’ve never had a speeding ticket and never had an accident. Actually, that last bit isn’t strictly true, I was involved in an accident last year but it wasn’t my fault and there wasn’t anything I could have done to prevent it short of physically not being there, so I don’t count that.

I (usually) drive a fairly powerful car that is capable of overtaking most things with little fuss.

So it really grinds my gears when the person I’m overtaking takes umbrage at my manoeuvre and then proceeds to speed up – sometimes before I’ve completed the overtake – and shake their fists at me.

Perhaps if they weren’t going at 40mph in a 60mph limit in clear conditions, I wouldn’t have overtaken.

But the real pet peeve for me is when oncoming cars flash their lights at me after I’ve completed an overtake, as if to say “Watch out, you bloody maniac!” – nearly every time this happens, there’s a good 4-5 second gap between me pulling back on to my own side of the road and them going past me. I do recall one time when I cut it a little close, but in my defence the oncoming car was clearly travelling way in excess of the speed limit – something which only became obvious as they got closer to me.

And finally…

People that don’t seem to be able to park in a single space in a car park. They have to straddle the lines, because they’re inconsiderate prats.

Or they park ludicrously close to the white lines so that I have to climb out of my own car via the sunroof. Although to be fair, in some of these cases it’s quite possible that they had to park like that because of other prats who have subsequently driven off.

 

A Brief History of Wheels (2004-2014)

I’ve been told that I change cars more often than some people change their pants, so I thought I’d drop a post on here about my car history over the last 9 years.

I learned to drive in 2002, but failed my first driving test (it was an intensive driving course, all done within a week, and I didn’t have enough “on-road” experience to handle all situations, which led to some stupid errors) and couldn’t afford to continue with it until 2004, although I kept up private practice with my partner at the time supervising in the snot green 1.0L Nissan Micra that she had.

Gallery: Car History

When I first started driving, back in 2004, I simply thought of cars as a means of getting from A to B. Sometimes, I yearn for those days – simply because nowadays I tend to change cars more often than I change my pants.

All of the cars pictured above have been owned by me since November 2004, with the exception of the first one which was bought for me by my Dad when I was 17. I never did get to drive it, but given the state of it that may have been a blessing in disguise.

How to lose a potential customer in three easy steps

Short version:

  1. Falsely advertise your products on your website
  2. Insult your potential customer when they attempt to purchase said product
  3. Admit to false advertising and then accuse potential customer of fraud

For those who don’t recognise the person on the right, that’s Ling Valentine. Owner of www.lingscars.com and famous for her appearance on BBC2’s Dragons Den.

Gallery: Old and busted, meet new hotness…

No, I’m not talking about switching girlfriends…

For the last year or two I’ve had a Recaro interior from a Mitsubishi Evo IV in my GT-Four. Well, the front seats anyway – the rear seats were facelifted Celica seats, and my door cards had been falling apart.

So, I took the car to a chap up north called Simon, who does a bit of automotive interior trimming in his spare time, under the banner of Hide ‘n’ Seat Interiors. I explained what I wanted, and he obliged for a bargain of a price, at least two thirds cheaper than other companies had quoted me.

Gallery: BMW M5 (2005)

The latest addition to my car history is this rather lovely 2005 BMW M5. With 507bhp and a 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds, this is something of a monster.

I’ll be writing a full review of the car once I’ve become more familiar with it and it’s functions, but for now have some photos.

The other cars (with the exception of the Celica) will be being sold to fund this baby, incidentally. So if anyone is interested, please get in touch!

Toyota GT86 Test Drive

After all of the hype, concept drawings and years of waiting, I’ve at last been for a test drive in the GT86, from William A. Lewis Toyota in Shrewsbury.

Carlos Sainz lives on

Thanks to mook over at skewer.co.uk, my GT-Four now looks much, much nicer:

Okay, okay. So, technically Carlos Sainz was most famous for driving the ST185. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure he competitively drove the ST205.

I’d like to think he would have done though, had Toyota not been unceremoniously ejected from the competition for being filthy cheats.

Privacy Policy & Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén