Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

It’s alright, I’ve already got diesel and British SUV (RR) so used to cars with shitty reliability.

This is a company lease for the wife so anything wrong and it’s all covered. Plus her company pay for it for the whole of her maternity leave so it’s basically free for a year.

If expect most of the electrical components would be of Nissan origin or at least off the shelf from many other companies. I know your comment is probably mostly in jest though.

Edit, it appears I'm the one assuming. Renault manufacturers most of the components of the driveline. Even the foundry for the motor. Hmm, oh well nor worries. The French make pretty good trains and jet planes

This is the third gen now with 8 years of manufacturing this model / drivetrain.

I trust it more than the range rover.

Hit me up if you ever visit Ireland!

I will mate.
I was going to come and visit friends in Roscommon but maybe 2021 now.

Haha - driving the current one (Ford E250) is like riding the stay puft marshmallow man, after they turned the torches on... The shocks are well on the the way out now; motion of the ocean is approaching seasick levels.

The extended Chevy 3500 is about 15" longer in wheelbase (about the same as a crew cab pickup.) They're definitely nicer on the freeway and most roads and the 3500 is stiffer all around. The extended Ford is handier around Town as all the extra length is behind the axle, not so clever loaded up at speed.

Both are a bit shite for the In and Out drive through.

The old US vans are great off road, especially if you have posi. They're pretty much just pick up trucks with a box on top. It's the one plus over the new Transits which are sooooo much nicer everywhere else.

Oh I love those Sportsmobile pop tops. Bloody Expensive though - 11k to fit one! That's about what I want to spend on the van....

Just charged my Volvo from a lamp post... neat stuff.

Ubitricity costs £2.48 to add 11Kwh to the car which will give it 25 miles of pure electric... this is roughly half the cost of running petrol alone (113p per litre of super unleaded based on 29.3mpg which I observed yesterday).

Definitely going to do this a lot more.

Especially as Volvo are refunding all electric costs for the first year of ownership.

What kind of driving gave you 29.3mpg?

I guess this would be "combined"... it's the calculated mpg for the first 1.5k miles of real use and is a mix of stuck in traffic city use and motorways.

Hmm, at work one of our MDs has a XC40 hybrid on order, the other an X3 (German company, normal to have 2x MDs) be interesting to see what they get.

I have a RAV4 and get 44 on the motorway 58 in town, colleague with an Outlander PHEV gets under 30.

I'd note I've left it in Polestar Engineered mode quite a bit and haven't been a slouch on the motorways.

I'm not trying to be economical, if I'd wanted to buy a highly capable car and then moderate myself to the extreme I'd have got a Tesla. Nope, I wanted fun, speed, and safety... and it's definitely fun and fast.

Minor details.

1 Attachment

Noob question.

Should be getting the new (well, pre-registered) car next week. I'm trying to sort a residents parking permit and it's all online, which is great but you need to upload a photo of the V5C document which I understand gets posted to you from the DVLA at some ambiguous point after purchase. Do they (Waltham Forest) just expect you to pay parking fines until the V5 arrives? There's no obvious temporary system in place from what I can tell.

Also, missus technically bought the car but cant drive so will I have to be the registered keeper on the document?

Please excuse my total lack of knowledge with this stuff.

Could ask if they'll accept a pic of the V5c/2 slip in the interim?

My council also accepts insurance certificates, which are created instantly. Otherwise, do they do any sort of visitor packing voucher type things? Otherwise gamble, or park it in your nearest non-CPZ zone until you get it sorted.

My recent V5C (end of May) took about 2 working days to arrive after doing the New Keeper stuff online.

Insurance companies tend to like it if the driver and the keeper are the same person.

Did 65 miles in the Zoe today visiting various people. About 14kwh so just over 230mi range from a 52kwh battery.

Cost to recharge about £1.68 on our tariff.

Surprisingly nice to drive. Got enough poke for day to day driving. Only weird thing is the sound below 18mph. Makes a sound like windows xp starting up or something to warn pedestrians.

Yeah, found the temporary 1 month permit section so should be fine.

I’ll put myself down as the registered keeper when we do all the paper work.

Bikes are so much simpler. Fuckin hell.

When do you get the V5C? Does it come with the car when you pick it up?

How's the general interior quality and space like? Now that we've moved house our car is currently doing less than 5 kilometres on most trips. But for the moment still need the car ( baby capsule). I'd really like an electric runabout, Zoe or a pug 208e or the Honda e.

Surprisingly good. We’ve got the top version (gt line?). Nice digital displays and centre console, recycled plastic bottle cloth & leather seats are good. Looks modern and comes with decent tech (auto lights / wipers), heated wheel and seats, CarPlay, wireless charging etc.

Nowhere near as good quality as the Velar but then that should have been £90k new whereas this is more like £32k new.

Quiet (very little road and tyre noise) and comfortable. Not a harsh ride like some electric cars I’ve tried.

Feels quite spacious but front seat heights are fixed so taller people might be cramped. Electronic handbrake and raised gear selector mean that it feels open as there’s no centre tunnel.

Haven’t sat in the back but apparently you sit very high as the batteries are under the seats. Not that I’ll ever be sitting in the back.

Will definitely be using the rr for long journeys though.

The seller should give you a tear-off section of their old V5C. The DVLA will send you a complete new one when the seller submits the New Keeper form.

Interesting, definitely what I would choose over a nissan leaf. But down here they're nearly $50k Aud.... which is very hard to swallow if not a company lease...

Had the car broken in to, well access was gained as the thieves have learn that you can open a door by triggering the latch. No need to break the glass and make noise.

Stupidily I left tools in the car. Lots of other things too like tyre inflator (decent one not a shitty one) tyre pressure gauge, masks, and even glass wipes, shoe polish and a bottle of slime. Even gave them the decent shopping bags to cart the stuff away. But they did leave hand sanitiser and a 5l tin of white emulsion.

It lives, bolt it back together and off to the paint shop, I’m very relieved it’s taken so much longer than I anticipated.

1 Attachment

• IMG_1234.MP4

Yes!

fuck yeah it sounds great