Machpoint005

Can't you persuade her to buy a sensible car with (1) front wheel drive and (2) a boot big enough for more than a handbag?

Two flights of stairs downwards.

I notice the product is "unavailable right now" on the Halfrauds web site.

Willie Thorne used to have A 147 PRO but that was a long time ago (Mercedes S class IIRC)

And don't put expensive "premium" fuel in.

Best fuel economy implies the maximum miles per pound cash. The volume of fuel you use is utterly irrelevant. If there were a magic fuel that gave you double the mpg but cost two and a half times as much per litre, you would be wasting your money.

And on green bins generally (which where I live means garden and food waste), how much landfill space do you think there would be if we didn't recycle whenever possible? Where woud you like the (unsorted) waste put so you don't have to deal with it?

Before some folk start banging on about how terrible the bin collectors are, I suggest they spend just half a day riding in the cab of a bin lorry and see what they have to put up with on a daily basis. I did it last year and it's a real eye opener.

Anthracite, if I'm not mistaken - same as my MY12 Elegance.

No DRLs. The parking lights are at the top of the headlamp clusters (well, one is at the moment).

My FL Octy Elegance has Xenon headlights. Bulb failure warning has just popped up on Maxidot -- sure enough, LH front parking light is out. Not a major problem, but the yellow warning light is a bit annoying. Owner's manual says it's a dealer job to replace the parking light bulb, presumably because it's a light cluster out job and the xenons have to be set up correctly afterwards. Am I right, and should I just resign myself to sitting in the dealer's waiting area for an hour while they fix it?

You need a sense of humour to drive a Nissan Joke, apparently.

It was a lot cheaper for the council to pay up than to fight him. Also a lot cheaper to carry on using strong adhesive to prevent other chancers from claiming the ticket blew away.

I hope your attention to the road is better than your attention to spelling.

I question whether this basic lack of courtesy correlates with age. It doesn't in Manchester.

Many of us who are north of 60: (1) can still drive perfectly well (look at our low insurance costs) (2) are polite and considerate (3) still work hard and recognise how hard it is for younger people whose housing costs take such an enormous proportion of their income. (4) If you can find anyone in their early 60s who is better off because the retirement age has increased, just before they got there, I'd be amazed.

My three years old Octy 2.0 DSG has 59000 on it with no issues at all, but that's not exactly taxi mileage. I get a MFD-indicated 55 mpg, which in reality is still north of 50mpg - say 525 miles from a £60 tank at today's prices.

Apart from mine, apparently.

Because it isn't your road.

The condenser* failed on my MY12 F/L Octy after about 18 months. Fixed under warranty and no problem since. Echoing other posters - you can soon tell if the A/C needs attention because it stops providing cold air! *The dealer told me it was an Audi part. Why am I not surprised it's the only thing to have failed?

Perhaps the OP is just unlucky, in that he's the first employee who is running a 3+ year old car with an MoT that has come up for renewal?

Not sure I can help you with a Fabia boot, but the trim comes off fairly easily on an Octy. A combination of screws and brute force, if I remember correctly. When you get in behind the left-side panel, make sure you wire the two parts of the hose really firmly together (wind copper wire round the joint really tightly). It worked on the Memsahib's mk1 Octy, still working effectively now that my daughter has the car.

Some other advantages (in my experience) of buying an ex-demonstrator: (1) lots of extra toys included, (2) any minor niggles will have been well and truly sorted, (3) you can test drive "your" car before buying it, (4) what you see is what you get. Bought my Octy four months old, 6000 on the clock, with all the bells and whistles. 50,000 miles and three years later, still working faultlessly. On the basis that I'll be doing a lot more miles before changing it, I could see no point in paying an extra 4-5 grand just for the honour of recording the first 6000 miles myself. It would still have been a three-year-old second-hand car by now!

Yes - it's usually quicker to go round such installations anti-clockwise as you don't have to give way to traffic on the roundabout, only to joining traffic. But it depends...

All petrol comes from the same set of taps at the same refinery. Shell V Power and the BP equivalent have some overpriced additives The rest is just marketing -- use the cheapest.