Eccles

Can't see the point unless you suffer from night blindness or have a wish to temporarily blind oncoming traffic. I have read suggestions that they will eventually ban them and I ave heard that the French have already done so.

It took me quite a few years to understand that driving everywhere at shall we say "top speed" was a really dumb,costly and pointless thing to do. I think I finally became "mature" when I got to the age of around 55.

Yeah that was one of the really daft things they did - everything got a lot more complicated and expensive to maintain after that. My first car was a S/H Ford Prefect with starting handle. It didn't go very quickly but it was tough as old boots and any old idiot could service it so no expensive garage bills; you just went round the nipples with a grease gun once a year and occasionally cleaned and checked the spark plug gaps. Can't recall when the the oll change change was done but it didn't matter much because the oil was cheap as chips. These days one has to take out a bank loan before taking one's car to the garage but it should not be that way.

...and finally, the next car I will get will have a starting handle. In the far off days of my youth starting handles were still quite common and so relatively small cheap batteries which went on for ever were the norm. One went through a bit of a learning curve with starting handles because if you didn't get it right there could be a backfire with the possibilty of a sprained wrist.

Ah well I phoned up the man at VAG a couple of years ago:- Why does VAG advise 5 years when other manufacturers talk of 60k miles or even more in some cases? VAG man: "Well it is a "recommemdation" and not mandatory, some ignorant people treat their cars quite badly and VAG have them in mind when making this recommendation." Me:- I only do 4/5k miles per annum and am not a boy racer at my age so how about 7 years? "You must understand that it is your risk, you will probably be OK with that but I can't officially give you a guarantee".

I still do not understand why the passenger door cannot be opened once you have got into the car. I have done it countless times - like I do one click to open the drivers door which leaves the rest of the doors locked. Then a family member comes out side and wants to join me - I just lean over and open the passenger door manually from inside the car......

Why not just stick some rubber on with a suitable adhesive as I have done.

I would just add that you can be well ripped off for a replacement battery if you don't do some proper searching. My battery is now over 5 yrs so I am thinking of replacing with a Yuasa EFB before next winter. £75-£85 seems about right but I have seen some thieves trying to charge twice that amount.

Well I suppose if they will insist on attempting to make it look vaguely like a SUV, then I will have to keep mine for a long time or get a Dacia. I mean why on earth would I want to/need to pay another £2,000 or more for a Scala, it doesn't make sense.