1979 Ford Escort 1.3L

1982 MG Metro

1980 Ford Escort 1.6 Sport

1975 VW Beetle

1980 Ford Escort XR3

1990 Peugeot 205 1.6 GTI

1998 Peugeot 106 GTI

2001 Peugeot 307 1.9

2006 Suzuki Grand Vitara

now driving the Superb in my Pic.

I came from a Lexus IS300 Limited Edition.

Before that it was a Fabia vRS..... VW Pool GTI..... Rover 618 iS Sport..... Rover 214 SLi..... and first of all the mighty mk2 Ford Fiesta 1.0 L.

I've had the following 

 

Fiesta 1.1L

BMW 316

Renault 5

Peugeot 309 XS

SAAB 93 AERO HPT

Honda CRV

Renault Megane

VW Jetta  

Renault Clio

British open classic mini

Citroen c4 Picasso 

 

Bike 

FS1E

RD 125 LC

RG 250

Suzuki GSXF 750

Yamaha Radian 

Oldest to new

1.6 focus zetec

2.2 Vauxhall omega

1.6 focus

Fabia vrs

1.6 Vauxhall zafira

Fabia vrs

1.9 Vauxhall zafira

And picking up a used superb tomorrow

In reverse order,

3x Volvo XC90

BMW 525 estate

3x Volvo V70

Volvo 850

3x Mazda 626

2x VW Polo

Vauxhall Chevette

I seem to like getting repeats of cars I like. Now in a 2015 Superb Estate Elegance DSG 4wd. I wonder if it will be a repeat?

Skoda Fabia (2000-2005)

Skoda Octavia2  (2005-2010)

Skoda Octavia2FL (2010-2015)

Skoda Yeti (2010 - Present time)

Skoda Superb 2 FL (2015 -Present time)

Oldest first

Nissan Micra 1.2

Honda civic 1.4

Rover 75 2.0

Honda Frv 1.8

You guys change cars way too often. It's much cheaper to use your car for a longer period. My history:

1999 - 2001: a 1991 Ford Escort Van 1.8D

2001 - 2011: a 1999 Renault Laguna 1.9 dTi

2011 - present: Skoda Superb 1.8 TSI

Mine:

1988 Peugeot 205 XL

1995 Fiat Punto 75S

1993 Saab 9000 CS 2.3 turbo :clap:

2000 Saab 9-3 Viggen :strong:

2005 Saab 9-3 cabrio 2.0T

 

Mine... but used by my wife:

2000 Saab 9-5 SW 2.0t

2009 Mazda 6 2.0 diesel

 

Company cars:

1995 Daewoo Nexia

1996 Volvo 940 turbo :sun:

1999 Seat Cordoba TDI

2000 Nissan Primera TD

2000 Saab 9-3 TiD

2005 Volvo S60 2.4D

2009 Skoda Superb II Elegance 1.8 TSI DSG

2013 Skoda Superb Combi Exclusive TDI 170 DSG

Edited 16 June, 201511 yr by Alvaro

White van man,for many years.

 

Yes you will know when I am behind you !

Vel Satis 3.5 V6.....

.....and a long list of others which I will try to dig out.

Vel Satis 3.5 V6.....

.....and a long list of others which I will try to dig out.

 

You had the OTHER Vel Satis???

White van man,for many years.

 

Yes you will know when I am behind you !

 

 

Ahhhhh, loved my Merc Sprinter 311cdi xlwb.....in white 53 plate, gear shift in the dash

Immediately before the Superb

Audi A5 3.0 TDI convertible (and an Octy VRs estate which I rarely used, as I loved the Audi so much)

Before that

BMW 318 convertible

These are the only new cars I've ever bought/.

 

Before those.............

2 Citroen BX (one written off in a not-at-fault accident) - great mile coverers

Honda Civic

Peugeot 104

Renault 8S - the best used car I ever owned - cost me £250, went all over France and Switzerland and never cost me a penny in maintenance

My first car - a 1963 Mini Traveller

I had 3 insignias and before that 3 passats so I've kinda come back to VAG

Quite a few over the years:-

 

1973 Vauxhall Viva

1976 Datsun 100A

1976 Ford Cortina

1973 Austin Allegro 1750 SS

1977 Ford Capri 2.0 Ghia auto

1973 Morris Marina

1984 Ford Escort 1.3

1986 Ford Escort 1.3

1961 Morris Minor

1984 VW Polo 1.0 (owned 19 years)

1989 Vauxhall Astra 1.3

1990 Vauxhall Astra 1.7

1992 Saab 9000 2.0 cs (Brilliant car!)

1990 VW Passat 1.6 TD Estate

2001 Skoda Octavia 1.4 (still got owned 14 years)

2003 Skoda Superb 1.9 tdi (just sold owned 10 years))

2006 Fit Panda 1.2 (still got)

2014 Skoda Superb 1.4tsi (just bought - so far so good)

oldest to newest:

 

Cars.

 

Ford Laser Wagon (Mazda 323 wagon)

Peugeot 205 GTI 1.6

Toyota Camry Gracia wagon

Mazda 6 Wagon

Skoda Superb 170 TDI Elegance combi (current car)

 

Bikes.

Yamaha 50 scooter

Suzuki AX100

Honda VFR400R (NC21)

Honda VFR750F (NC36)

Kawasaki KLX250

(numerous loaner bikes)

Honda VFR400R (NC30) (Current bike)

OK , so I apologise in advance for the length of this, but I’ve been in hospital for a back op and find myself at a loose end and reminiscing! Anyway, hope you might find it interesting…. I’ll ask the mods to delete it if I get moaned at or flamed!

 

Anyway, in for a penny…..

 

1978 – my first car not used on private land 

1971 White Mini 850 which I got for £20 from a family friend and the original owner, who’d given up driving. Various upgrades… Had it de-seamed and fully leaded, then a bare metal respray with 10 colour coats and 3 lacquer. New subframe, 998 Avonbar Racing road engine and gearbox (and I see Ian Hargreaves as set the business up again); performance clutch and flywheel; twin carbs; Peco straight-through exhaust; twin tank; short-throw racing remote gearchange; front disc brakes; spax shocks; Rokee full walnut dash, doorcaps and door release handles; 40w per channel Sanyo Radio Cassette (with Dolby B & C!) driving 6 Pioneer speakers (I still have this lot in the loft!) Smiths RPM, Temp and Oil Pressure gauges; Mota-Lita flat wood rimmed steering wheel; Weller white 8 spoke wheels. Yes, it went like stink – this jaw-dropped many a Golf GTI driver and others from the lights and way beyond, as it held grip when others couldn’t… But….

With 25 and less MPG and a new girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) on the scene, I wanted something more modern and much less noisy – at 60mph, you literally could not hear yourself think – conversations were at shouting levels or completely pointless so, very reluctantly, given the time and money spent on her, in the E&M it went – ended up with three people fighting over it and we sold it for £850. I seriously cannot remember what I spent on the Mini, but it was probably a lot more than £850!

1982

1979 Fiat Mirafiori – 1300 two door. Was a “nice” sensible car… with Velour seats! Sweet little 1300 engine, but I now wanted more power, so I sold this to my Mum in 1983 in place of her rotting Moskvitch and she continued to run it for a further 5 years before it was condemned by the MOT man, due, of course, to rust.

1983

1981 Fiat Mirafiori 1600 Four Door Manual – this was a disastrous car, bought from Ivor Wood, the long-gone Lancia dealer in Southfields SW London and was off the road more in the few weeks I had it, than on. The car was so bad, Tony Brooks, the Fiat Lancia dealer in Weybridge, who had a lot of clout with Fiat UK, condemned it. Ivor Wood gave me a full refund plus £100 compensation, which allowed me to buy…

1983

1981 Fiat Mirafiori 2.0 Four Door Auto – this was a lovely car, never had a single issue with her in 3 years and 25k. Went all over the country, including upto Inverness to the soon-to-be “inlaws” family and toured all around Scotland, and got a then utterly amazing 34mpg on the main run there and back!

1984

1979 Peugeot 604 TI Auto. We loved this French barge. It had belonged to the CEO of Jardines, had been garaged and chauffeured all its life and got to me with only 17k. It was like new, and it was like riding - or floating - in a comfy armchair. We went all over the country, but electrical problems, issues with the complicated Bosch JetTronic system and the creeping death called rust, it was all adding up to big issues, so in…

1987, we chopped it in for a  

1985 Fiat Argenta 2.0 Manual – Ok…why? Yes, this was a dreadful car to look at and “Fiat biggest dud” was how it was described by What Car I think, but this was pristine, had one retired owner, it’d been Waxoyled from new, and had 4k miles at 24 months….and it had depreciated by nearly 80%! It drove really well, the 2.0TC engine was lovely and it was very comfortable, but in 1988, I was given a company car, so having only had this for a few months, it was sold… for £150 more than I paid for it, so I was chuffed.

1988 – 2001

During this time, I had literally dozens of cars, as I worked for two major Car Rental companies. We changed our “allocated” cars every three months or less, but I would also regularly drive manufacturer “demonstrators”. Most of the time however, I was in a Fiesta BS, Astra, Escort, Focus, Cavalier or Sierra or Mundano.

But I had some cars of note…

Ford XR3i – I think I had three; the final one was rejected and sent back to Ford after 5 weeks as this really was a Halewood Heap – in the interior, nothing fitted correctly, the glove box door refused to open; the seats backs was both loose, as were the base on the floor runners… and the runner nuts had been cross-threaded – all of them! The electrics were terrible; the wipers didn’t work and found out that was because the wiper motor was actually missing and had to be retro-fitted at our service centre. The washers worked once… and then never again, so I had a bottle of water in the car and threw water over the windscreen with the wipers running to keep it clean. One headlight never worked properly – just when it felt like it, the heater controls had not been connected correctly, so when you turned it to cold, it got hot; the roof lining fell on my head one evening and finally, it literally just stopped in the middle lane of the Wandsworth one-way system and would not start causing utter havoc, primarily because the hazard warning lights didn’t work! Enough was enough. The car was collected by our tow-truck and never to be seen by me again.... 

Ford Escort Turbo – this was a ridiculous car, no grip, off/on turbo. Only had it three weeks I think

Ford Sierra RS Cosworth – I had two of these – one 2WD and one 4WD. Original Turbo Nutter Bar Stewards, but much less turbo lag than the Escort. The 4WD really helped to control the car; the 2WD could seriously get out of control.

Fiat Uno Turbo – like a roller skate with sooo much oomph! Beautiful engine and handled really well too.

Ford Scorpio Cosworth – that was a fast and very comfortable car.. and I managed to get it to and average 15mpg on one run from Basingstoke to London.

Ford Mondeo ST200 – through a piston through the block on the M4… very messy (and frightening with that heart-stopping split second between total lock-up and depressing the clutch…..).

Nissan SX200 Turbo – interesting but automatic and was not well made compared to….

Fiat Coupe Turbo – I completely loved this car. Beautiful to look at, beautifully built (there a thing going on here, right?) it handled beautifully and the performance was astounding. Amazing to think it was built on the Fiat Tipo platform. I’m sure this will become a classic and would love another….maybe in a few years….

 

In 2001, I left car rental after 21 years for good, and lost the use of a car of course. Fortunately, my wife’s Uncle had recently stopped driving due to ill health and he gave me his 1997 ex-BT Ford Fiesta Diesel van, which was great. This served me very well for nearly two years until…..

2003 

I got our first Skoda - yay! It was a  2001 Octavia 1600 Ambiente. It had about 25k I think and they took the van in part-ex. OMG… it had airco! How happy was I? Had a centre front armrest fitted - that and a chrome tail-pipe... Which fell off! We had a few issues that were sorted on the warranty, including a new diff, flywheel, clutch, radiator, new wheel bearings, airco compressor and steering box. This served us well for another 60k miles until…

2007 - OK warning - this is a bit long, so skip if needs be!

We part-exd the Octavia for our 2006 MKI Superb 2.0 PD140. This was 10 months old, had 13k and an ex SUK management car. Drove to Benfield in Harrogate and saw it… Black Magic with a Mushroom interior and fake American Walnut everywhere… I fell in love.... then I drove it… now I just had to have it! Huge inside, comfortable, quiet, with climate, electric front seats and heated front and back too, an umbrella in the nearside armrest, massive torque (Ok, compared to the Octavia 1.6 it did have massive torque!) and a SatNav...yeah, so its got Atari Games Console circa 1995 graphics, but c'mon...this was luxury! The car was delivered and taken straight back, as it arrived with a dent that was not there at purchase. No problem getting that resolved and they even DiamondBrite’d the car for free as compensation - nice one. Had a number of warranty issues resolved over the next few years, but was fundamentally very, very reliable, and the issues I did have were dealt-with swiftly and efficiently by my local (to work) dealer in Reading, and I still use them today - you'll see why below. Yes, the oil pump did fail at 99k, but this was sorted out under goodwill by SUK for all the parts, so the turbo, intercooler, revised oil pump and counter balance unit and the cambelt and water pump (and other parts I cant remember) were all replaced. So, I had to fork-out for the much reduced labour charge of £700 - I was very happy with that, as the parts cost, even with the dealer discount were more than £4k!

 

In Jan 2013, the car filled with water after the battery had been replaced by the RAC. The RAC stuck to their guns said “nah… not our problem” so it was suspected, the convenience unit was destroyed so I already knew was faced with a big bill. Got it to the dealer, who dried it out, fitted a new convenience unit, but found the original was in fact, fine, and with a somewhat significant bill, all was OK for a couple of months. Then the parking sensors failed again, so the car went back. They were all replaced with ones I'd got from the bay, saving 00's. Back it came and they didn’t work the morning after I got it back. So back it went, and out it all came again and checked and it was returned. All was fine. Then, after two months or so, they failed again. I found a tip on Briskoda and I stuck my hand under the air vent under the passenger seat and low and behold yes, it was full of water. Sheesh! Back it went yet again and the water ingress mod was done (they'd never seen the secret bulletin) the convenience unit replaced with the new one they'd not used. They still were not working and now neither were the interior lights, so out it all came again. All the underfelt was replaced, all the wiring nodes rechecked, the main loom back to the rear of the car, the loom back to the sensors, the sensor loom itself and a new set of sensors were fitted. The car was with the dealer for nearly three months in all, but finally it was all sorted – everything worked and back she came! Unfortunately, they'd dumped the "2nd user" sensors I supplied, so they didn't charge me for the OE units, nor the looms, nor the labour - they felt this was their fault for not knowing about the issue with the plenum chamber which, had they known about it, would have been solved on the first visit. That's what you call great service! So she came home and all was fine....except when I went to fill it up and the fuel filler flap didn't "flap"!… Back it went. Turned out that during the previous visit, the driver’s door mirror wiring had burnt out, so they replaced the loom, but had forgotten to reconnect the filler flap switch. The car was also MOT'd FOC. And that's is why I do a 110 mile round trip to them!

 

2014 - June

So, now I was a bit "disillusioned" with the MKI and she was getting a bit long in the tooth with a genuine 119k clocked-up. Although I was no longer doing the 20k MPA, I gently “persuaded” myself what I really I really needed (!) was a MKII…. In July I found the exact car I wanted - candy white, manual, CR170, black leather, park assist (no I don't know why either - I just fancied it), and in August last year, purchased the MKII we have today from Blade in Gloucester. What a change from the MKI; its better built, really taught with excellent road holding, huge torque but also much quieter and refined. And I love the twin-door and unlike the MKI, this gives great access to the huge boot. There isn't anything I really dislike on this car; I know the Columbus is not liked very much, but it seems fine to me - its pretty much identical to my mates 2009 Bentley Continental SatNav; the climate switches are moaned about - too small and fiddly and I think they're fine; the cruise and it's switches are criticised and I think it works well, albeit it's not as stable as the MKI. So, I feel I'll be keeping this for some time, given my annual mileage is so low now. What I also  really love about the MKII is this is a rare, edgy, radical and a bit of a quirky car. Still, a MKIII may get added to the "fleet" in four or five years, but it seems on paper, well, a bit bland, but I'll no doubt get one as a courtesy car at some point to check. But what happened when I bought the MKII was this... I looked at the MKI, sadly sitting in the garden and, to quote a certain TV and record impresario, “You know what? I really like you…!”  

So, I know it’s wrong, I know I'm a little strange and it's against my better judgement, my wife's and friends deep sarcasm, I’ve kept it! Yes…Ok… it’s worthless! Yes… OK… it’s not desirable and yes...OK... I know should get rid of it and sell it to an Albanian taxi driver. I know all this and that already, but I still really like the car… So now, it’s under a weatherproof wrap and used very occasionally, with the odd 30 mile run down the A3 and back again. And you know what? I still really like it and I might just keep it for good.... (but I love the MKII!). I'll shut-up now....

Standard 8

Wolseley 1500

Beetle 1200

Ford Cortina 2000

Escort 1300 GT

Escort 1300 Ghia

Fiat Mirafiori

Fiat Mirafiori

Opel Ascona

Opel Ascona

BMW 320

Peugeot 2.5 GRD

Citroen BX

Toyota Carina

Rover 416

Subaru Impreza Turbo

VW Passat

Ford Mondeo

Skoda

 

And a few I've forgotten!

OK , so I apologise in advance for the length of this, but I’ve been in hospital for a back op and find myself at a loose end and reminiscing! Anyway, hope you might find it interesting…. I’ll ask the mods to delete it if I get moaned at or flamed!

No need to apologise  - I found that very interesting.  You had a good run with the Fiats!  Hope you're recovering okay with your back!

No need to apologise  - I found that very interesting.  You had a good run with the Fiats!  Hope you're recovering okay with your back!

Thanks, I'm pleased.

Yes, we did. 2nd born has a 07 Grande Punto, just a low power 1.4 but it still has that Fiat "oomph" y'know it's shouting "ffaster, faster" and giving that lovely exhaust note...

Thanks for your kind thoughts; its 02.35 and can't sleep, so hopefully it'll improve in the next few days...

Standard 8

Wolseley 1500

Beetle 1200

Ford Cortina 2000

Escort 1300 GT

Escort 1300 Ghia

Fiat Mirafiori

Fiat Mirafiori

Opel Ascona

Opel Ascona

BMW 320

Peugeot 2.5 GRD

Citroen BX

Toyota Carina

Rover 416

Subaru Impreza Turbo

VW Passat

Ford Mondeo

Skoda

And a few I've forgotten!

You liked the Mirafiori too I see mate!

I feel pretty sure I'll have the most eclectic history here.  From first to last:

• Caterham 21 VHPD
• Stuart Taylor Phoenix (GSXR1000) - http://craigsphoenix.se7ens.net/
• LDV Convoy 3.5t LWB Hightop  (Part-ex for the Phoenix)
  
  Got married
   
• VW Passat B5.5 1.9TDi

 

Beat that