New car today. No, not another mouse mat. Ha ha

[Chris]

Not cruiser based but it will be coming to Lincomb - with the Missus in it. Company bus. Not bad looking, comfy and drives well. Got nearly 1000 miles to crack out this week so it'll get a good shakedown. Hopefully not a breakdown.



Tricksy 4 wheel drive, hill descent blah blah.

C

 

[Crispin]

Very shiny

Do let us know how you get on with it - Denise was eyeing them out. She's lining up another car for herself

 

[Gary820]

Nice looking motor, diesel?

 

[Chris]

Yep, 2.2 oil burner. 6 speed manual. Wanted the auto - but company stuff got in the way. There are two outputs for the 2.2 168 and 184 HP IIRC. Didn't bother with the 184. It goes as fast as you'd want it to.

The start stop things is a bit weird I have taken to switching that off. It's like stalling - only it restarts itself. Hmm

C

 

[Gary820]

Yeah don't like start stop much, it's even more weird in an auto!

 

[AndyCook]

neighbours swapped their astra for one of these in march
the astra was hopeless in the snow, and the day after i towed it down our lane in the snow,
they got a diesel antara, it did well in the snow we had later in march

 

[Chris]

Well that's a thousand miles done in the three days. All gone well, despite nearly running out of fuel in Glasgow. Tank says it holds 65 lts. Well first the orange light came on accompanied by bing bing bing, then the range display went to ---. But still I couldn't find any fuel. The the display lit up with REFUEL IMMEDIATELY!!!!! Finally I found an Asda near the new Celtic stadium. I brimmed it - with 65.5 lits. Hmm, guessing it was nearly empty then.

Found out if has tyre pressure monitors which is cool, dunno if it warns me of low pressure. So I shall let a tyre down and see. Or read the handbook. Only getting 36 mpg out of it regardless of how I drive it and irrespective of whether it's good fuel or supermarket juice. It's not exactly a rocket ship with 1st and 2nd being quite low in my view. But it's smooth, quiet and very comfy. Missus coming to Lincomb in it.

C

 

[Paddler Ed]

Have you tried dropping from 75 to 70? We've found that the 5mph makes a massive difference; the V60 we've got normally does 45mpg with Dad driving (who does 75) and we get 50mpg+ with us driving (at 70mph) Also if it's brand new, delivery mileage only allow about 3k to get it run in a bit and the engine to loosen up.

Don't forget that the trip computer will be out as well; we find the BMW is out by between 14 and 17%, with computer claiming better than we've actually done based on amount put in and distance travelled.

Oh yes, in Aus they're sold as Holden Captiva's or in the Australian's typical way of renaming things (Commodore becomes Commode, Falcon = Foulcan, Territory = Toiletry) it becomes the Craptiva... Shame we don't get Captiva+2 as that's supposed to be a reasonable soft roader in terms of flexibility and space.

 

[Chris]

I nursed it up the A1 yesterday from Stevenage. Made little or no difference. Then I remembered that I don't pay for the fuel.

Managed to get home a bit quicker which was nice.

 

[Gary820]

Isn't it funny how you get around quicker when not paying the fuel bill
Get company car when go on training courses, suddenly not concerned about mpg lol.

 

[J66P]

interested to see how you get on with this Chris, I am changing in October and want summat that will do the miles but drag a twin wheel caravan about as well rather than using m Cruiser all the time, towing abilit seems quite good. I have been looking at the SE NAV AWD Auto which seems a lot of car for the money, CO2 a bit crap but then I suppose its to be expected

 

[Chris]

These seem much fancied for towing. Plenty of torque it seems.

Chris