Mother's Day & Cars

Been up to see my mum & dad this weekend.

Events like Mother's Day give an excuse for the mob to gather at their place for a weekend which usually involves being out & about on the Saturday, followed by a dinner where we'll linger over the table chilling out to music before heading back on the Sunday. It's also good to be made a fuss of by the Muttley.

There's also a kind of tradition where we'll keep looking out the window for the Mother's Day flowers delivery, before giving up, going out and the flowers arriving 10 minutes after we go out. They seem a bit better at delivering around Bristol than they are in Lincolnshire.

I had an ulterior motive as well for this weekend - getting a second opinion on cars ... I'm pretty sure I'll have a different car inside 6 months and there are currently 3 contenders :

1 - Honda CR-Z. This is a small coupe, advertised as a sporty 2+2. I've had a car like it before, a Ford Puma. The Puma was an outstanding little car, it combined power with poise. At 2 years old when I got it, the Puma also gave me quite a few years of reliable running.

You'd hope to get something similar out of the CR-Z ... However, from the specs it suffers from a bit too much weight and not enough power. The 0 to 60 benchmark is a bit artificial because you rarely do that but it's a good benchmark for how quick a car will be. 10 seconds to get to 60 does not a quick car make. The Puma was 9 on paper but quicker on the road (an overreading speedo helps).

I've had a look at the outside of the CR-Z's (the demonstrator was away when I went to look). It's a promising car, it just suffers from lack of power. With a bit more speed, it would justify that "sports" tag and become Interesting.

Verdict on CR-Z - curious but not quick enough to justify the Sports tag and therefore become interesting. Honda seem to agree, there's a quicker version on the way.

But - after the lukewarm reaction I had to my Focus ST170, I suspect I'm heading for the Cushy part of my car cycle where I go for comfort over speed. The ST170 is quick, especially if you go by the White Knuckled Passenger gauge but it just doesn't feel as quick as that Puma did.

2 - Toyota Prius. The original Geek Magnet. This is the latest version of Toyota's Hybrid car, where an engine and a motor combine to give power, economy and UberGreenieFriendly low emissions. There's a decent selection of toys here too.

It's not the quickest car but quick enough. That just happens to be the same pace as what gets set by the CR-Z, however this isn't pretending to be a sports car. The technology on show here is better. Instead of an engine with motor assist like in the Honda, the engine or the motor drive the Prius forward. For me, that means that for very short runs between traffic lights on my way in, the car can move itself on the motor using energy it has saved while braking.

It's impressive tech and what makes the Toyota system more interesting than the competition is that they've had 10 years of development to get the bugs out. It's never a good idea to be a Beta Tester, especially with cars ... Whenever you hear of CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) automatic gearboxes, remember that about 15 years before it came back for little cars, it was unsuccessfully tried in trucks. Engineers have a habit of looking at what didn't quite work right and fixing it in the next version.

Yeah - Toyota Prius. Looks very interesting from a "This Car Could Work" and techie point of view.

But - I've had dealings with the local Toyota garage before, where they tried the thing where they advise you to have work done on brakes & exhaust for the MOT test and they'd quite happily do that for you. A second opinion is always useful here. In the case of the Toyota garage, the same car passed its next couple of MOTs without the brakes or exhaust being mentioned.

Con job detected - no more business with that garage. True, that's about 10 years ago now so the people are probably different but the "you tried to rip me off" remains.

Besides ... There's better toys available :

3 - Lexus CT200h. This is what we went to see yesterday. Let me describe what we saw :

Roll up at the garage and go around the side to where the car park is. Come out of one space and go into another ... Reason ? We spotted the Customer Parking sign. It's a little thing but it was a professionally made sign with the customer's name on it. Curious and a sign (sic) that some effort is going in to make the customer feel special.

They had a couple of CT200h's outside as well but they're a bit new for the Used Car lot. Had my first yes/no there though, the Lexus IS series is probably a bit big for the type of car I get on with best. Head inside and we see the various cars on show. There's the Evil 4x4 (sister knew someone with one), the sumptuous soft top and a couple of CT200h's.

Me and my dad sit in one of them and there's a moment of awed silence (neither of us waste words but this was different). This is probably the highest quality car either of us have sat in. And we've owned things like Exec Edition Rovers, Vauxhall Senators, Rover Sterling, VW and so on. It even felt better than the dream cars you see at motor shows. There's me thinking it's the top of the range model. Nah - it's the middle one.

It had achieved what's quite rare with cars - it felt like it had rock solid quality. Probably more controls than an airline console too. There's a definite "this car is special" feeling.

Yep. We walked away from there quite impressed. The overall view was friendly staff who were keen to make you feel welcome in their showroom (even though there would be a bit of boredom behind this judging by the Kindle hiding behind the receptionist's counter)

Verdict on Lexus - it's up a few notches in the Quality Scale. It costs more than the Prius it is loosely based on but justifies that cost through Toys & Quality.

Reviews by magazines are mixed, however I get the feeling there's a bit of "Not German" snobbery coming in.

Little things count, a person is more likely to become a customer if they feel valued. Ford are a bit Sheep Dip. Rover talked the talk but their garages badly let them down. Vauxhall used to make excellent cars but went a bit strange in the 90s. VW think it's a privilege for the owner to have one, not a privilege that the owner has chosen them. Honda seemed quite desperate for me to look at their car.

In terms of Sleepy spending money, I don't think the second opinion is going to be a moderating voice this time ... The mob was as impressed as I was with the general Lexus browsing person experience.

I won't buy yet but let's just say that the car tax is due soon on the Focus and out of the options we get of 6 months or 12 months, I think I'm choosing 6 months. One advantage I'll have this time is that I'll be able to choose my own time to switch, whereas with the Puma dying my last car was a bit of an emergency buy.

PS Happy Mothers Day to all those Moms who read this ! Us kids appreciate all you do for us, whether that be that guiding voice, that hug or that infallible rust detector. My mum's not got much engineering knowledge but she can smell rust on a potential car from a mile away.