More playing on da interwebs

Yep - it's another car type post :-)

I dunno if it's the interweb growing over the past few years in how much we actually use it these days or something else but I've looked up stuff about my current car much more than any car I've had in the past. Ok, I did end up getting a few magazines when Rover were bringing out their new 200 (the second one) which eventually led to me buying their 420.

I think I would have joined various owners club forums for the Puma when I bought it in 2001 had the interwebs been as active then as now. For the Lexus, before I bought it I was getting lots of very useful information from the CT200hforum and LexusOwnersClub.co.uk (will be adding links to the sidebar after I finish this post).

Reading around those websites let me get semi-impartial views on my prospective next car. Ok, views from people who have owned Lexus at least but I view those as far more impartial as what gets written in what passes for the motoring media in this country. People like Top Gear can be entertaining but they're as impartial as a football supporter at a game. They have their favourites, everything else is substandard.

The Lexus people are a little different there, they have their favourites but can give detailed examples of why everything else is substandard. From my personal experience, Prius build quality didn't feel as good, Honda salespeople didn't want to sell stuff and the German cars were too common. Being common isn't really a bad thing but it does mean "not special". And I like to have things that are a little different.

I've had my Lexus for a month now and the impression after that month is :

I want to drive it more.

Things like finding excuses to go places in it, like I may well be heading off to a kitcar show next weekend. My curiosity in kit cars has gone up again now I've been introduced to CVT hybrids. They're just a lot easier to drive and the CVT/motor combination gives amazing low speed flexibility. I've said byebye to having to wastefully work the clutch a lot when in stop/start traffic and if I get caught changing up too early on a roundabout or junction, the CVT box takes that in its stride and just Goes. The Focus gearbox had a long gap between 1st and 2nd which meant you were stuffed if relaxed getaway suddenly had to become fast getaway.

Anyway, one of those websites I've found is Fuelly.com, which tracks your miles per gallon. Here's a link to the stats that will be building up for my CT.

Fuelly.com gives a couple of little toys, it lets you compare your economy to what other people are getting. Mine is a fairly low 44mpg on the last stop, although the trip computer said 46.5. We'll see how that works over several fill ups. The accuracy always depends on "where does it think a full tank stops ?" which varies between filling stations. Like if the last station underfilled by half a litre and this one overfilled by the same amount, that gets the mpg of the trip computer.

44-46 is a bit low for what I should get out of the CT, although it's a lot less thirsty in the same conditions than my Focus was. That used to get about 26-28 mpg in city only driving, going up to 36 on motorway trips. I ran up the motorway a bit tonight and was reading 51mpg and rising :-) So that's 50% better for a car that's a lot more refined, has much better spec and is a "I want to drive this car" rather than feeling like a tool to get from A to B.

Fuelly gives badges too :



That's one that's supposed to go on forum signatures (I need to edit the name to something less boring) although it depends on the forum code being smart enough to run it. I've added a smaller version to the sidebar.

Anyway - that's me done for this post. I have a week off coming soon, when I'll look to build a PC capable of playing the latest games. Fingers crossed that Novatech drop their prices in time, otherwise it's mail order again. Kit car show next weekend if it's dry, should be fun.