The New Car

A couple of days ago I received through the mail a reminder of the process to go through to order my new car.

I drive a car through the Motability Scheme, whereby the full mobility allowance is paid directly from the Department of Work and Pensions (about £46 per wk) to Motability to cover the costs of a 3-year lease. My previous lease will be over in January and so now is the time to look at the next one.

My last car was a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 automatic and I loved it.

The garage who dealt with Vauxhall does not do so any more but just deals in Chevrolet, another General Motors car.

I was talking about economy in fuel costs, so we first looked at the Matiz which has only an 800 cc engine. I worried a bit about the power after driving a 1.4 one. Anyway it failed to meet with my other specification needs, so that was dismissed fairly quickly.

As well as the things you would expect in any car, the Chevrolet Aveo has air conditioning, electrically heated and operated wing mirrors, remote central locking and so on. The electrically operated wing mirrors are absolutely essential for reverse parking here – I have to angle them right down to see the darker brick edging of the parking bay.

So, of course, dear reader, I ordered one.

It is in a colour called Fayence (sic) blue which looks a lovely shade of green.

I passed a comment to the effect that I was surprised that there was no grab handle on the driver’s side of my previous car, especially when you could see two blanks where one would have gone. No, silly, this is not to hold on to while driving but as an aid when getting out of the car. Well, the Aveo has a nice little pocket for a pair of sunglasses, but it is very easy to swap the grab handle from the front passenger side to the driver’s side. The salesman knows it is easy as they have just done it a couple of weeks ago for another lady.

It is funny how the automatic cars are always top of the range, and I chose a 5-door one (not so much for passengers but more for putting shopping. What is the boot (trunk) for? I hear you say.

Ah, now, that would be telling…….

Back in the days when I had to buy my own cars I could afford only the 3-door manual, bottom of the range ones, so it is a huge bonus to get a 5 door top of the range car