Just back from a whirl around Scotland. Car hired from Glasgow was a new Astra.
I'm not really into reviewing cars; these days it's quite difficult to tell the difference between them. It had loads of oomph, but you did have to work to get it. At 70 in 4th it didn't really pull, you needed 3rd for that; etc. And you sat 'on' the seat, rather than 'in' it - nothing like as comfortable my Accord, for all the 160k miles of the latter. It was an 'Ecoflex' in petrol. No idea on the engine size, it didn't say. No FM2R either, which in a car with bells and whistles was *very* annoying. Doubtless one is available online, but you'd need internet for that... The satnav was of dubious benefit, gave the wrong directions a time or three.
That said, in 650 miles it didn't hang about and it proved remarkably good at overtaking; only three cars overtook me: an Imprezza, a Quattro and another Astra (glad I wasn't a passenger in the last, wondered whether it was making a getaway from a bank robbery).
On the overtaking point, the three cars that passed me all passed within 90 seconds of appearing in my rear-view mirror. It's not very difficult to slow down or pull in to let somebody past. And hey, I'm on holiday in a remote part of the world; I don't want to share it with somebody else so I'd rather you were well ahead of me than stuck behind me. So I really don't get the mimsers who are happy to bimble along at 20mph on single-track roads (where is it *very* easy to pull in for a second) with me (and often others too in a queue) behind them. A complete lack of awareness of others, or just a lack of courtesy.
Had some really lovely weather too, and couldn't have enjoyed it more. Though I confess I was getting quite bored of the tight narrow roads by the time we reached Kilchoan one evening. Favourite road: Blairgowrie-Braemar-Speybridge-Nairn - few other cars; easy overtaking. I didn't realise there were roads still like it in the UK!
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Car manufacturer websites are rubbish aren't they. Still trying to work out what sort of engine it might be. Apparently - given the 5-speed 'box - it was a 1.0 3-cylinder engine. It did have quite a nice throaty noise. Equally it was dead quiet - to the extent that I spent rather a lot of time in 3rd thinking I was in 5th, and 2nd instead of 4th.
The tank when 75% empty only took £35 of petrol, I burnt about £65 of petrol over the 650 miles - and none of it was motorway cruising.
The driver's wing mirror had a blind spot extension - where the mirror bends, but the passenger one didn't. That seemed a bit cheapskate.
The anti-collision warning went off a few times, somewhat irritating, and I'm not sure I see the point of it - if you're already heading straight at something then you can't react quickly enough; and the distraction of a flashing dashboard is enough to take your mind off the impending collision anyway. I'm sure if there'd been a manual it might have been a bit more enlightening.
Boot was rather small, didn't fit two - admittedly large - suit cases.
The only thing I didn't like was that when the air temperature was 17 degrees outside you needed the aircon on in order to feel comfortable. Odd.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Tue 30 Aug 16 at 11:13
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>> Car manufacturer websites are rubbish aren't they. Still trying to work out what sort of
>> engine it might be.
There are plenty of websites out there where you just type in the car registration number to get the info.
eg
www.mycarcheck.com/
www.gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla
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Yes... but I don't have the registration number!
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But you kept the hire papers?
Particularly the piece that shows damage on collection!
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Why would I keep hire papers, I have more than enough unwanted paperwork?
(There was no recorded damage on collection, but even if there had been I would trust an international firm not to rip me off by making up duplicate fake copies.)
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We had a similar car (Astra with 1.0 turbocharged engine, no idea if it was 3 cylinder) as a hire car back in July, I was surprised how well it went. It returned around 46mpg with a mix of town of motorway. Seemed to have a decent amount of urge and was reasonably comfortable. Wouldn't buy a small hatchback myself, but it wasn't a bad car at all for what it was.
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Round Scotland in a new Astra Ecoflex - Mapmaker
