Tell me about your car!

[NinnyJam]

Automatic or manual?

Petrol, diesel or electric?

11 year old manual Ford Kuga, 2.0 diesel.

You’ll have to pry it from my cold dead hands 🤣

@MiddleAgedDread Some cars have always held value well. You would not get 2/3 of your buying price if you sold your car. Few depreciate that slowly over 7 years. What is your car if it’s very slow depreciation? Buying price is another matter. You might like to know ev cars depreciate like hell. Manufacturers cannot meet sales targets so offload them. Just a few months old with 7000 on the clock saved us £24,000. We have solar panels, heat pumps and batteries at home so it is a no brainer to go full ev. If it was our only car - no. Some areas have no decent charging network. On holiday in Cornwall is a challenge except at supermarkets.

2 Audi E-Tron 55 Black Editions. A blue one and a white one. Such a good car I had to get another.

I've got a hybrid 1.5 Yaris - not plug in either. Love it.

Mine lasts 270 miles on a full charge, and I don't often do longer journeys tbh. Agree that it would not be ideal if you regularly needed to travel further.

@Vvvvvvvvvvvvvv I think ours should do that but I don’t want range anxiety so I’m not trying a challenging distance out! Staying fairly local (and we don’t fully charge to help prolong battery life) suits me.

To those who have a manual, what added benefit does it give to the day to day driving experience?

No longer own a manual car. However when we did, it was on sporty nippy cars or smaller engine cars. On cars with plenty of power, eg SUVs, luxury cars, auto works better and you get more forward gears. Our macan has 7 forward gears and a two clutch system. So, in effect, seamless acceleration. On smaller cars manual gives better mpg and quicker acceleration. If you want to know what gear box is recommended for a car, I’d look at What Car recommended models. Some cars won’t be offered in manual. A few cars are so slow as autos they are not great to drive. Totally depends on the car.

18 plate Fiesta. Petrol. Manual. Goes by the name Frieda though only she and I know that and it shall never be spoken out loud.

Also greatly annoyed that they are no longer made. Frieda is under strict instructions to be long lived.

Re electric. Fairly rural, live in typical housing stock for the area with no front drive then at the back the garden and parking are separated from house by a back road. Therefore installing charging point prohibitively costly so until things change with regards to widespread installation of charging or by some miracle everybody on the terrace agrees to dig the road up at the same time to install chargers then it won't be happening. And it won't be happening because we can't even agree to get the tarmac done! Can't put a charger at the front because we have barriers between the road and the pavement.

Petrol
Auto
2L

Some people will be hoping their petrol and diesel cars last for another couple of decades then. That will be interesting at MOT time every year. Very few basic cars last long enough to be a vintage car. If no one can charge an electric car near where they live there will be a huge number of old woofers about.

Plug in hybrid Hyundai Ioniq automatic.
Love it.
I spent years driving manual diesel cars and really enjoy the driving experience, however, despite initial reservations about switching to automatic, I can honestly say I really like the ooomph.

Diesel automatic 2L Audi Q5 Quattro. I’ve always wanted to shout “ fire up the Quattro”.
Does 40mpg and is lovely to drive although I had a 3L Jaguar Fpace until a few months ago and I miss the power. It was such a lovely car to drive but like most JLR cars expensive to maintain. I’m now retired so don’t want to waste money on cars, also DS20 couldn’t drive it, insurance company just laughed at me. He can be added to the Audi when he is 21 later this year. It’s only so he can help with the driving when we ferry him to uni. We have a little Polo that is unofficially his car.
I learnt to drive in a 1974 Volvo estate so have always preferred big cars.

I did consider an hybrid but the dealership advised against it because they are hugely expensive to run. The weight of the battery means that when the charge goes the petrol/diesel engine eats fuel so you get very little mpg. I live rurally so charging points are not readily accessible. When we do long trips they are well over the range of most cars on the market.
I would definitely have considered it if I lived in a city, it’s just not practical where we are.
A friend has an electric car but it hey have kept two diesels for long trips.

Having driven both a manual is slightly more fuel efficient but the ease of driving an automatic is worth the slight extra cost.
DS has an automatic Polo, it’s much cheaper to insure for a young driver. They calculate insurance premiums based on age and the number of accidents in a particular make & model of car. There aren’t many 20yr old men driving automatic Polos, so low accident rate resulting in low insurance.
Small Ford’s, Corsas and Peugeots are the most expensive to insure.

I have a 'mild' hybrid Toyota Corolla automatic. Great car. Does 60 MPG when I'm just driving on the M4/M5 between Oxfordshire and Devon. I passed my test on a manual so have the choice. My experience is that men see driving a manual as a marvellous enjoyable interactive experience. Mine is that I'd rather point the car and go to my destination.

I have a 2 year old Audi RSQ8, automatic. I adore it, however next year it'll be changed. No idea what to next.

We have a 2019 discover sport, diesel manual as the dog car. It does the job.

Dh has a brand new bmw m4 competition, it's his baby he also has a collection of motorbikes.

Automatic 2l petrol Mazda 5 from 2010.

I sort of low-key hate it. It’s very spacious and has mostly been reliable, but we don’t really need an MPV (only have 2 kids) and I’d prefer something smaller and nippier.

But we don’t have infinite money and don’t want to get into debt, so we’ll drive till it’s not financially worthwhile to get it through its MOT.

I was just going to ask if people ride motorbikes.

Convertible BMW 335i, manual, petrol. It was quite difficult to find a manual but I love driving so prefer manuals over automatics. It's a beautiful car and a fabulous drive, but at the moment is spending more time in the garage than on the road and costing me a fortune. I'll be selling it as soon as I can and getting something a bit less flashy but more reliable.

I prefer manual too. I love driving. Do you think you'd get another convertible?

I used to think that I preferred manual but with a prestige car, it’s not what buyers want and nor do I. Fine with a basic mini but not a large cc BMW. If you cannot find a manual, it’s because hardly anyone wants a big engine manual when the auto boxes have more gears and are smooth and quick. There’s a variety of auto boxes too. Some with a degree of manual override.

I love driving, but love it even more with an automatic... most modern automatics have flappy paddles as an option for manual control anyway. I drove manual cars for 20 years until DH made me try an automatic - I've never looked back. Motorway driving, city driving and everything in between. Changing gear really is quite dull.

Our old Porsche 911 had paddles but our other cars you move the gear leaver to the left. No idea what I do on the ev! Just drive it.