Each December a friend and I travel from Yorkshire to Scotland, usually in my petrol BMW 318 automatic. This year, because my car is a snow hater, we went in my friend's two-month-old diesel Hyundai i30 automatic. Having driven it for an hour I noticed that my hands were showing signs of cramp, later followed by slight pins and needles, especially in the right hand. I drove a few yards without my hands on the wheel to see whether it was pulling to the left, but it seemed OK. I would have liked to give it a longer test but the owner was fearful that her new car would end up as scrap on the M6. My BMW usually records about 40 mpg on that journey (true figure between 38 and 39) on the computer. Driving at speeds between 60 and 70, which was slightly slower than previous years, the i30's computer indicated about 42.