Helping a friend out with his used car lot yesterday and had the opportunity to drive a couple of different cars, in addition to my usual fleet.
First up was my own Skoda Octavia 1.8 TSi. I've now owned this for over 6 months, which is a relative eternity for me ! It has now passed 14K miles and had its first "service" (expensive oil change) a few weeks ago. It has been faultless since I've owned it and consistently returns around 30 mpg in mainly urban use and up to early 40's on the motorway. The most impressive thing about the car is undoubtedly the engine, which is smooth, quick and has almost diesel like low down torque. I run it on Tesco 99 RON super unleaded, which I feel results in noticeably more power than standard 95 RON unleaded. The car suffers with excessive road noise / tyre roar but the engine is quiet at motorway speeds (70 mph = 2500 revs in 6th). This is my 3rd Octavia (2 previous Mk1 Octavia vRS's) and 4th Skoda (previous Roomster 1.9 TDi).
Next up was the wifes Qashqai 1.6 Visia. This is now 1 year old and has covered just under 10K miles. It was also serviced a couple of weeks ago, again another glorified oil change / inspection. I had quotes from main dealers ranging from £240 to £120 for the first service. The book time is 1 hour so I can only imagine the hourly rates involved. The Qashqai requires new rear shock absorber mounts under warranty, but as virtually every other Qashqai is similarly affected they are on back order, with no delivery date in sight. The car is dull to drive, returns 32 mpg in mainly urban use and has managed to wear the front tyres down to less than 3mm in under 10K miles. The 115 bhp petrol engine is OK, but needs plenty of revs to perform. It is also noisy on the motorway, due to its relatively short gearing (<20mph/1000 revs, 70 mph = approx 3600rpm).
I then drove a new (623 miles on the clock) Honda Civic 2.2 CDTi SE. This is an odd car. It feels very wide from the driver?s seat and offers poor visibility through the back window. The dash area is very futuristic, with a split level display for speed and revs. The engine is relatively quiet (for a diesel) and has the usual all or nothing turbo diesel power delivery. The trip computer was reading 41.2 mpg over the first 623 miles. I found the ride very hard and unforgiving and I'm not sure I could live with it long term. The steering however was very sharp with good feel. The gear change was quite poor, which is unusual in a Honda. Some of the cabin plastics seemed quite poor and the door handles (outside) had a very flimsy (un-Honda-like) feel to them. The car certainly felt a step backwards in quality terms compared with my old 2006 Accord. I was disappointed with the Civic and certainly preferred my Octavia as an all round package.
Finally (I saved the best to last) I drove a 2009 Jaguar XF 3.0D S. This has the new 271 bhp 3.0 twin turbo V6 diesel engine. This is quite simply the best real world car I have ever driven. The interior feels like a proper Jag should - low slung with plenty of wood and leather. The bonnet has a subtle bulge which looks lovely from the driver?s seat. The car feels fantastic on the road with firm suspension and nice positive steering. The engine pulls well from low revs and is very quiet (I honestly wouldn't have known it was a diesel had I not been told). It didn't feel massively quick, but that probably related to how quiet it was in the cabin. The build quality seemed very good and I could imagine covering long distances in the car with little problem. The only downside was the £38K price tag, although I imagine they will become relatively affordable in a few years.
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