Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Hell Razor5543]

In case you are not aware, Zel, some of Oxford is now a Congestion Charge zone. I do not know if the JR is within this zone. Only cars are affected (which does not concern me, as when I have to go into Oxford it is work related, so I am driving my company van).

[Zelandeth]

In case you are not aware, Zel, some of Oxford is now a Congestion Charge zone. I do not know if the JR is within this zone. Only cars are affected (which does not concern me, as when I have to go into Oxford it is work related, so I am driving my company van).

It is indeed, JR itself isn't, but a couple of the possible routes to/from it are. Thankfully it's pretty clearly signposted.

Annoyingly I couldn't see any way to set up an auto-pay account like TfL have for London when I looked - though admittedly I was in a rush so only spent about 30 seconds on it.

[RichardW]

Doesn't seem to be an 'autopay' option per se - just a facility to pre-pay (gits....!) - which is OK if you are going to be there x days a week, but not so good for occasional transgressions.

But - Looks like you can apply for a free permit if you are a regular hospital patient: https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transpor ... al-patient

I would go with a E5 petrol without all the bells, whistles, bongs and nannying over an EV or later ICE car....! TBH as long as you are doing decent mileage a carefully chosen E6 diesel is OK - The PSA 1.6 is OK (AdBlue issues aside of course, but they seem to be not too bad if you use decent AdBlue and drive it on decent runs - just had the first trouble with ours at 90k / 9 years and fitted a new NOX sensor) but the 1.5 is best avoided. The Renault 1.5 DCi gets decent press.

The Glasgow ULEZ is really pernicious - no ability to pay an access charge, and repeat transgression are on a ratchet, so you can end up paying £960 PER VISIT if you go more than a few times in 90 days. Nearly ended up in there in my (E5) 3008 a few months back - the slip road I was thinking I was going to take to get back on the M8 was closed; had to take the next one (in the wrong direction!) to avoid it.

[Zelandeth]

Had a very quick nosey at a Renault 4 today when I was passing by the dealer for something totally unrelated. Definitely on the possible list, and I'll need to arrange a test drive I think - for the sake of my curiosity if nothing else.

Boot is actually a reasonable size, especially for the size of the car - it looks about twice the size of the one in that hateful Qashquai I had as a rental back in February. No the dogs wouldn't be as comfortable as in the Volvo where they can actually sprawl out if they so chose, but absolutely viable for them to travel in there together especially for shorter trips.



Lots of really nice detail touches - I'm sure I'd be finding more for months.







Just feels like they're actually taking some pride in the design and have tried to make it a bit more fun than your typical appliance. Sadly it doesn't look like the yellow door cards seen in a bunch of the thumbnails and such are a UK option.

I guess my only immediate criticisms were that the driving position has the wheel and instrument panel *very* noticeably offset to the left, the start button position seems really awkward tucked away behind the steering wheel, and that it's really easy to whack your head getting into the back seats.



I do definitely appreciate there being physical controls for the heater as well - even if they're clearly laid out for the original LHD application so the temperature control is way over on the left...that just feels kind of inevitable though given that the RHD market is so comparatively small it's really not worth tooling up unique parts down to that level if they can avoid it.

Overall though I definitely didn't immediately dislike it, and it definitely offers a lot more room than I expected. Definitely will want a test drive in one.

Scotland is the main reason I'm not considering E5 petrols - I absolutely don't trust that they won't move the goalposts and insist that everything for their ULEZ areas must be E6 or even EV only in the relatively near future - and if this is a car I'm hoping to keep forgetting the next ~10 years I'd really not want to find myself hamstrung by that only a few years into ownership. Worth noting that our longer term family plan has always been to move back to Scotland as well, so the more strict nature of their ULEZ arrangements is something that definitely is on my radar.

[mickthemaverick]

I guess it's the camera angle with your picture of the dash Zel, but the aircon controls look decidedly askew to me. I'm also not a fan of square steering wheels, too many reminders of the allegros!!

[Zelandeth]

I guess it's the camera angle with your picture of the dash Zel, but the aircon controls look decidedly askew to me. I'm also not a fan of square steering wheels, too many reminders of the allegros!!

Sadly everything made this side of 2020 seems to have oddly shaped steering wheels. I blame VW as they were the main one that seemed to shove the idea down everyone's throats around 2010 and refused to back down. It's bugged me on every car I've driven with one...but it's a hill I'm not willing to die on.

The centre section of the dash is more steeply sloped towards the driver - there is a lot of barrel distortion from the camera involved as well though as I was using the wide angle mode.

[myglaren]

What is this?

[Zelandeth]

What is this?

Gear selector. The clear button on the end is pushed to unlock it.

[myglaren]

Ta; would never have guessed.

[Zelandeth]

Ta; would never have guessed.

It's hard to tell in the photo because of the angle. It's set up pretty much as you'd expect for a conventional column shift automatic - just out of frame to the left is the D-N-R labelling. Though obviously it's just a switch on this case.

Edit: It's the end of this thing.



Tomorrow hoping to make a run by the Kia dealership to take a nosey at the only other thing on my wishlist at the moment.

[CitroJim]

The original R4 always had a big boot Zel... I once got two Hoover 'Keymatic' washing machines in the back of mine...

Good to hear all the positives about the new R4. I hope that applies to the R5 too... The car I aspire to one day...

[Zelandeth]

The original R4 always had a big boot Zel... I once got two Hoover 'Keymatic' washing machines in the back of mine...

Good to hear all the positives about the new R4. I hope that applies to the R5 too... The car I aspire to one day...

As I understand it, aside from the shape body that's plonked on top of it the 4/5 are built on pretty much an identical platform. The interiors look to be all but identical save for a few graphics being different and the boot being far bigger on the 4. Think the 5 may have slightly more options for trim colours as well.

[mickthemaverick]

The original R4 always had a big boot Zel... I once got two Hoover 'Keymatic' washing machines in the back of mine...

When I were a lad the Police rode Velocette motorcycles which were nicknamed sewing machines. When my brother in law to be got a Renault 4 we called it his washing machine!! The thought of two further washing machines in the back of his washing machine amused me!!

[CitroJim]

The original R4 always had a big boot Zel... I once got two Hoover 'Keymatic' washing machines in the back of mine...

When I were a lad the Police rode Velocette motorcycles which were nicknamed sewing machines. When my brother in law to be got a Renault 4 we called it his washing machine!! The thought of two further washing machines in the back of his washing machine amused me!!

I'm pleased you came clean with that tale Mick

[Zelandeth]

Had a look (albeit exceptionally briefly as I was sprinting flat out between two other jobs at the time) at the other possible option today - and that really hasn't helped matters as I really liked what I saw there too. Not quite as outwardly cheerful in the details as the Renault, but very much coming across as a vehicle that there's nothing in which has happened by chance. Boot is a really decent size as well - and unlike the Renault a proper factory fit dog guard like in the Volvo is an option.



Not fitted to the car I was looking at, but there's also an extended load bay protector available which both covers the back of the rear seats and folds down over the bumper to save that getting scratched. I also appreciate the provision of proper load securing points. Lack of those in the Volvo has been one of my few real grumbles, especially given the size of the load bay! There are a couple at the rear but nothing at the front, and sometimes being able to cross-tie a heavy load is really useful. Especially when you're hauling around things like a PDP11. This isn't quite as cavernous as the Volvo...but honestly very little these days is. The largest SUV Volvo currently sell doesn't come close to having the same load space available...It's also going to tip over a hundred grand by the time you've specced it up a bit so that was already out. Honestly it was already out of the running anyway as I Do Not Want an SUV.

Rear legroom that I don't think I've had matched since I had the Xantia. The Passenger seat here is literally all the way back.



There's just a lot of easily missed details dotted around the cabin - like the neatly tucked away power outlets for rear seat passengers actually in the front seats rather than buried down by the passengers feet in the centre console.



There's storage everywhere too. Not least a giant compartment under the centre console (which I thought went all the way to the floor judging from photos I'd seen) and more device charging sockets than you can shake a stick at. I rarely need more than one myself (and there's a compartment with wireless charging in as well), but if you've got a car full of four tech heavy adults on a longer trip they can be in surprising demand I've found.

Sorry, awful photo. You get the idea though.



The version I'd be looking at would have a bit more colour in the cabin as the piping on the seats and such would be dayglow yellow - and there are ambient lighting strips all over the shop you can set to be any colour you want and make the thing look like something lifted straight out of TRON. The monochromatic theme of the one in these photos wouldn't be for me. Even though the one I was having a nose at was literally straight off the transporter and still had the protective film on everything, I could immediately tell that the quality of the materials on everything you actually touch (especially the steering wheel and door handles!) is at worst on par with, but in many areas way ahead of VW's current offerings.

Not as out and out cheerful as the Renault, but it's just *nice* in so many ways, and just leaps out at me as feeling far more like "cars in the future would be like" in the 90s than most of what we see on the roads today. I've heard them described more than once as "A Model S for someone who wants a Model S but doesn't want a Tesla" and I don't think that's honestly a bad description. There are a lot of parallels in the way they've chucked the conventional rule book in the bin and have built something that's packaged to take advantage of being an EV, and haven't really tried to disguise that it's an EV...rather than just being a car design from 15 years ago powered by a battery with a giant touchscreen stuck to the dash. So they're both in the running I think if we do end up going for something newer. The Kia would probably be nearly new second hand though given the list price is a bit steep, though would likely involve a bit of a wait as the exact model I'm after isn't all that common (I think there were two on Autotrader when I last looked). Though if we could make the numbers stack up, that would be a lot of fun. Renault looking at the current deals being offered we could handle off the shelf without any huge headaches I'd think - plan with either would be for keeping them for probably ten years or so unless they gave us reason not to, just like when I bought my 107 back in 2009.

They're both very different cars and at very different ends of the market, and I like them both in different ways. Test drive of both needs to happen (even if the Kia is likely to be the more pedestrian version than we'd be looking at, it'll tell me what I need to though) so I can see what I think about driving them. Oh, and testing the stereo in both properly - as having a damned good stereo is actually quite high on my priority list and it's not exactly easy to upgrade in stuff this new. The best sound system I own currently is the factory one in the Volvo!

I'm open to any other suggestions, but honestly everything else on the market aside from the Renault 5 which just doesn't have enough cargo space that I've seen just looks so absolutely boring. Plus I Do Not Want an SUV. Germans need not apply as I find VAG's seat design and complete lack of suspension to be about as comfortable as falling down a flight of stairs...as for BMW, just no. I am not a BMW person. Mercedes lineup looks about as interesting as a trip to the dentist, and the EQC when specced up similarly is far more expensive than the Kia for less than half the performance. Honestly last time I sat in a new Merc two or three years ago I was thoroughly unimpressed by the quality of the cabin materials as well.

Decent sized boot, space for four adults in comfort, new enough to have a decent amount of warranty left, and ideally an EV for guaranteed future ULEZ compliance...and because honestly with how much of our driving is locally and how much looks like it may also be in stop-start traffic going forwards just makes sense I think. The "OMG the battery will die in five years" and general fear around service and repair of them may have been valid concerns in 2016, but it's now 2026 and they've been commonplace for long enough to prove that they can work. If we did have some oddball requirement where we NEEDED something which had 500 odd miles of non stop range, we're honestly in a position where we could just RENT a car for that eventuality. Both of the current front runners have north of 200 mile usable ranges, and even if I were doing an Aberdeen run, realistically I SHOULD be stopping for a break after that long anyway - even if I have done it non stop more than once, which is utterly stupid and I should have known better.