Disappointment on my new company car

Minxy said:
The car is already built so they cant change the interior apparently and cancelling this car means a wait until January for an A3!!!!
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You arent a new customer going on to the waiting list. You are a current customer already waiting, expecting a car with the correct interior (whats the point in asking what interior you want if they do it wrong?! the dealer must have special employees).

I would send it back, and demand a new one in a week or tell them to chuck in free insurance, longer warrenty (or knock a few grand off the price, but I do not know much about how company cars work)
 
[TW]Fox;12350048 said:
Did yours accelerate from 50-70 in 6th in a timely fashion? Or did you need 3rd or 4th to avoid holding everybody up all the time?
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I used to change gear, because after the first time, I figured the car is actually crap.

Do you always go for the clutch pedal when driving an auto?

You need to be able to adjust your driving style to the vehicle in hand :)
 
I think you should get them to change the colour of the roads seeing as you have to stare at them all day.

what do you sell?
 
jamoor said:
I used to change gear, because after the first time, I figured the car is actually crap.

Do you always go for the clutch pedal when driving an auto?

You need to be able to adjust your driving style to the vehicle in hand :)
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I did 1500 miles in it and was caught out by it only a few times - but even once is enough to make it irritating. I shouldn't *have* to do things like stir the gearbox on the Motorway. As you say, the engine/gearbox combination is crap, which is pretty much my point, so its good to see we agree :p

140bhp diesels are just sucky. Anyone who disagrees is trying to convince themselves everything is alright and their fleet manager doesn't hate them after all :p
 
hittman said:
why do you keep saying that every time jamoor post something u don't agree with?:confused:
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Post something I didn't agree with? He posted an insult :confused: And then after a 4 post battle of fail turns out he agreed with me anyway in my opinion that the engine was crap :D
 
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Fox, I normally don't disagree with you, but I have to on this "140bhp is inadequate" argument..

I drive a 260bhp car as a daily runner, and am also very often in a 2.0 140bhp Skoda Octavia for work - which I drive really quite hard...


I find the Octavia a decent handling, moderately quick car for what it is. Its not built for racing, neither is a 3 or 5 series. I never feel like the power is "not enough", and sometimes I really am pushing it... this is just after getting out of my own pretty quick car.

The notion that a 140bhp 2 litre turbo diesel is inadequate for motorway cruising and general pottering about is quite frankly ridiculous.. If you truly find yourself caught out in an overtaking move on the motorway in one, you need to start thinking if the overtake was safe in the first instance..
 
I did say it was probably a combination of 140bhp and the 6th gear that compounded the problem. I assume the Octavias are 5 speed and therefore far closer to the power band when at Motorway speeds?

If you truly find yourself caught out in an overtaking move on the motorway in one, you need to start thinking if the overtake was safe in the first instance..
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Err I'm talking about when you are in the outside lane and somebody from the middle lane pulls out so you have to slow down, only to regain speed again once they get back out of the way :) You want to get back up to cruising speed reasonably quickly to avoid looking like you are just faffing about in the outside lane. I got 'caught out' a few times by forgetting it just went nowhere in 6th. Of course by 'caught out' I meant 'annoying the **** out of the A6 driver behind me' rather than any sort of safety thing.

It just seems that 6 speed gearboxes are a bit of an obsession at the moment and I don't think they suit reasonably low powered cars.

If you worked the box, you could get acceptable levels of performance from the car but it just felt like unneccesarily hard work. I much prefer being able to just stay in my cruising gear on the Motorway, if someone pulls out I can brake, once they move again a quick session of foot in carpet and you are quickly and efficiently back to cruising speed. It's far more relaxing, especially on a trip where people in people carriers wont stop lunging out at 65mph because the car in front of them is doing 64.5mph. The time it most annoyed me was on the A31 just before it turns into the M27 - this was an uphill section as well. Car pulls out, we all slow down, he moves back in, I forgot I had a car with no power and crud gear ratios, foot down, nothing. Oh crap. Ok 5th then. Still nothing. Grr. Right, try 3rd, there we go, thats a bit better :/ I dunno, it just wound me up. I don't want the ability to travel everywhere at 155mph but I do like flexibility with gearchoice and a car that will deliver at least 'good' performance irrespective of gearchoice.
 
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I think all the Skoda 140bhp's are 6 gear, although not sure - the one I usually drive is a "Sport" model.

5th gear in it is more then adequate at motorway cruising speeds...
 
I disagree that 140bhp is innadequate, i drove a 90bhp Leon TDI for over 100k miles and never found it to be an issue as such, and i am hardly someone with no experience of decent cars. It lapped up around 40k per year very nicely, and was always perfectly fit for purpose and sat in the outside lane daily at triple figures.

I would say however that i agree about the comment about the BMW, with 200bhp compared with the 140bhp of the audi its a total no brainer, but then i dislike both cars so it would come down to stats for me. Infact no it wouldnt, i am in exactly the same boat as minxy, and i run a V8 S-class instead, its much better and costs me barely any more thanks to the ridiculous BIK values put on company cars combined with the loss of the allowance. I dont see why people bother.
 
Jez said:
I disagree that 140bhp is innadequate, i drove a 90bhp Leon TDI for over 100k miles and never found it to be an issue as such, and i am hardly someone with no experience of decent cars
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Sounds more and more like it was a poor combination of engine, gearbox and bodystyle then. 140bhp in a 3 Series Estate with 6 gears = mucho box stirring. The 320d Saloon I drove a few months previously was considerably better despite being 'only' 23bhp up - infact I believe I said at the time it offered all the performance you really NEED in the real world. It was a particularly good car, that.
 
[TW]Fox;12350633 said:
Sounds more and more like it was a poor combination of engine, gearbox and bodystyle then. 140bhp in a 3 Series Estate with 6 gears = mucho box stirring. The 320d Saloon I drove a few months previously was considerably better despite being 'only' 23bhp up - infact I believe I said at the time it offered all the performance you really NEED in the real world. It was a particularly good car, that.
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It comes down to what you are used to, and what you come to expect. Compared with a 300bhp s-class or any form of half decent 5-series then all of these rep-mobiles are of course totally crap. I dont feel innadequate is the right word though, as i say i literally did 100k in a 90bhp which was, tbh, totally fine, it was fine in the sense that my dishwasher washes my dishes fine, but it was fine none the less.

I'm going back to my last comment about why people bother though, i feel like someone who has been let out of jail or something since i left the scheme and can just buy whatever i like, and now have a nice v8 and massaging seats available at kickdown on my boring trips up and down the motorway network. These diesel rep-mobiles are soul destroying, no matter how "powerful" they are on paper. :/
 
I chose to stay in the CC scheme, as in all honesty I pay £150 all in to drive a ST, I could opt out and pocket the cash, but in our company the car has to be under 5 years old and then I would also lose my fuel card, so not worth it, not with the private miles I do.

Plus if i turn up to a customer in S class or similar, they would think I was taking the pee, its a funny industry:p
 
Yea but it seems that in your CC scheme you are eligible for decent cars. I dread the day I get my first proper job after Uni and get a company car because they are quite rightly going to laugh me out the door when I say 'Sorry a Vauxhall Astra? Can I not have a 535d M Sport please' :(
 
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