Swap Shop

I've decided to swap my car. Having had the sporty little 2+2 Hyundai coupe for only 6 months, I've finally conceded that it's just too impractical - I might as well as gone the whole hog and got a 2-seater. The Hyundai is fine at home, the kids fit in the smallish 2 rear seats well enough, but if 4 adults need to get in (which they occasionally do - and would do more often if I had a bigger car) then it's a bit of a joke and an unpleasant ride.

I'd only got the Hyundai on a whim really, since I had my last car written off after a bump back in September, something I still can't believe since there was hardly any damage it seems. My last car was a very staid, boring Renault Laguna - I'd decided to opt out of having a fancy car since I rationalised that I do so few miles a year (less than 6,000) and my drive to work is like 5-6 mins on a busy day. Now with both kids at school full time, I'm doing even less running around and dropping off (in the way that all fathers are glorified taxi drivers).

I've done the nice car thing though, I had a six year period with two very nice cars; a 323i BMW convertible from new and also 3 years with a new 2.8 E280 Mercedes Avantgarde automatic which was very nice but a trifle dull to drive due to the effortless auto. Admittedly I was a bit younger and I did do a lot more miles then (usually driving to away Leeds fixtures) but on the whole the cars cost me way more than the value of having them due to the way that company car tax changed - and especially with the Mercedes which battered me eventually due to it having high emissions - in the end the justification was so bad, it had to go.

I'm not sure what I'm going to get - I almost got an Audi-A4 today, I mean it was really close - had the car been ready for collection tomorrow, I'd have got it - simply because I'd rather drive down to Cornwall in a shopping trolley than the wife's Picasso - which is wholly practical but dull and has less force behind it than an ageing budgie. I've now left it a wee bit too late to try and get anything done today, but we'll see what can be done.