New Car

A few weeks ago we said a sad goodbye to this:

It had served us well, exceptionally well, for 12 years and in many ways we were sad to see it go.  There is however good reason.  With over 100,000 miles on the clock it is coming to that time when the big failures occur - 110,000 to 125,000 you can expect gear boxes and engines to fail.  Other things were also badly worn.

We replaced it with this:

 

A very similar vehicle in many ways, but so much more modern.  It is a 1.4 litre turbo, rather than a 2.4 litre.  It should do significantly better than 12 MPG, I'm hoping for 2.5 times that at least.  The Toyota allowed for the removal of seats, giving the car a van like appearance.  The Volkswagen does not, although they all fold flat, it does not give the huge open space.  It is also a more up-to-date car, with start-stop technology (why isn't it called stop-start?) and various other automatic driver aids.  The anti-rollback and automated hand break feature is great for driving, but makes backing out of the garage downhill interesting, especially when next door's car is directly in the path it wants to take.  I'm not used to it yet.   I'm not used to the 'connected' car yet, either, so there is lots to learn.

We are looking forward to many years of great service from this vehicle, I hope it lasts as long as the Previa (at least).