Cars: Honda CR-Z and Skoda Yeti
Owner: Euan Doig
It was a quiet and peaceful day. Sunny, warm, dry. Birds were tweeting. The smell of blossom was in the air. I was working away quite happily in the office at home, a fresh brew by my side. The cat came in and said hello. It felt like I was taking part in a Disney movie. Right up to the moment I wasn’t.
BANG! Tinkle. Screeesh. The sound of an engine revving. A neighbour shouted: “Oh God!”
“Wonder what that was?” I thought. “Surely it couldn’t be. Maybe I should check. Nah, it’ll be fine. But then again…” I donned footwear, stepped out of my front door to see a neighbour walking up to it. She said: “Is that white CR-Z anything to do with you?”
My heart plummeted faster than mercury in winter. A man was standing at the end of the path, looking sheepish and trembling. “I’m so sorry. A wasp flew down my t-shirt and…”. He’d hit the CR-Z with his Audi S5 and pushed it into the car next to it. Both sides were bent and one of the rear wheels was at a jaunty angle. I hoped it would be okay, but to no avail – it was a write-off, said the insurance company.
What to get next? Well, truth be told, as much as I loved the way the CR-Z looked and drove, it was a teensy bit impractical. There wasn’t much boot space, and anything you did put in there tended to roll around right behind your ears. And my girlfriend and I like heading off at the weekend with our mountain bikes.
That just wasn’t happening with the CR-Z. And as for our regular camping trips – well, Tracey’s Fabia stepped up but ended up rather full. In effect, I needed a Swiss army knife of a car.
A Skoda Yeti seemed like the ideal choice. It was roomy, square (in the physical sense), cheap to run and reliability reports were favourable. And you can not only fold down the rear seat, but you can also take them out altogether. Roll on camping joy! Even better, there's an AutoFix for it.
So the hunt began. I wanted something low mileage that had been looked after. And after a few weeks of scouring ads, I found my ideal car. One owner, 27,500 miles, full service history and most important of all, within my budget. Negotiations ensued and the deal was done. A full service and MoT later, it was mine, and I’m chuffed.
It’s an early car with the funky front-end styling that I prefer, and it’s a basic model with no irritating touchscreen and suchlike. It does have air-con, rear parking sensors and electric windows, and it has roof rails I can attach a bike rack to.
Early economy is looking like low-40s from the 1.4 TSI petrol motor, and the only thing I need to sort is the slightly wobbly passenger-side door mirror glass (more on that in my next report). I may swap the radio head unit for something more smartphone-friendly, but a quick scoot into Halfords the other day revealed that to be a fairly expensive job. An aftermarket unit wouldn't work with the parking sensors, either, which is a pain.
Bring on the next few years of flexible motoring (as long as people who live nearby manage to avoid hitting it).