thegarageblog.co.uk : Watch us suffer – buy one of these cars.

Like most small businesses, we rely on a regular flow of work through the door in order to keep the wolf from the door (well, the bailiffs and VAT inspectors) and pay the staff wages. Although it’s always an uphill struggle running a small business, the fact that most households have at least one car and that it will always need an MOT and occasional service, we usually find something to do.

Every so often though, something major might go wrong with one of our customer’s cars that will be both time-consuming and generally expensive to fix, and will keep us gainfully employed in getting it back on the road for them as quickly as possible.

Spare a though then for the driver’s of Britain’s ‘Most Reliable Cars’ as named in the Auto Express ‘Driver Power’ survey this year.

Drive a Skoda Fabia or Octavia? Then get used to not being left stranded by the roadside very often and not spending a fortune on emergency repairs. Try telling that to a Renault Megane driver!

Do you drive a Lexus IS? Then it’s unlikely that you’ll have to open the bonnet very often, apart from maybe refilling the screenwash. Even the oil will probably not need topping-up between services.

Fancy something sporty? Why have an MGF that blows its head gasket and overheats frequently, when you could have a Honda S2000 that’s pretty much guaranteed to never need so much as the valve cover taking off.

Personally though, I reckon all this reliability can become a bit boring. Do you ever find internet forums of Toyota Corolla owners moaning about how they keep breaking down? Of course not, but type ‘MGF Head Gasket’ into Google and there’s 13,600 pages for your perusal. Although the Lexus IS200 was an almost perfect Japanese copy of a BMW 320i, we’ve never so much as performed more than a service or cambelt change on one, whereas cracked BMW cylinder heads, broken water pumps, knackered fan hubs and leaking coolant pipes are a regular occurrance. If a customer should happen to bring-in an 8 year old Toyota with a funny noise from the engine, it’s probably no worse than a worn alternator belt that’ll might cost £40. The owner of a similar aged Megane 16V with an engine noise will almost certainly need a new cambelt, tensioners and water pump for the best part of £400 on their abused Barclaycard!

So, dear motorists of Surrey and Hampshire, spare a thought for the poor garage owner having to scrape a living. Please stick to buying your Renault Lagunas and Meganes instead of a Toyota Avensis or Honda Civic. Fancy a nice 1.25 Zetec Ford Fiesta? Don’t you dare - please buy a Peugeot 206 instead and at least we’ll see you more frequently. Whatever you do, don’t buy a Lexus GS300- we’ll never see you at all. No, a top range Alfa Romeo 156 will ensure that you’ll always be popping-in to see us for a coffee, a diagnostic check, and hopefully a new gearbox or engine.

Anyway, on another note I mentioned in a recent post about the dangers of texting at the wheel and how I often witnessed drivers on my way home from work, frantically tapping at their keypad at 70MPH. Well, last week, on a trip back from Tilbury Docks, I witnessed something I’d never seen before. The driver of an ‘04 reg. Audi A4, whilst negotiating the narrow lanes of the Queen Elizabeth bridge Dartford river crossing at 45mph, had not one but TWO phones on the steering wheel, and was texting with both of them! Not only was this man capable of ambidextrous texting, but he was managing to keep the car straight AND not hit the car in front or (me) to his side. I expect he may have been muching on a Ginster’s pastie and drinking a cup of Costa Coffee as well, but didn’t want to stay alongside for too long, just in case. There’s always a chance that one of his texts might be informing him that his job or wife are no longer there, and that’s bound to make him swerve a bit! Rather than give him 6 points and a fine, he should maybe get a diploma in multi-tasking and manual dexterity!