What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[StevenRB45]

Sister has a new house, best described as stereotypical 1960s suburban house. Drive way, garage, garden etc.

This is apparently the best way to realise just how big modern cars are.

We've been down a few times as it's by the sea and it means my boy and his cousins can all run round as a pack for a bit.

Good lord is it a mission to get on the drive, there's about an inch clearance off either mirror past the gateposts. Reversing on is a case of treat the parking sensors as advisory and keep a close eye on the mirrors and back up camera.

Once on you can't open one set of doors fully due to a wall and the other side is stepping into a flowerbed.

This is one of the smallest cars still on sale...and don't even think about attempting the garage.

My dad had a mk2 Astra when I was same age as my son is..you'd think we'll we're running round in a car the next size down. Except current car is bigger in every dimension except 1mm shorter.

 

[bugsymike]

Sister has a new house, best described as stereotypical 1960s suburban house. Drive way, garage, garden etc.

This is apparently the best way to realise just how big modern cars are.

We've been down a few times as it's by the sea and it means my boy and his cousins can all run round as a pack for a bit.

Good lord is it a mission to get on the drive, there's about an inch clearance off either mirror past the gateposts. Reversing on is a case of treat the parking sensors as advisory and keep a close eye on the mirrors and back up camera.

Once on you can't open one set of doors fully due to a wall and the other side is stepping into a flowerbed.

This is one of the smallest cars still on sale...and don't even think about attempting the garage.

My dad had a mk2 Astra when I was same age as my son is..you'd think we'll we're running round in a car the next size down. Except current car is bigger in every dimension except 1mm shorter.

The bigger mirrors don't help, I could back a LDV 200 (sherpa style van) down my drive when I first moved in, but a BL Maestro took the mirror off, mind you that might just be my cr*p driving.

 

[StevenRB45]

The bigger mirrors don't help, I could back a LDV 200 (sherpa style van) down my drive when I first moved in, but a BL Maestro took the mirror off, mind you that might just be my cr*p driving.

Today's fun fact...having googled it.

An LDV pilot is pretty much identical in width to a C3

C3 1749mm without mirrors 2009mm with..LDV

 

[bugsymike]

You didn't mention the Maestro width, or were you just being polite about my bad driving .
Funny enough I could reverse a SWB Iveco twin wheel van across the front of the house in the past easier than my current 2010 Doblo Maxi 1.6, mind you I was surprised it is slightly longer than my 07 Skoda Scout.
Maybe all the comments I used to make about "drivers who couldn't drive a stick up a cows behind" is coming home to roost.

 

[The Panda Nut]

I used to drive a Leyland Sherpa. You could lean over from the drivers seat and open the door or window while belted in. Its a stretch even in the Panda now. Bugsymikes comments remind me of our first Renault 5 which I used to treat as a go cart. I remember tearing into my drive when my Dad had parked across half of it. Trouble was there was 6" to little space and I remoulded the side on a concrete post so it had one moulded bulbous side and one newly modelled slimline flat one. It stayed like that for quite a while. I did fix it in the end when I bought a lefthand drive wreck for the floor gear change and it donated a door and quarter panel in a smart mushroom colour. A great match for the rest of the car which was gunmetal grey,. In the end we had it resprayed in maroon and drive it for quite a few years before it moved down the ranks to Mrs's first car and was replaced by a 16TX.

 

[StevenRB45]

Noticed a small dried out wet patch on the ceiling upstairs a few weeks ago.

Have no idea when it occured as when I spotted it it was dry, also it's small so could have missed it for months.

Just been up in the roof, it's currently thundering very loudly indeed and bucketing down, not a drop to be seen.

Both elevations of the roof also look fine as well I'll take a wild guess at a tile lifts slightly when the wind is from a certain direction gonna be fun finding that.

 

[porta]

A Robin nesting in a heron
Herons are nasty sods who will eat anything from fish to birds
Robin’s getting its own back

 

[StevenRB45]

Been invited on a joint family holiday end of the month.

Great in theory, in practice I need to get the car back here by the end of the day so my wife can go to work so not ideal.

Given the other Adult doesn't drive was toying with the idea of hiring a "partybus" it would need to be an 8 seater Vito or something though..so none starter unfortunately. Would make day tripping a lot easier and more fun.

As it is would need to go via bus train which would take just under 2 hours, the place we're going is 30 mins away in the car.

Anyone know if any manufacturers are doing 24 hour test drives?

Edit: hmm apparently I can't count, required seats would be 6, Ford Galaxy or similar 243 quid for the weekend.

 

[porta]

Been invited on a joint family holiday end of the month.

Great in theory, in practice I need to get the car back here by the end of the day so my wife can go to work so not ideal.

Given the other Adult doesn't drive was toying with the idea of hiring a "partybus" it would need to be an 8 seater Vito or something though..so none starter unfortunately. Would make day tripping a lot easier and more fun.

As it is would need to go via bus train which would take just under 2 hours, the place we're going is 30 mins away in the car.

Anyone know if any manufacturers are doing 24 hour test drives?

Edit: hmm apparently I can't count, required seats would be 6, Ford Galaxy or similar 243 quid for the weekend.

Get someone to loan you a multipla!

 

[porta]

Been invited on a joint family holiday end of the month.

Great in theory, in practice I need to get the car back here by the end of the day so my wife can go to work so not ideal.

Given the other Adult doesn't drive was toying with the idea of hiring a "partybus" it would need to be an 8 seater Vito or something though..so none starter unfortunately. Would make day tripping a lot easier and more fun.

As it is would need to go via bus train which would take just under 2 hours, the place we're going is 30 mins away in the car.

Anyone know if any manufacturers are doing 24 hour test drives?

Edit: hmm apparently I can't count, required seats would be 6, Ford Galaxy or similar 243 quid for the weekend.

Here’s an idea…
Once, wehn I was more stupid with money, a group of us fancied going to the coast. It was prohibitive to all take cars as there was 13 of us, nobody really wanted to anyway as we wanted a drink…
so I bought an MoTed wreck of a minibus and got folk to chip in fuel money…
I stupidly elected to drive as, the one teetotaller, didn’t feel comfortable driving something so big. I feel for coach drivers having to put up with drunks
I sold the van at a profit

 

[StevenRB45]

Here’s an idea…
Once, wehn I was more stupid with money, a group of us fancied going to the coast. It was prohibitive to all take cars as there was 13 of us, nobody really wanted to anyway as we wanted a drink…
so I bought an MoTed wreck of a minibus and got folk to chip in fuel money…
I stupidly elected to drive as, the one teetotaller, didn’t feel comfortable driving something so big. I feel for coach drivers having to put up with drunks
I sold the van at a profit

Do cheap MOT'd minibuses actually exist these days? Since COVID every man and his dog seems to want a camper conversion.

To be fair the chances of my Sister agreeing to put her kids in an old minibus are pretty low..and given an accident would have the potential to wipe out 2 generations of the family i'd have to agree it wouldn't be my 1st second or third choice. Fine for mates from college but I am meant to be a responsible adult .

 

[porta]

Do cheap MOT'd minibuses actually exist these days? Since COVID every man and his dog seems to want a camper conversion.

To be fair the chances of my Sister agreeing to put her kids in an old minibus are pretty low..and given an accident would have the potential to wipe out 2 generations of the family i'd have to agree it wouldn't be my 1st second or third choice. Fine for mates from college but I am meant to be a responsible adult .

Certainly was much later than my college days…the van was pretty solid to be honest, and modern enough to have seat belts…but yes, looked and they want fortunes for stuff I definitely wouldn’t have bought

 

[bugsymike]

We have all got a lot more aware of safety these days , Thirty odd years ago I used to drive my family in an old Bedford CF Crewbus with a Perkins diesel engine in it , the rear seats were wooden benches facing sideways with no seat belts!
Wouldn't dream of it these days.
I recall when they first got coaches to include passenger seat belts and my then wife refused to let our children go on a school trip in a coach without belts, much to the annoyance of the Headmaster, the trip went ahead and on the journey the driver had to stop suddenly due to another car, the only person who was mildly hurt thankfully, was the headmasters son, who he had managed to get him included on the trip from another school, I think after that all the coaches booked for the school had full seat belts!

 

[StevenRB45]

We have all got a lot more aware of safety these days

If we ignore that a cheap minibus is likely not going to be mechanically A1 and will either require few hundred quid of work minimum or driving something that's a bit iffy in terms of leaving you on the shoulder of smart motorway.

Then 3 of the 4 children are legally required to be in a child seat of some description which are not compatible with lap belts as fitted to older minibuses.

 

[bugsymike]

Even with a three passenger rear seating you can often only fit two good child seats with the ISO fitting, my youngest daughter has a VW Tiguan, not a small vehicle and once two child seats are fitted there is no room or access to a seat belt for a third person. I have five children (youngest now 30) but we had to buy the Peugeot 504 and 505 Family estates with the three forward facing rows ( I didn't like the Volvo rear facing idea) so with my mum as well we were able to take 8 of us to the Steam Rallies etc. That was in the days of multi point harness fittings for young children, so nowadays with large ISO child seats that probably wouldn't have worked.
I can still remember going to the Great Dorset Steam Fair, camping for the week so the boot space was filled almost to the roof with the family German Shepherd taking up the last bit, she didn't mind just always happy to be with us.

 

[StevenRB45]

Even with a three passenger rear seating you can often only fit two good child seats with the ISO fitting, my youngest daughter has a VW Tiguan, not a small vehicle and once two child seats are fitted there is no room or access to a seat belt for a third person.

Depends on the decisions made by the manufacturer usually the midsize Stellantis Stuff has 3 isofix in the rear and front passenger seat (I say midsize it's flipping large but in the modern era it is) then when you go up to the large 7 seater you get a further 2.

Stellantis also usually fit a front point on small cars as well so technically we can fit more isofix seats in the C3 than you can in a Tiguan.. because of business decisions to make big cars that aren't particularly useful.

Standard in a 7 seater would usually be outer 2 mid row and 2 rear most.

 

[bugsymike]

Depends on the decisions made by the manufacturer usually the midsize Stellantis Stuff has 3 isofix in the rear and front passenger seat (I say midsize it's flipping large but in the modern era it is) then when you go up to the large 7 seater you get a further 2.

Stellantis also usually fit a front point on small cars as well so technically we can fit more isofix seats in the C3 than you can in a Tiguan.. because of business decisions to make big cars that aren't particularly useful.

Standard in a 7 seater would usually be outer 2 mid row and 2 rear most.

I think back when my children were young , the wife didn't want to drive a "minibus" transit size etc. which I could have got easily.
Nowadays some of the bigger cars are the size of the older minibus types, but as you say aren't particularly practical.
It may be my age, but I find it harder to back my Fiat Doblo Maxi van across the front of the house than a SWB Iveco 3.5 tonne van I used to put in the same spot though I think the turning circle was better on the Iveco being rwd.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

I do find it ironic that buying a much bigger car like a tiguan doesn't always yield more space.

My Golf Cabriolet has two Iso Fix points in the back, You'd easily get two car seats in, we have massive Joie spinning things in both cars and you could get them both in the golf and still be able to turn them, yet obviously you'd not get a person sat between them (it is only a 4 door car with 4 seats/seatbelts) but the countryman which is comparable in size to the current generation of Tiguan you can still only get two car seats in the back (only two isofix points) you would never get a third and you'd not get someone sat in the middle of them either (assuming they could even get in past the massive car seats)
Even with just one car seat in the back it is a squeeze to get two normal sized people in the back, getting to the seatbelt for the middle person can be very difficult with the car seat being so large.

As kids get bigger car seats get smaller so the situation would improve with time, but in essence for number of people the Golf is no smaller than something huge like big SUV and I can still get 3 suitcases and push chair in the boot of the golf.

 

[bugsymike]

I do find it ironic that buying a much bigger car like a tiguan doesn't always yield more space.

My Golf Cabriolet has two Iso Fix points in the back, You'd easily get two car seats in, we have massive Joie spinning things in both cars and you could get them both in the golf and still be able to turn them, yet obviously you'd not get a person sat between them (it is only a 4 door car with 4 seats/seatbelts) but the countryman which is comparable in size to the current generation of Tiguan you can still only get two car seats in the back (only two isofix points) you would never get a third and you'd not get someone sat in the middle of them either (assuming they could even get in past the massive car seats)
Even with just one car seat in the back it is a squeeze to get two normal sized people in the back, getting to the seatbelt for the middle person can be very difficult with the car seat being so large.

As kids get bigger car seats get smaller so the situation would improve with time, but in essence for number of people the Golf is no smaller than something huge like big SUV and I can still get 3 suitcases and push chair in the boot of the golf.

Strangely she had an 2002 Golf GTD before and yet as you say no bigger apart from slightly more room for the dogs and pram in the boot, although an old Skoda Scout I have, has a deeper boot and very similar running gear. I did have a 05 Doblo seven seater but in fairness the boot space was non existent.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Strangely she had an 2002 Golf GTD before and yet as you say no bigger apart from slightly more room for the dogs and pram in the boot, although an old Skoda Scout I have, has a deeper boot and very similar running gear. I did have a 05 Doblo seven seater but in fairness the boot space was non existent.

I think the 2002 Golf would be a Mk4 ?? still largely the same size of car

Things like the Golf Skoda Octavia, Audi A3 they are all largely build on the same platform i am sure the scout maybe build on the same ? what ever platform they are built on small cabriolet or "huge" SUV they all fit into roughly the same length and width dimensions. so the only space you can gain is upward and often this isn't usable space. Quoting boot space in litres is usually very deceiving as the shape of the boot has a big impact on what you can get in there. My golf has a very deep/long boot so the push char will fit in front to back and you can still get suitcases down the sides. The mini it won't fit in like that unless you move the back seat forwards which you can do, but the passengers in the back lose all leg room. So the push chair goes in sideways and you can only then get about one suitcase in.

I think the whole cabin on the mini sits a bit further back than on the golf which eats into the cabin space from the front to the back, but overall it is "bigger" because of gains in height.

To make SUVs look right in their dimensions they make them with bit long bonnets., which smaller cars get away without.