New Wheels For Sue

Sue’s little black Corsa has been with us for three years now. It was two years old, with 20,000 miles on the clock when we bought it. Sue has added some 47,000 additional miles in our three years of ownership, and I am delighted to report that the car has behaved well throughout, and cost us nothing other than fuel and regular servicing during our ownership. It has a tiny 1248cc diesel engine, and the trip computer has shown the fuel consumption to have been 66.1mpg during our three years. The car recently passed its MoT test, but with a couple of ‘advisories’ for things that will need attention soon. I already knew of a couple of other pending issues, so the decision was made that we would part with it now, before having to spend money on it.

We made the marathon trip to Inverness about ten days ago, spending two days there looking at a wide range of nearly-new cars, and trying a few of them.  I was hoping to persuade Sue into a slightly larger car than the Corsa, as I feel that a larger car would be better suited to the high mileage she does for her job. But Sue was insistent that she ‘didn’t need all that space’. So, to cut the long story short, we ended up with a choice between an ex-demonstrator Skoda Fabia 1.6TDi-105ps Elegance with 4,000 miles on the clock, or a pre-registered but brand new Citroen C3 1.6 e-HDi Airdream… and coming out some £1000 cheaper to buy, Sue chose the Citroen.

I don’t fully understand the policy of pre-registering cars and then offering them for sale at massive discounts, but many of the dealers seem to be doing it, and we certainly have benefitted. I feel very sorry for anyone who pays close to full list price for a new car though. Our discount from new amounted to over 30%.

I collected the new car from Inverness yesterday. It was interesting to drive the Corsa over there, and come back in the new C3. Almost as soon as I set off back, it was apparent that the C3 is a better car in every way than the Corsa. It is smoother, quieter, more comfortable, more powerful, rides better, steers better and is even cheaper to run - on arrival back at Roskhill, the odometer was now showing a total mileage of 140, and the trip computer showed my fuel consumption to have averaged an impressive 76.3mpg. Even the road tax is free! In short, I was quite delighted with our purchase, and once again wonder why Citroen cars are so often under-rated. You don’t see many C3s on the road, whereas Corsas are everywhere. 

Here’s our last picture of the Corsa, and the new C3, today (in the rain)! The C3 will get Sue’s S200SOO number plate in a few day’s time, when the transfer process has been completed.

Sue has loved her little Corsa...

...and I'm sure she'll love her new C3 too