The Vehicles Earth

First service for our BMW 5-series
It's a mark of our 530d Touring's popularity that we've racked up nudging 17,000 miles now. It's rare that we get to see a main dealer in our long-term tests that usually range from six months to a full year. But the Five's onboard computer accurately counted me down to its first service and so I looked around for a nearby garage.

Regular readers may remember that I've had ample cause to visit Peterborough's Sycamore BMW dealer in my time at CAR; both the 5-series GT and our Mini Cooper S had major transmission faults. So I reckoned it was time to branch out and try another franchised outlet.

Cue Cambridge's Elms BMW, the newest BMW garage in the UK. The old dealer in Great Shelford was too small and old-fashioned for this prosperous city, so they moved 10 miles west to an out-of-town site in the new village of Cambourne (think Milton Keynes with Cambridge pretensions). Eight and a half million quid later and it opened with a fanfare of being the most modern and eco of any BMW dealership anywhere.

We visited in its first week of business and can report it's a very posh affair. There's loads of space - it's a 3.5-acre site - and parking is ample. The building itself is more like a modern art museum than a car showroom: all white concrete and perpendicular edges. There's room for 26 models, nearly the whole BMW portfolio, and numerous break-out areas.

While our 530d had its first service, I enjoyed the complimentary teas, coffees and pastries, rejuiced my Blackberry on the provided chargers and kept CAR Online ticking over with the wi-fi. They promised a 90-minute while-you-wait service, and it was finished within two minutes of their target.

We always shop anonymously and I had no reason to suspect they knew I worked for CAR. Everyone was very polite and the whole experience was very satisfying. Glitches? They forgot to vacuum the boot (the rest of the car was valeted to a showroom sheen), they didn't have a pollen filter in stock (does it really need changing after nine months? They said so), and they neglected to reset the service indicator which now tells me I need to go back in 4800 miles.

That's not quite good enough for £247.69 and took the sheen off a wonderful, state-of-the-art BMW dealership.

By Tim Pollard

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests


A year in our BMW 530d Touring
Are we road testers too easily entranced by big luxury diesel estates? Over a misspent youth poring over car magazines, I remember reading of hacks falling for the charms of said vehicles in the 1980s. One colleague on another mag actually bid for his long-term BMW 330d Touring when he had to reluctantly hand the keys back. It seems as a breed we’re predisposed towards big, fast, comfy estate cars.

I’m not about to disappoint you. The new F11 BMW 5-series Touring was fabulous on many levels, if not quite perfect. It’s the sort of car whose sheer breadth of talents smacks your gob on a daily basis. We’ve already documented its high-speed transcontinental credentials, after it acted as pace car on Performance Car of the Year 2010 and actually beat the Ferrari 458 Italia on a marathon from Lyons to Calais. But the 5-series did the less glamorous stuff brilliantly too.

We’ve done the mandatory trips to tips, filled it with children on family duty and trudged into the office every day for nine months. The 530d never missed a beat and started first time, every time. It’s funny to think a few years ago we all oohed and ahhed when BMW removed keys from the start-up procedure, but all 5-series have keyless go as standard these days so you just thumb the button to get going. Annoyingly that’s not matched by keyless unlocking, so you still have to remove the key to unlock the doors before putting it back in your pocket and starting the car. Perhaps that’s BMW encouraging the upsell.

The 3.0-litre diesel engine is still a peach. I can’t think of a more refined engine in the executive class and until recently its figures were nigh-on unbeatable, but Audi and Merc have recently trumped it in some areas. Still, 245bhp, a torquey 398lb ft and 165g/km of CO2 are fine by me. Audi’s new A6 wagon 3.0 TDI now manages 156g/km, mind.

The straight six is at the heart of the experience: the 530d Touring will charge or cruise at will, and it’s impeccably tuned to the ZF eight-speed auto transmission. Before I became familiar with the gearbox, I’d feared such an over-geared cogfest would stumble between ratios like I do on my mountain bike; it doesn’t. Changes are creamy smooth and the spread of gears helps keep progress quiet and restful.

Our last 5-series long-termer – the massive but munting 530d Gran Turismo – suffered a pretty traumatic transmission fault when the auto ’box spat out torque converter bolts at speed on the A1. The same ’box in the Touring behaved perfectly. Nothing else fell off or went wrong in our 20,000 miles with the car.

Covering such a high mileage in a short space of time meant we had reason to visit a BMW dealer. We visited Cambridge Elms BMW, the newest Beemer garage in Britain. I can only imagine that the £7 million invested in it was spent with the same contractors who make trendy boutique Barcelona hotels, so clean and modernist were its lines. They serviced the car while I waited, nourished me with water and wifi and finished after 92 minutes, seconds within the allotted time. All very impressive, but they forgot to vacuum the boot and the service indicator wasn’t reset.

A couple of episodes during our ownership made us remember that owning a premium car needs a premium wallet. That first service – essentially a glorified oil change – cost us £247.69. We also had to change a tyre which developed a dangerous bulge, and replacing the Goodyear 245/40 R19 cost us a mildly upsetting £347. Playing at this level brings costs above and beyond the very reasonable fuel consumption.

That low CO2 figure is closely related to the 530d’s 44.1mpg claimed average. We all know the Government figures are produced in a laboratory in cloud cuckoo land, so how close did we get? I think it’s fair to say our 530d was driven enthusiastically and heavily laden some of the time, but the vast majority was just normal workaday journeys. We don’t all drive sideways at every roundabout (apart from Ben Barry. He does). Over the full nine-month stint we gobbled a gallon of diesel every 34 miles.

Trying to find faults in the 530d Touring is like trying to find nits in my son’s hair. One of the few things to annoy was the headlights, which we decided were a bit rubbish. It wasn’t just our 5-series; Barry drove a 520d from Wales to the office and came back complaining too.

The spread pattern seemed to be set for left-hookers, cutting off abruptly on the nearside verge as if to avoid dazzling non-existent oncomers. The result was a black patch just to the left of your vision, which became a problem on rural left-handers. This is doubly disappointing since our car had the £1210 Visibility package, which included automatic adaptive xenon headlights, headlight wash and high-beam assistant. Neither Sycamore Peterborough nor Elms Cambridge could find anything wrong.

Our car famously had the kitchen sink added to its spec, carrying £16,900 in extras. The best was the £940 head-up display – don’t order a 5-series without it – but many I could’ve done without. Especially when our inflated £56,300 new price plummeted a /grand/ in value every  1000 miles. Parkers Price Guide reckons we’d be offered £33,495 in part-exchange and a main dealer would sell it on for around £38k.

So let that be a warning before you go rampant on the options list. But there’s little else to warn you about. The 5-series was a brilliant all-rounder. They may have surgically removed some of the lithe sporting exec from the character of the new Five, but the brutal truth is they’ve probably made it more appealing to more of the market as a result.

What hasn’t changed is the relentless BMW attention to detail that permeates the Touring. The whole thing feels immaculately built inside and out, and it scrubbed up brilliantly. I love the engineered feeling of the major and minor controls in BMWs, from classy tick-tock of indicator to metered precision of throttle. Only Porsche does it as well. Which is part of the reason why – true to form – every single member of staff lusts after something just like this in their dream garage.

By Tim Pollard

I’m sticking with a Japanese car and I’m sticking with the coupé format but Honda’s CR-Z is a very different bento of sashimi. Out goes a thunderous 317bhp 3.7-litre V6 and incomes a dinky 1.5-litre petrol backed up a high-tech electric engine for a combined heady total of 124bhp.

When it came to speccing the Honda, we went for the £20,820 GT model, which throws in plasticy grey leather, a fixed glass roof, Xenon headlamps and Bluetooth connectivity. To this we’ve added Honda’s Dynamic+ pack, a £2,900 option which adds a set of very snappy 17inch graphite-grey Electra alloys to fill those gaping wheelarches and an enhanced external styling package comprised of carbonfibre-lookalike side, front and rear skirts and a matte silver finish for the front grille and wing mirrors. Oh, and a voice-operated satnav and phone system, priced at a rather steep £1,785

Colour? Only one to go for really – Premium White Pearl, which combined with the car’s dark alloys, black A-pillars and dark bodykit gives the Honda a very fashionable monochromatic look. I reckon the local carwash lads will be seeing a lot of the Honda this summer.

Agreed, £25,505 is a sizeable chunk of wedge for a small coupe, even a well-equipped and beautifully made one. But Honda reckons the CR-Z is effectively two cars in one: a nippy wrist-flick coupe and a misery eco runner. I have the next six months to find out if Honda is pulling our leg – and to persuade them to transform it into this!

By Ben Whitworth

By Ben Whitworth
Long Term Tests

Goodbye to our Honda CR-Z
The departure of a long-term car is an odd experience. I rarely grow attached to the car as a true owner would, but tend to view them with a rather detached eye as something to be constantly evaluated and judged. The Honda was different. I really gelled with this car during the 12,000-odd miles we covered together. Its ethos, its intelligence, its looks and its dynamics – I loved pretty much everything about this darty little coupe. I said goodbye to it with real regret.

I loved the Honda’s looks. I never tired of its dramatic styling, was always aware that it turned heads and caught myself even deep into its time with me, still turning to gaze at it after locking and walking away from it. It looked just like an incredibly advanced and high-tech glimpse of the automotive future ought to – clean, sharp and muscular. And I was gladdened to see that Honda’s stunning Ev-Ster concept car from this year’s Tokyo motor show driving this bold designing direction forward.

The cabin design was equally effective. For all its graphs, displays  and read-outs, the CR-Z’s intelligently-configured dashboard was a pleasure to look at and operate. All the data available was salient and worth monitoring. The layout was eye-catching as well as ergonomically sound. Build quality, despite the ho-hum plastics was superb. The only black spot was the sat-nav system whose graphics and menu system seemed to have would have come straight out of 1985. Awesome stereo, though. The seats were wonderfully low-slung  but lacked under-thigh support. And the rear seats were utterly pathetic.

The CR-Z’s hybrid system was never anything less than superb. The electric and petrol units worked together seamlessly and intuitively to deliver decent dollops of low-rev torque and high-rev punch. You just had to make sure that you didn’t caught languishing in the mid-range because otherwise anything – even diesely people carriers – would simply embarrass you. The car’s modest on-paper stats – 10.1 to 62mph and a 124mph top whack – belied its sheer brio and tail-up enthusiasm. It wasn’t fast but, my, it always felt it. Which, given today’s camera-littered roads, is no bad thing.

The CR-Z was far from perfect, but oddly  - or encouragingly enough – it wasn’t the hybrid technology that let the side down, but rather straightforward dynamics. The Honda’s ride quality was terrible. Brittle, stiff and ludicrously lacking in compliancy, it made tackling our roads something to be done through gritted teeth. I don't quite understand why Honda has got this so wrong over the last decade – every Honda I’ve driven in recent memory has been marked out by a stiff-jointed and unforgiving ride. The other major shortcoming was the mute and artificial-feeling steering. Sure, it was quick and unerringly accurate, and you could peel the coupe into corners with real precision, but my nephew’s plastic Playstation steering wheel has better feel and feedback. Maybe Honda’s engineers need to have a long drive in the 1995 Integra Type R – one of the finest front wheel-drive cars (along with the Peugeot 306 Rallye and Ford Racing Puma) I have ever driven – to remind themselves that they’ve done it once, so they can and should do it again.

It would, then, be relatively easy to create a far superior next-gen CR-Z (would it be the CR-A…?). Go to Sachs and see the magic it’s advanced dampers can create when it comes to combining excellent body control and ride comfort. Go to Recaro and get some equally low-slung bucket seats that also have plenty of base support. Ditch the ridiculous rear seats and offer a big and accessible lockable luggage box. Speak to TomTom about a first-rate satellite navigation system. And speak to Porsche about how electrically-assisted steering can still be feelsome and connected. And find more torque – a lot more torque – throughout the rev-range. Push battery and electric motor technologies to the next level to get more green grunt. Perhaps if the CR-Z’s engine was breathed on by a tiny low-pressure turbo, or even drank diesel…

Looked at with a cold and calculating eye, a £25,550 (as tested) two-seater coupe with very modest performance and economy (my overall economy was 47.2mpg compared to the 56.5mpg official figure) is hardly something to get all steamy about. But drive the CR-Z along your favourite road, let it get under your skin and fill you with its feel-good factor, and the picture changes dramatically. This Honda was special and made me feel so every time I dropped down behind its steering wheel. It will be greatly missed.

Welcome to our new Mercedes-Benz CLS250 CDI long-termer
Welcome to the new luxury. The Mercedes-Benz CLS250 CDI is an elite car for humbler times. It’s a coupe that offers each occupant a door, rather than making rear-seat passengers feel like second-class citizens, and is powered by a small, efficient, clean diesel engine when for a century big Benz coupes have had big benzin engines. Cars like this just didn’t exist when I started doing this job a decade ago. You can still have a V8-powered CLS if you want one. But when and where can you use it? Benz thinks lots of us will like the idea of an elegant, luxurious car with just-sufficient power, a longer range, lower running costs and less guilt. And I’m going to spend the next year finding out how appealing this new niche-niche is.

Seems the new luxury comes at an old-fashioned price. Our CLS Sport costs £49,355 before options and £58,055 after, which must be some sort of record for a 2143cc, 204bhp diesel four. I didn’t specify this car myself and if I had, I’d have been pretty happy with the kit that comes as standard. The ‘basic’ car has leather, 18s, bi-xenons, sat-nav, a digital radio, parking sensors and self-parking; for another three grand the Sport trim adds 19s, LED lights and sportier styling, suspension, transmission and brakes.

So when the CLS comes pretty fully laden, how did we end up with a car costing nearly nine grand more? Most of that has gone on seats and trim: three grand on a ‘luxury package’ that extends the leather around the cabin and improves its quality, and adds an Alcantara headlining and ‘ambient’ cabin lighting with three changeable hues. Adding three memory positions and four-way lumbar support to the already electric seats adds £715 to the bill, and the ‘dynamic’ seats that offer massage, more adjustment and active bracing through corners add £1310. There’s a grand for a glass sunroof, £950 for an upgraded hard-drive sat-nav with a bigger screen, and £650 for a better, 14-speaker Harman Kardon hi-fi. All very nice, and together they provide a Bentley-esque cabin atmosphere now even more at odds with the humble motor out front. But all very pricey: I’ll make sure I spend some time in a ‘standard’ CLS to see if it really feels nine grand less special.

I’d definitely have chosen the £445 folding rear seats and £350 heated front seats myself, and the £295 Speed Limit Assist, which uses a front-facing camera to spot speed-limit signs you might have missed, will be interesting to test. But I don’t think I’d have chosen the colour. The car has just been delivered, but the Cuprite Brown is not endearing itself to me. Cuprinol Brown might be a better name. A brave design like the CLS doesn’t need a brave colour, and Merc makes it easy to make your CLS look sensational. There are four greys and silvers that flatter the lines, and if you want to be bold the aubergine or porcelain leather options look amazing.

Mine, however, is brown. I’m not going to criticise a car for something so easily changed, and the man at Merc insists brown is the new white. But for now the CLS looks less like the new luxury than the transport of a prosperous, solid, small-town West German pork butcher circa 1975. It’s a very different picture inside though, and when I get to the end of the 1000-mile running-in period I hope I’ll find it doesn’t drive like a brown ’70s diesel Merc four-door. Actually, wasn’t James Hunt’s famously bricked-up ’70s Merc 450SEL 6.9 brown too? I’m feeling better about mine already.

By Ben Oliver

By Ben Oliver
Long Term Tests


We take our CLS to the Geneva motor show
So my Mercedes-Benz CLS250 CDI and I are in Lausanne today, just near Geneva. It’s been an eventful trip: with a weekend in Dijon and a week’s skiing in the Alps we’ve covered about a thousand miles already, and then there was the 2012 Geneva show itself.

Random stuff to report: be aware that the French police are using some unpredictable unmarked cars. I was about to overtake an innocuous-looking Dacia Logan at a frisky pace when I spotted its extra aerials, second rear-view mirror and two burly blokes crammed inside. The British-registered Range Rover behind me wasn’t as observant and came steaming past us both. Watching the little Dacia trying to pull the Range Rover over was like watching a Jack Russell worry a cart-horse, and the fine probably cost as much as the Dacia. Good to see the French state taking serious austerity measures: less good to see them plugging the deficit by fining Brits.

Had it been me, I’d have had no excuse as the CLS’s smart speed-limit recognition camera even spots French signs that show different limits for wet and dry conditions and flashes them up on the central display. For this and a dozen other reasons the CLS is a pretty perfect long-distance tool. But it’s chiefly the economy that impresses, and the very infrequent need to stop: I’m getting 40mpg on this trip, though 50mpg and nearly 600 miles from a tank is more typical in slower UK driving. Doubt I’ll ever repeat the 80mpg I got coasting downhill from Val d’Isere though…

By Ben Oliver

Nissan Leaf vs VW e-Up
Nissan might have been first to launch a mass-produced electric vehicle (it’s my Leaf, if you’re wondering) but the almighty Volkswagen Group is readying its own EVs. In 2013 electric versions of the Golf and Up will go on sale, and I tested a prototype of the latter in Germany last week; the pair share the same motor, but the smaller e-Up has a little less power than the e-Golf.

The 60kW electric motor sits in the nose of the Up, and the lithium-ion batteries are stored beneath the seats. That means less room for back-row passengers’ feet, but no reduction in boot space. It’s over 200kg heavier than the three-cylinder petrol Up, but with an instantaneous 155lb ft it’s pretty perky from low speeds. The Up’s a charming car already, and despite the loss of the characterful 1.0-litre triple, the sweet looks, high quality interior and great visibility make the e-Up an excellent little city car.

But it’s all very well turning up, testing an EV, and then going home again; it’s another story when you have to live with it day-to-day. As I keep discovering with the Leaf, life with an electric car isn’t easy. And it would be the same with the e-Up. A quick charge system can juice the Up in 30 minutes, claims Volkswagen, but have you ever seen one? And a regular household plug will still take around five-and-a-half hours to replenish the 18.7kWh battery. Plus the VW e-Up's range is only 80 miles; the Leaf’s claimed range is 109 miles, but in reality it’s about 60 to 70. I doubt the e-Up would go the distance, either.

Here’s the reality. In order to get from CAR HQ in Peterborough to VW HQ in Wolfsburg, I had to take a flight from London Heathrow to Hanover. And I couldn’t drive to LHR in the Leaf because it wouldn’t make it there on one charge.

Up versus Leaf? The Nissan is quicker, bigger and more spacious, but as both are ultimately limited by their range, it’s the Up that feels more right for nipping around urban environments. Problem is, besides blacks cabs clogging up their particulate filters, how many cars live solely in cities? Most of us do more suburban stuff, like our lives in and around Peterborough, and the e-Up would struggle like the Leaf.

I promise some positivity next time – we’ll talk about why getting behind the wheel is a calming and relaxing experience.

By Ben Pulman

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests

Two sides to our Leaf
At once the Leaf is both soothing and stressful. Climb in, press the start button, and besides the dashboard lighting up to the accompaniment of a few bongs, you’d never know it was running. After any other car, the complete lack of vibrations is wonderful, so you glide along in relaxed comfort. You’re a little more aware of wind and suspension noise without a cacophony of explosions under the bonnet masking their sounds, but overall the Leaf is wonderfully refined. Good ride comfort too, comfy seats as well, inviting cabin at night, and your world is calm by the time you arrive home.

But while the actual driving experience is utterly relaxing, everything either side of actually being behind the wheel is more stressful than in a car with an engine. There’s the cable that needs to be unplugged and coiled into the boot before setting off – it feels like the 21st century equivalent of hand cranking your car. And it’s invariably wet, and drags leaves with it, so you dump it in the boot (rather than putting it into the special pouch) which keeps your hands cleaner but gets your boot dirtier.

Plus there’s the constant worry about running out of electricity. Battery life is definitely poorer in the cold weather, and I don’t think our constant charging is helping either. I let my phone all-but-die before plugging it in (which still needs to be done each night) but as the Leaf is whorred amongst the CAR office, and thus its usage is different every night, I can’t run it down if Tim Pollard is taking it on the school run the next morning.

Though at the moment it needs charging each day regardless. Work, to home, to my gym, home again, and work the next morning. Total distance: 45 miles. Remaining range as I arrived at work, having left there the night before fully charged? Five miles. The supposed range is 109 miles...

By Ben Pulman

The Saab 9-5 is still here!
In case you hadn’t heard, Saab is dead. But our Saab 9-5 2.0 TTiD Aero long-term test car is neither dead nor showing any signs of deadness. Death. Whatever.

No, in fact, the perception of  the 9-5 at CAR HQ is doing what Saab used to do jolly well in the days of Erik Carlsson: rallying. You’ve heard of the dead cat bounce, yes? Well here’s the dead Saab bounce, a phenomenon in which a car that had been slightly underwhelming suddenly starts to take on a strange allure once it’s imperilled. Have you ever dumped your girlfriend for several sound reasons, and then immediately started thinking how lovely and attractive she is? Or quit your stressful job and then instantly started enjoying it? No? Just me then.

But I’m now approaching the long (VERY long, in fact, at 5008mm) red saloon with a sense of increased affection and delight. It’s always been a good-looking car, the 9-5, and I reckon we got the wheels right too (19in Edge alloys at £105 a corner). Which helps. But now I’m looking at those architectural hindquarters, those graceful 900-alike C-pillars, that raked roofline, and I’m starting to wish we could keep the car for good.

Inside, too, it’s becoming more pleasurable, as the black leather upholstery settles into that 12,000-mile bagginess that you just know won’t change again for another 100,000 miles.

Luckily, before we get carried away on a cloud, there’s still the grotty diesel engine – that carbuncle which reminds me every morning and every evening how GM has screwed up, big time. If Achilles had been a 9-5 then we’d be talking about Achilles’ engine, not Achilles heel.

Finally, keep an eye on the fuel consumption. I can’t explain why but it keeps getting better. Back in the November 2011  issue I was returning 34.4, which in itself wasn’t bad against a claimed 37.2. Now I’m inching towards 38 and rising. Saab’s epitaph might be this: ‘The first car I’ve ever driven that returned a better-than-claimed mpg’.

By Greg Fountain

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests


The final good-bye
Finally, after a delay of nearly three months, Saab’s administrators turn up to reclaim our long-term test car

This is the last will and testament of Saab 9-5, registration OV11 EKR. I’ve written about this car more than any long-term test car I’ve ever driven, and it’s probable that all of us – me included – are a bit tired of it by now.

But this has been a unique situation. The 9-5 was delivered personally last spring by Saab’s enthusiastic UK managing director, full of effusive bravado and excitement for the future. He ribbed us about our choice of bright red paint and warned us about the possible perils of locking the key in the boot. We asked about the already swelling storm clouds over Trollhättan, but he was bullish, upbeat, dismissive of the naysayers. Yet less than 12 months later, the company has gone down, vanished. It’s a Titanic moment – hard to comprehend that it’s actually sunk.

So I just want to draw a line under OV11 EKR. It had been earmarked for collection in early December, but nobody came. We didn’t quite know what to do, but were assured by the outgoing Saab PR manager (a big shout here to Jackie Allard, who did sterling work in an increasingly impossible situation) that the administrator was aware that we had the car and would be in touch.

Christmas passed, then new year, then January… still nothing. And the car’s oil change warning light was flashing like a good ‘un, despite the fact that, with 12,000 miles up, no service was remotely due. So, I took it to the Saab dealer – Marshall of Peterborough and found the doors locked. A sign said: ‘For assistance please go to Chrysler Jeep showroom opposite.’ I felt the desolation of the Saab owner – the knowledge that there’s nobody home.

Marshall serviced the car for me (invoiced as an 18,000-mile service carried out at 12,234 miles) and liberated £306.64 from my wallet. Slightly painful, given that the car should have been long gone by now.

Then, on 21 February I was contacted by GMAC Plc, which was the finance company for Saab prior to its administration. The company explained that it had ‘full title to the vehicle under the terms of its security’, and demonstrated this by confirming it held both the V5 and the spare key. Showing epic good manners they asked whether, at a suitable time and date for me, it would be okay for them to collect the car.

A date was arranged, but still they didn’t come – the transporter developed an electrical fault, apparently. Oh, the irony. Finally, nearly another week later, OV11 EKR was trucked out of the CAR HQ car park.
And into history.

By Greg Fountain

Life is good
The miles just keep piling on the 1M Coupe. It’s been to the Nurburgring twice (although tragically the only lap it did was a parade behind a pace car) and more recently I took it to Spa, too. One-up it’s quite a tool for European road trips. There’s a fair bit of exhaust boom at around 90mph but the stereo drowns it out easily enough. Stick to that sort of speed and you’ll see 28mpg or more too. Past 100mph (in Germany) that drops quickly, but then you’d probably expect that, wouldn’t you?



Spa was amazing (I was racing) but once again the 1M missed out on track action. I’m itching to get it on a circuit but so far the only flat-out driving has been at Elvington airfield. Predictably it was great fun in the vast open spaces and would smoke its tyres with the best of ‘em. Quite how it’ll perform at a real track with kerbs and Armco it’s hard to say. The body control feels great but I have my concerns about the brakes. It’s a standard criticism of M cars, but even during quickish road driving they get rumbly surprisingly quickly.

So in the next month or so I’d really like to take it to Donington or perhaps the new Silverstone to see if it can rival the Cayman for genuine road and track thrills. I’m hoping I’ll be able to drive it to the circuit, do a dozen laps or so and drive home without feeling like the car has suffered hugely. I know the Porsche would cope so I’m rooting for the 1M to do the same. Slowly but surely I’m falling for its pumped-up looks, pumped-up turbocharged delivery and easy everyday attitude. 

By Jethro Bovingdon

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests


Starring on the small screen: our 1M video
Before Jethro Bovingdon departed the CAR offices, he recorded a lovely film about our long-term test BMW 1-series M Coupe. In all the to-ing and fro-ing of him leaving, we never got round to showing his video review of our favourite small long-termer on the fleet.

Watch this new video to see why we like so much!

The 1 M’s headlamps are rubbish – 8 November 2011

Is there a theme developing here? Our 530d Touring’s headlamps have left us squinting, with a woefully poor illumination on dipped beam as the light pattern obscures the nearside kerb. And now the clocks have changed, our 1 M appears to be suffering a similar problem.

Here the 1 M’s beam pattern is just set too low. When dipped, the headlamps simply point too low down, lighting up what feels like a scant 30ft in front of the car.

The truncated beam pattern is the worst I’ve driven in recent months, making you slow right down and drive within the lights’ illumination. They’re fine on full beam – all BMWs have laser blazers on with the blue dashboard light winking at you. But how often do you drive around with your lights up full?



Road test editor Ben Pulman and I were driving back from an event the other night and took this photo to show how sharply cut off the 1 M’s beam is. Flipside? We surely can’t be dazzling any other drivers. Just a shame we can’t really see where we’re going either.

By Tim Pollard

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests


In search for a second-hand Skoda Superb
With the end of my time with the Skoda Superb estate fast approaching, I find myself contemplating the future and getting a little anxious. The thought of life without her and her big booty fills me with dread and fear. And so it is, late at night and after a couple of glasses of wine I find myself sat alone in the dark and online.

The Auto Trader website search boxes pops up on the screen, still filled with the evidence of my last automotive fantasy. I scrolled from ‘Ferrari’ to ‘Skoda’ and from ‘360’ to ‘Superb’ and let myself seriously entertain the possibility of buying a car. Of buying a Skoda Superb.

A total of 527 cars appear for sale secondhand in the UK. This may sound a good choice, but dropped to just 119 when I specified an estate model. This reflects the rarity of the Superb, and to put it into context if I were shopping for an Audi A4 Avant of the same age I would have double the cars to choose from.

The first page of Skodas looked good value indeed, with 2011 cars having covered half the miles of our long termer for just thirteen grand. On closer inspection these all turned out to be the poverty-spec ‘S’ models powered by the 1.4 TSI. Having grown accustomed to my cars top of the range Elegance trim I now feel unable to do without heated leather seats and xenons, so I go in search of something more befitting my status and typed ‘Elegance’ into my search criteria.

As the new page of search results flash up, I find myself staring at my car: a 2011 1.6 TDI Elegance Greenline finished in Candy White. They could have been twins. This model is on sale at a dealer, has covered 16,500 miles and is offered for sale at £18,000.

Food for thought indeed, but not the bargain I was hoping for. It seems that the resale values of Skodas now hold up well - their engineering soundness and improving image has bolstered secondhand Skoda values. Indeed prices for pre-owned Skoda Yetis are not far short of new prices due to a six-month waiting list for new cars.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining. If the secondhand values are strong, maybe it would make more sense to go for a brand new car in my personal choice of colour, engine and spec. It’s going to be a long night...

By Mark Fagelson

Given the news today that Coryton refinery has collapsed into administration and fuel prices are set to rise again, I’m thankful that my long-term test A1 is a) a diesel and b) isn’t one of the bigger, fancier fuel-guzzling cars on our fleet. I'm currently getting a very respectable 50mpg.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t exactly tried to drive the A1 S line economically; neither have I pushed it to within an inch of its life. I just drive it how it wants to be driven and how I feel comfortable driving it.

Some vehicles, of the more eco-friendly kind - I'm thinking of you hybrids, and eco-specials - leave you no choice but to slowly creep from a slip road onto a motorway. Some of the tall gearing on offer is perilously dangerous.

The A1 however simply covers both bases. It's normal to drive - and frugal. The gearing is pleasantly normal - you won't get bogged down in hyper-tall ratios, and I don't really miss a sixth ratio. It's all very relaxed on the motorway, and at a cruise you'll barely see the fuel gauge moving at all.

I know there are other cars out there that will offer better fuel economy than our A1 1.6 TDI, it’s just a relief to enjoy a car without having to calculate where the next petrol station is every journey. In fact I rarely check the fuel gauge at all.

A car like this provides food for thought. Do you really need a hybrid if the bijou and classy A1 can top 50mpg with ease?

By Sarah-Jayne Harrison

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests

Is the VW Polo a match for our A1?
If you’ve seen the April 2012 issue of CAR magazine, you’ll know that I recently tested the VW Polo 1.4 Match back to back against our A1 1.6 TDI S-line long-term test car. It's an intriguing test of whether you should splash the cash on a premium badge or not.

How did the two superminis match up against each other? Let’s start with design. The Polo doesn’t have much flair, just a wholesome solidity typical of VW, whereas the A1 carries off a more unique style, outside at least. Inside it encapsulates the usual Audi cabin style - there's more silver splashed here and there, where the Polo keeps the sober Germanic black matt styling. Not very exciting.

It’s quite a shock to switch from one to the other. The Polo and A1 drive completely differently. Ok, our Polo was a 1.4 petrol to our A1's laidback diesel, but the A1 to me feels sturdy, solid, with firmer controls and weightier steering. The Polo Match serves up a softer ride, a bit more wobble through corners, and lighter controls and steering response. Considering they are essentially the same underneath, I was surprised by their different characteristics.

The cost difference between these two is astonishing, too. Our Audi A1 in toppy S-line trim is a whopping £6175 more than the Polo! Here is how our cars were specced:
Audi A1 1.6 TDI S Line

• Ice Silver paint - £510
• 18in seven-spoke alloys - £410
• Tech package – sat-nav, HDD based music interface - £1375
• Light and rain sensors - £125
• Electronic climate control - £330
• Audi sound system - £225

Extras: £2975
Total: £ 20,840
VW Polo 1.4 Match

• Touchscreen navigation/radio system 5in colour screen, music interface - £840
• Mats front and rear - £75
• Leather trimmed steering wheel - £185
• Alarm with interior protection - £200

Extras: £1300
Total: £14,665

So which one to have? Well the Polo has the extra two doors to our Audi's three, but Audi has now solved that problem with the Sportback. The A1 is more stylish but there is more overall space in the Polo. I think for me it would have to come down to cost. If you can afford the A1 and lust for its style and badge, go for it. But the vastly cheaper Polo frankly offers much of the same for way less cash. It makes you think...

By Sarah-Jayne Harrison

In a bit of a flap
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just about the only member of the CAR team who thought it was a good idea to mate the Alhambra’s 138bhp 2.0-litre diesel block with flappy VW Group paddles. In fact, I may have been the only one in the world with that opinion. My reasoning was that a lad’s gotta get his kicks somewhere – even if it’s in a family-sized MPV the size of hippo (although, as Tim Pollard mooted, it handles far more nimbly than that – like a baby warthog, perhaps)

Truth is I do use the paddle shifts, especially when powering out into roundabouts along the Bedfordshire stretch of the A1, trying to ensure I don’t get stuck behind Norbert Dentressangle or any of his articulated kin. But I’m also man enough to admit that I may have been wrong in opting for them – but not because I think they aren’t much cop. No, it’s because those kicks I was seeking have manifested themselves all over this deliriously practical car (so, I’m getting old already!)

The little things that currently put a smile on my face:

• As I’ve only had the car since the clocks went back, it’s taken until now to fully appreciate the full-length sunroof in the evening. It will be coming into its own now that the sap is rising and the days are getting longer
• Leg room in front of the second row of seats – not for the benefit of my passengers, but because I can sling briefcases, the shopping and 144-pack boxes of Pampers into the gap rather than having them roll around the boot
• Steering wheel intuitiveness – I’m an obsessive twiddler of the switches and dials, toggling between DAB radio, iPod, trip meter, fuel remaining and recipe suggestions*. The Alhambra has the best of any car I’ve driven. Better than BMW, better than Mercedes.

While I’m here, I’ve got my own solution to Greg Fountain’s mild irritation with the pace of the electric sliding passenger doors. I use the keyfob to close them, thus resisting the temptation to start yanking on an expensive bit of technology. That I can do it while standing on the doorstep, waving my keys at the Alhambra like Mr H Potter with his wand, is still some kinda alchemy to me.

*Alright, it’s not that intuitive. Yet.

Stephen Worthy


I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just about the only member of the CAR team who thought it was a good idea to mate the Alhambra’s 138bhp 2.0-litre diesel block with flappy VW Group paddles. In fact, I may have been the only one in the world with that opinion. My reasoning was that a lad’s gotta get his kicks somewhere – even if it’s in a family-sized MPV the size of hippo (although, as Tim Pollard mooted, it handles far more nimbly than that – like a baby warthog, perhaps)

Truth is I do use the paddle shifts, especially when powering out into roundabouts along the Bedfordshire stretch of the A1, trying to ensure I don’t get stuck behind Norbert Dentressangle or any of his articulated kin. But I’m also man enough to admit that I may have been wrong in opting for them – but not because I think they aren’t much cop. No, it’s because those kicks I was seeking have manifested themselves all over this deliriously practical car (so, I’m getting old already!)

The little things that currently put a smile on my face:

• As I’ve only had the car since the clocks went back, it’s taken until now to fully appreciate the full-length sunroof in the evening. It will be coming into its own now that the sap is rising and the days are getting longer
• Leg room in front of the second row of seats – not for the benefit of my passengers, but because I can sling briefcases, the shopping and 144-pack boxes of Pampers into the gap rather than having them roll around the boot
• Steering wheel intuitiveness – I’m an obsessive twiddler of the switches and dials, toggling between DAB radio, iPod, trip meter, fuel remaining and recipe suggestions*. The Alhambra has the best of any car I’ve driven. Better than BMW, better than Mercedes.

While I’m here, I’ve got my own solution to Greg Fountain’s mild irritation with the pace of the electric sliding passenger doors. I use the keyfob to close them, thus resisting the temptation to start yanking on an expensive bit of technology. That I can do it while standing on the doorstep, waving my keys at the Alhambra like Mr H Potter with his wand, is still some kinda alchemy to me.

*Alright, it’s not that intuitive. Yet.

Stephen Worthy

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests


The highs and lows of an integrated seat 
We were pretty much given a blank canvas by Seat when speccing up the Alhambra. We went fairly conservative too, with road test editor Ben Pulman reining in my demands for the pretty olive green-cum-gold ‘boal’ paint in favour of bold salsa red, but our Spanish friends did stipulate one thing.

Knowing that I had one child and another on the way at the time of ordering (second boy finally born November 2011) they asked that we try out the integrated child seat. It’s certainly a neat device, but it’s only now that I’ve plucked up courage to use it – okay, for my son to use it – in earnest.

To look at, the seat looks like a common or garden one at rest, but pull the handle under it and it lifts upwards, as if on a little dais, creating a mini footrest for your mini adults in the process. It becomes, in effect, a super sturdy booster seat. You also swap the standard headrest for one with side supports – although that support looks pretty minimal. By which we mean very open. Which is where my problems with the childseat begins.

Anyone who has got two children will own after-market childseats and will know that if you have more than one car the constant unbuckling, un-Isofixing and swapping of them between vehicles is a damnable chore. Which is why the Seat integrated seat appeared so attractive to me. The wife? That’s another matter altogether.

She simply doesn’t think it looks safe enough, pointing to the cushioned comfort afforded by the big Britax childseat she has fitted in her C-Max. But as our eldest, Raffi, is three, the law says the Seat seat (that’s not word repetition) is legal. I love how easy it is to set it up, but I’ve been barred from using it, apart from on very small trips. As my wife is editor of Pregnancy & Birth magazine, she is something of an expert on all things baby and child related, so I’ve decided this is one battle not worth pursuing.

Which has left one young man rather unhappy. Raffi loves his ‘big boy’s chair’, especially its footrest. Sadly, by the time he will be old enough to fit in it without raising my wife’s ire, the Alhambra will be long gone. It will be yet another reason to bemoan the departure of a rather brilliant vehicle.

By Stephen Worthy

In the first weeks since the Hyundai i40 Tourer arrived, it's made an excellent start. If that sounds like something a headteacher would say about a new kid in class, that's because there are similarities in getting to know people and cars. Like, 'first impressions count', for example.

The i40 Tourer is a strikingly handsome car, with a bold, swept crease through the flanks and those angry staring headlights. It's clearly influenced by the Chris Bangle revolution in European car design, with every panel a fluid mix of convex and concave curves, but that's no bad thing. Hyundai's aim is to beat the premium European makes at their own game, and the i40 is a great start. Most people who see it in the metal seem to like it straight away.

First impressions inside are good too. Ours is a mid-range Style model, which means a classy black cloth trim, Bluetooth, touchscreen sat-nav, parking sensors and rear-view camera, cruise control and dual-zone climate control, all as standard equipment. So far I'm loving the Bluetooth connection to the iPhone (you can play music wirelessly through it too); and hating the way the navigation only allows the first five characters in a postcode, which means you have to enter the whole address to find your destination. Surely that's how sat-navs used to work a few years ago, not in 2012?

And on the road – is it a case of 'must try harder'? Our car has the 134bhp 1.7 CDRI diesel engine (there's also a 113bhp diesel) with a six-speed manual gearbox, and I've been really impressed by the body control and the surprisingly alert handling, which makes all the roundabouts on my daily commute rather fun. It's also achieving 40-plus mpg (which for me is pretty impressive!). Good thing too, seeing as it cost me £100 to brim the 70-litre tank the other day. With fuel prices as they are, I might have to slow down and see if I can get closer to the official, claimed 62.8mpg (combined).

My only other gripe is a low bite point on the clutch, which means I keep snagging cogs when I change gear. Either it's the clutch, or I'm losing all my powers of co-ordination as old age creeps up on me. I presume it's the clutch.

So our new long termer costs £21,995 on the road, plus the only extra we added, the Titanium Silver metallic paint (£445). At £22,440 that makes it great value, and thousands cheaper than the equivalent European estate. Like I said, a great start.

By Mark Walton

By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests


Enjoying the 500-mile range of the i40
It's all in the mind of course, but there is something satisfying about a range of over 500 miles. Makes you feel like you're getting value for money. It's all in the mind because in order to see that figure on the trip, you've got to brim the Hyundai's 15-gallon/70-litre tank, and at around 149p a litre that's £100 worth of diesel.

So you have to pay for that minor pleasure. I could push it even higher though – Hyundai claims a combined fuel figure of 62.8mpg for the i40, and I'm hovering at just 39mpg, mostly because of my stop start commute and partly because I like driving fast. If I 'hypermile', and touch the throttle like it's a bed of hotcoals and I'm barefoot, it's pretty easy to get 42 or 45mpg, briefly – though that's hard to sustain because I'm always in such a rush. Imagine if I got it up to 60mpg – I'd see a 925 mile range on the trip.

Of course, the other disadvantage our i40 has in trying to achieve its official fuel economy figures is its perpetual payload. The i40's interior is enormous and – either by coincidence or perhaps just through opportunism – it's usually carrying something heavy.

Last week I helped a friend move out a few boxes of books. We folded the i40's rear seats down, and discovered the rear bench doesn't fold forwards to give you a flat floor – instead, the rear seat backs simply drop onto the bench, giving you a floor that gently slopes upwards towards the dashboard. Still, no matter – it's still a big load area, and by the time we'd loaded up the rear suspension looked under some strain. Poor Hyundai – pulling away from junctions it felt like I was driving a oil tanker. How is it ever going to reach 60mpg when I drive it like this?

By Mark Walton

Not long after the snow melted, I took a gamble and switched the M5’s Pirelli Sottozero winter tyres back to the standard Michelin Pilot Super Sport 19s. The comments below generally urged me not to, but I wanted the car back to its best. The winter tyres were absolutely phenomenal in the snow, but it now looks highly likely that the little snow that we did have in Peterborough this winter has gone for good, and none of it would have seen me stranded had I had summer tyres anyway.

For the rest of the time, the temperatures have been unseasonably high, and so the Sottozeroes haven’t been able to shine. Instead they’ve reduced traction – I’ve been driving about with the traction control in the mid-way setting to give the rubber some leeway and save the power being constantly cut – and they’ve also introduced an element of sogginess to the M5’s handling. The tyres genuinely spoil the car’s dynamics, and I don’t think that’s right when you’re dealing with something as sporting as an M5.

The Michelins are now back on, the temperatures are getting even higher – my phone’s predicting a balmy 14degC on Thursday – and the handling is sharper and the traction is on a different planet. Clearly, the joke’s on me if it does snow but, come on, how bad can it be…

On another note, I’ve had a couple of drivetrain warning lights bong up on the dash recently, and the man from BMW now says it needs to come in for a ‘campaign’. I think that’s German for recall. All very intriguing. I’ll report back soon.

And, finally, don't miss the BMW M5 group test in the new March 2012 issue of CAR Magazine out now. Our M5 long-termer takes on the Jaguar XF-R, Porsche Panamera S and Mercedes CLS 63 AMG. Lots of sideways slidery ensues...

By Ben Barry