Travelling On

beanielou

I loved my Yaris & my i.q. 

Toot toot.  

Baileys_Babe

I prefer 5 door cars to 3 door. Much easier to get in both the front and the back. One of my cars had sliding doors on the back, very useful when parking in tight spaces, on one occasion I parked in a very tight space, climbed through to the back and out the sliding door 🤣 Another added benefit of sliding doors is you can't hit another vehicle or wall when opening the door.

Cheery_Daff

Ooh yes, we had a kangoo with sliding doors at the back, I loved it 🥰 We used to sleep in it sometimes, and it was lovely to just slide the doors open and look at the view 😊😊

I wouldn't recommend a Yaris on the basis of the one I have, it's a bloody nuisance 😂😂 Has the same size engine as the other car (1.4l) but needs to go down to 1st gear to get up any kind of hill 🙄 Absolute menace, I can't overtake farm vehicles etc in it because it just won't speed up quickly enough. But I think the issue is with this particular car (which is 15 years old) not the Yaris in general, which I've heard plenty of people say good things about. And it's good enough that I'll drive it til it dies anyway 😊

Karmacat

Thank you all!  Sounds like my brother was spot on about door size - and interesting about the foot positioning badmemory, I doubt I'll get to try it out because there's actually no 3 door cars for sale, but I can absolutely get what you're saying.

Cheery, oh dear, the ones I'm looking at are between 10-12 years old, but they're automatic, so it might be a bit different (heavens, I hope so - mind you, the hills round here are either shallower than yours or shorter than yours, I imagine).  And 'good enough' is fine for me, I can see a maximum radius of maybe 35 miles - I'm already invited to drive over to my nephew's house when my sister's babysitting for the day, and that's what google tells me is the distance.

I confess, I haven't done any further car research yet - put the dishwasher on and had a proper tasty meal, and in between I've done two bits of digging in the garden, timing it to avoid the rain, which is *fierce*.

Cheery_Daff

Yes, ours is diesel, and not automatic, and has done almost 150k miles, and to be fair it's never failed to get up even the steepest of hills, it just goes very slowly 😂

Sorry you've got fierce rain! It's been quite nice here today, just been for a stomp round the lanes with friend 😊

Karmacat

Ooh, stomping around the lanes with a friend sounds wonderful 😊  Oh, your friends arrived, nice one! 

We've avoided all the rain till this week, so it's not as bad as a lot of other people have had it.  I still don't want to get soaked through though 😊

Good to know about the car - the ones I've listed as potentials are either average or below average mileage for their age, 55-67,000.

Karmacat

I finished the car listings on Autotrader, separated out the Yaris onto a different sheet.  I guess the next step is to make detailed comparisons - and find a way to go for a test drive of at least one of them.  One is in the town where my sister goes to babysit her granddaughter, and if I made my own way there, she could maybe bring the toddler to at least have a look at it.  Perhaps not this week 🤔 if it goes, it goes.  

Today, right:
- detailed listings of the Yaris cars on AutoTrader.
- dishwasher has just finished, so ... I'm finally going to make the quince paste, they've been sitting there for 4 days.
- also need to finish getting things in the green bin, collected tomorrow.  
- any spare moments (ha!) do some shredding of the client paperwork I've sorted.  

What's really inspiring me is that when I *do* get the car, there's dozens and dozens of things that are close enough for me to visit, only 5 - 10 miles away, things that even when I was really healthy would have meant a journey each way of 90 minutes or so.  Which can now be managed in 10-15 minutes.  Life-changing.

beanielou

Life changing indeed. 

Hold onto that thought. 

Baileys_Babe

As a car driver, I love the convenience of driving but am frustrated that public transport infrastructure is so lacking and virtually all my journeys are not viable by public transport, that is not even taking into account the cost.

themadvix

It will totally be life changing, but I completely agree with Baileys Babe about how poor our public transport can be - so frustrating, especially when it's so good in places on the continent.

Is there a Yaris really nearby, even if you know it's not the one? I just think you don't necessarily want to do all the  detailed research before you've even sat in one in case it's really not for you - i.e. you find the seat really uncomfortable/the visibility terrible etc.