Jim Pace asks what is the ideal number of cars to own?
If you are a car enthusiast, then perhaps it is always one more than you have. If you are an environmentalist on the other hand, the answer may be none at all.
For my wife and I, the answer turns out to be two (not including the three classics that are outside of the range ofCM). After a number of years, we have ended up with two cars that not only allow us to go to different places at the same time but also serve very different purposes.
At the moment, those two cars are a 2011 Fiat Panda and a 2007 Volvo S60 2.4D, both of which have previously been featured in these pages (the Panda in September 2020 and the Volvo in June 2021). One car is used for short runs, while the other is the long distance milemuncher that also tows our caravan – I’ll leave you to guess which is which. Let’s start with the little-un…
FIAT PANDA
After a reliable first year, with only a track rod end on the ‘parts replaced’ list, our Panda failed its first MOT on weak front dampers, which didn’t seem too bad for a cheap car that was approaching 100k miles. Replacement completed, the car continued in use, until 15th November 2020 when it stalled without explanation at traffic lights. It was difficult to restart and suddenly felt as though a large hand was holding it back. The car was clearly in some level of limpmode, and I was pretty certain that the crank position sensor was at fault.
I got Mick at MOTAFIX, my trusted local garage in Sunderland, to do a diagnostic which confirmed this. A £15 replacement part had the car running well again. The car passed its MOT without issue in 2021 and things continued without incident, until a trip to Durham in 2022 caused issues.
We were travelling at 50mph in the inner lane of the A690 towards Durham, when the car ahead swerved suddenly revealing what looked like a mattress in the middle of our lane. We had a car alongside us so couldn’t avoid it and hitting the brakes we hit the ‘mattress’ with a solid thud – it was a lump of concrete. The car still drove normally. Back home, a check of the front-end showed nothing obviously damaged, so we felt we had got away with it. It turned out we had not been that lucky.
A few weeks later, the front tyres were showing signs of uneven wear, so I put it into a tyre supplier for two new front tyres (A-rated for wet grip) and a tracking check and adjustment. I got the car back and everything seemed good, until I checked the date code on my ‘new’ tyres: they were both over five-yearsold! As a classic car and caravan owner I’m acutely aware of the issues around deterioration of the rubber of tyres and the need to replace them at between five- and ten-years-old, so I took the car back. To be fair to the supplier, he was genuinely shocked and apologe
