The Battle Of The Small Cars - The Outcome.

As I mentioned in a recent post, Lovely Leslie (aka @lesliedupreez) my long suffering SO and I had decided it was time to replace my awesome but aging VZ Holden Ute with something a bit more modern.

After a great deal of research and test drives we finally made a decision to purchase a VW Polo. These things are a bit like rocking horse shit, they're in short supply. The nearest dealer, Kinghorn VW, claimed they had located one for us. Trouble was it was in Queensland.

I mentioned to the salesman that I wasn't overly comfortable with having a vehicle bought down from Queensland given the situation at the time ... namely the Queensland Floods. No matter how often I voiced my concerns they always assured me it was a done deal, there was no problems getting the vehicle etc etc.

My feelings were somewhat different. What car dealer in his right mind would get rid of a new car to another dealer on the south coast of NSW when half the people of south-east Queensland had lost their cars in the floods! I mean, do you have to be a rocket scientist to work this out! On top of that I thought that with highways being cut and transport at a premium it would be a considerable time for delivery, even if the dealer was happy to pass the vehicle on.

I signed the contract, paid the deposit and sat back to await this great moment.

Next day I get a sheepish phone call from the salesman saying they weren't able to deliver. He felt that the dealer in Queensland might have sold it and hadn't let on.

No doubt, this guy is a frigging Einstein. D'oh! I want to shout "I told you so!" but what was the point.

I must admit they refunded the deposit promptly.

One funny thing. This particular salesman was terrible at follow up all through the process. As soon as the sale fell through he phoned my maybe 3 or 4 times to see how we were going and what was happening. Too late Charlie Brown!

That very day we dragged our sorry arses back up to Nowra and bought the little Mazda 2 Genki from Nowra Mazda and the awesome Wayne Schlick.

Would you believe, just after placing the order we received a call from a VW dealer in Canberra to say they had a Polo in stock in the colour we wanted.

Needless to say, my dear SO was pissed off. She wanted the Polo. Meanwhile I was quite happy with the little Genki.

We picked the bright green Kermit up late last week and have been very happy with him since. I drove him to Canberra last weekend, he went really well, but as you would expect a little 1.5 litre engine does have its limits climbing the mountains between the coast and Canberra.

I won't be making a habit of taking Kermit away from his coastal lair, the Subaru Outback that we own will do the Canberra run very nicely.

So, at the end of the day ... the only thing I can say is Kinghorn Motors, Bzzzzttt, you are now officially on my Shit List.

The Lone Wolf of Ulladulla.

Yesterday I got onto a bit of a roll on Twitter. I like to think of myself as The Lone Wolf even if it is bullshit! Was doing some shopping at Coles Ulladulla ....

16:59 - The lone wolf, as always, likes to run free. However in Coles he's feeling nervous and scents disaster ahead. He lopes from aisle to aisle.

17:02 - The lone wolf rears in fear! A trolley load of vegemite topples and crashes to the floor. The hapless assistant scurries to clean the mess.

17:14 - The lone wolf, his business done, waits patiently with haggard she-wolfs and toothless old wolves. He laments what drove him to this.

17:25 - The lone wolf, his catch firmly clamped in his powerful jaws, races for the relative freedom of Boree Street and back to his distant lair.

17:40 - The lone wolf, safely in his lair, proudly shows his catch to his she-wolf then promptly mounts her in an act of dominance as old as time.

The Battle Of The Small Cars

Last week myself and Lovely Leslie (aka @lesliedupreez) my long suffering SO, decided it was time to replace my awesome but aging VZ Holden Ute with something a bit more modern.

Initially I was all for getting a current model Holden Commodore SV6 but my focused and driven partner began a subtle campaign aimed at acquiring something smaller and cheaper.

And so began a research journey of the internet followed by visits to the nearest large town that had more than two car dealerships, which in our case was Nowra.

Our short list included the Nissan Micra, Honda Jazz, Toyota Yaris, Mazda 2 and a last minute addition of the VW Polo.

After a process of elimination for one reason or another we shortened our list to the Mazda 2 Genki and the VW Polo 77TSI Comfortline. The next day we went back to the Mazda and VW dealers for another look.


The VW Polo is an excellent small car. Even though it is powered by a little 1.2 litre motor the performance was exceptional due to the added boost of the turbo. The build was of excellent quality, internally everything looked good and felt good. It is a great car and a clear leader in its class, in my humble opinion.


The Mazda 2 is also a great little car but does not perform as well as the Polo even though it is a 1.5 litre. Internally the Mazda is a bit disappointing. Whilst comfortable enough it lacks the finer touches, even some common sense things like a centre arm rest. How hard would it be to build them with a bloody centre arm rest!

In the Mazda's favour was availability, colour of our choice and great service from the Mazda dealership. The Polo really only had it's performance and quality going in it's favour, the dealership was pretty average, we can't get the colour we wanted and we have to wait.

After much ummming and ahhhhing we decided on the Polo. Was a difficult choice. At the end of the day, if the Mazda 2 had a centre arm rest I would have bought it. As simple as that.

After meeting quite a few car salespeople in our quest we were appalled at the dreadful presentation that some of these lacklustre individuals consider to be appropriate to earn their living. Ranging from lack of product knowledge (where I could tell them more about the car by using my iPad than they could mention) to an "I couldn't give a stuff" attitude, it was quite mind blowing.

Bouquets

Biggest and only bouquet goes to Nowra Mazda and Dealer Principal Wayne Schlick. Excellent service, patient, not pushy, not sleazy, good product, friendly staff, followed up. Sorry we didn't buy a car off you Wayne!

Brickbats

Alan May Holden, Ulladulla - How dare you quote me $13,000 trade on my ute for the purchase of a car worth up to $40,000. You were way off beam fella, $4,000 to be precise. Call yourselves Holden dealers. You wouldn't know your arsehole from your elbow pal!

Nowra Mitsubishi/Honda/Nissan/Kia and something else which escapes me - How can you expect your salespeople to be on top of so many brands? No wonder the poor woman knew very little! She was nice, tried hard but just didn't know much! On top of that, if I am interested in buying a car from you then give me a frigging trade in price there and then. What's this shit about not giving a figure unless we commit. You lazy asshat! Was it your golf afternoon or something? No wonder lard-arsed car yard managers have a shit reputation!

Ulladulla Toyota - sorry, you put us to sleep. Double sorry that your brouchres cost you $3 each.

Nowra Toyota - get some bloody cars in stock please! Would be nice to see what the top line Yaris actually looked like!

Kinghorn VW, Nowra - you won the sale but it was the car alone that did it. If we based our decision on customer service and followup we would have gone to Mazda.

So, there endeth the latest foray into the world of cars. Let's see what happens. We wait patiently for our new buzz box!