My car is at the menders this week, thanks (well no thanks really) to some ignorant bastard scraping it in Asda’s car park in Rugby over the Early May Bank Holiday. I state ignorant bastard not because scrapes aren’t common enough occurrences in car parks everywhere, but because the git drove off without reporting it.
Of course, that left me to report it to the store security, the police and my employers.
And of course, when you report that your car has been damaged in a carpark by an unknown culprit, you can feel others thinking “yeah right!” You feel guilty even though you are totally innocent.
Last time I did something similar, Tesco’s in Daventry about a decade ago, I left my business card and a note of apology. The chap whose car I caught was genuinely grateful that I’d been honest and when we talked, he wasn’t cross at all that I’d damaged his car. “Just one of those things” was his sentiment and I kid you not, he spent more time thanking me than complaining.
Anyway, the point of this post is not to moan and groan about my car but rather to talk about some moments of joy from the stand in replacement. My temporary loan car is a BMW 520D Touring M Sport and, to be frank, even though it’s an automatic, it’s a nicer car than my much-loved Passat estate.
I don’t care about the 20-inch alloys, the parking cameras, the quieter, more insulated ride, the fatter steering wheel, the fact the CD player shows a colour picture of cover of the album playing (though that is cool), the split boot function, the glass can be opened separately from the rest of the electric tailgate (though that is cool too), the fact the CD slot is centrally located as opposed to in the glovebox (VW really cocked it up in that respect); what I like the most about the BMW is that it has a panoramic sunroof.
I haven’t had a sunroof in a car for decades, not since the advent of standard fit air conditioning. I have benefitted from company cars for about the last 20 years and none of them has had one.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, top of my hit list of desires for a car, aside from a five-speed box and a decent radio cassette player, was a sunroof. My 1988 1.4L Ford Escort had a sunroof and I loved it (the car and the roof).
The 67 plate Beemer has an electric sunroof and as soon as I’d figured out how to Bluetooth my phone, I was working out how to operate it. Once the cloth-covered screen is back, the light that the roof lets in is terrific. And when the glass is opened, the fresh air is rather satisfying.
On my way down the M1 this morning the roof was open and, even though I was most probably being poisoned by the fumes, deafened by the sonic booms and ruining my fuel economy, I was happy.
If you have a choice of aircon or a sunroof, you’d be mad to go for the sunroof, but if you can have both ... happy days!
Well five of them anyway.
I’ve only got the 520 until Friday so there are just a few days left to make up for twenty years of absence. I just hope it doesn’t rain.
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Of course, that left me to report it to the store security, the police and my employers.
And of course, when you report that your car has been damaged in a carpark by an unknown culprit, you can feel others thinking “yeah right!” You feel guilty even though you are totally innocent.
Last time I did something similar, Tesco’s in Daventry about a decade ago, I left my business card and a note of apology. The chap whose car I caught was genuinely grateful that I’d been honest and when we talked, he wasn’t cross at all that I’d damaged his car. “Just one of those things” was his sentiment and I kid you not, he spent more time thanking me than complaining.
Anyway, the point of this post is not to moan and groan about my car but rather to talk about some moments of joy from the stand in replacement. My temporary loan car is a BMW 520D Touring M Sport and, to be frank, even though it’s an automatic, it’s a nicer car than my much-loved Passat estate.
I don’t care about the 20-inch alloys, the parking cameras, the quieter, more insulated ride, the fatter steering wheel, the fact the CD player shows a colour picture of cover of the album playing (though that is cool), the split boot function, the glass can be opened separately from the rest of the electric tailgate (though that is cool too), the fact the CD slot is centrally located as opposed to in the glovebox (VW really cocked it up in that respect); what I like the most about the BMW is that it has a panoramic sunroof.
I haven’t had a sunroof in a car for decades, not since the advent of standard fit air conditioning. I have benefitted from company cars for about the last 20 years and none of them has had one.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, top of my hit list of desires for a car, aside from a five-speed box and a decent radio cassette player, was a sunroof. My 1988 1.4L Ford Escort had a sunroof and I loved it (the car and the roof).
The 67 plate Beemer has an electric sunroof and as soon as I’d figured out how to Bluetooth my phone, I was working out how to operate it. Once the cloth-covered screen is back, the light that the roof lets in is terrific. And when the glass is opened, the fresh air is rather satisfying.
On my way down the M1 this morning the roof was open and, even though I was most probably being poisoned by the fumes, deafened by the sonic booms and ruining my fuel economy, I was happy.
If you have a choice of aircon or a sunroof, you’d be mad to go for the sunroof, but if you can have both ... happy days!
Well five of them anyway.
I’ve only got the 520 until Friday so there are just a few days left to make up for twenty years of absence. I just hope it doesn’t rain.
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