Received a very nice question from Gus about how to run a multi-car garage. There are a lot of Autocar contributors and readers who are bonkers enough to entertain all the fun and games involved when looking after more than one motor. After all, you can only drive one at a time, but then again, it’s always handy to have a spare. This isn’t a flippant answer situation. There is plenty to be said when it comes to multiple motors – except I don’t want to bore you with all the procedural bits. Let’s have fun trying to buy something small, something medium, something large and something sporty. The beauty of this is that it’s your garage and you can have whatever you please between the walls, or on the drive. Let’s set a realistic budget of £5000, which, because there are no other pressing bills, your other half says you can blow on your four-wheeled dreams. Okay, small. A characterful one for bobbing about and doing hardly any miles to the gallon. A Daihatsu Charade would be a hoot. A little cube of joy with a raucous 1.0-litre engine. A 2004 example, which is still £30 to tax and has air-con that isn’t a sunroof, is yours for £795. Plus it delivers 58.9mpg. If everything else goes askew, here’s your daily driver. Medium-size mile-muncher? The great thing is that a middle-order executive with a posh badge would work, even if a Ford Mondeo is the obvious answer. Instead, how about a Jaguar S-Type with the V8 engine and, even more convincingly, a full MOT and an outrageously reasonable mileage? Really well looked after and all for just £695. A 4×4 can be an inappropriate buy but, in our case, it counts as large. Best go for a square slab of wonderfulness that isn’t a Defender. No, a 1990s Jeep Cherokee is a tackily constructed expression of the original SUV culture. The great thing is that you can get a 1995 2.5 TD Sport for under £1000 now. Not all of them are in great nick, but one of your vehicles always turns into a project anyway. How about one car that doesn’t need to pay that pesky car tax? It might even go up in value. A Lada Vaz 2101 from 1972 rather took my eye. Needs a bit of meddling (but not that much) and it’s £1200. Seemed tidy enough and suddenly I’ve only spent £3690, not bought a real sports car and I already have two that need some attention. Well, that didn’t go quite as I planned it, but do you know what? That is mostly how car collections, even the modest ones, come about. What we almost bought this week Could you resist a mint Cortina Mk5 from a time when saloons ruled the roost and SUVs were things Americans drove? It’s the base L spec, the staple of 1980s sales reps and in 1981, when this one was registered, Britain’s best-selling new car. We love its orange paint and contrasting beige cloth interior. It’s got a new MOT with no advisories. Tales from Ruppert’s garage Mini Cooper, mileage – 102,618: The Mini Cooper is a fully functioning, small noisy car from more than half a century ago. When I remind myself of this, or just drive the thing like it’s the last time I will be allowed to, I don’t mind paying out £824.62 to make it better. That included a lot of small parts, from hoses to studs and clips, plus a colossal amount of labour. Oh, and rather a lot of petrol, as well as all the usual fluids. Totally worth it. Reader’s ride Robert Carr invites us to take a closer look at what he describes as his cheap ride. “I needed a five-door runaround for driving around town, going to the tip, taking the parents out,” he says. “Bought this Golf 1.9 diesel from a friend’s sister in July last year. It came with full VW history, a recent service, 12 months’ MOT, 130,000 miles and two mature owners. I lobbed some second-hand winter tyres on the steels that came with the car, then bought these alloys for £40 from a friendly breaker. Bought a set of Bosch wiper blades to see properly. Cost £700 in all. I’ve done 5000 trouble-free miles since.” Readers’ questions Question: My wife’s choice of new car is between a Mini Countryman Cooper Sport auto and a Mercedes-Benz GLA Urban Edition auto. The Mercedes is bigger but has no sat-nav, which the Mini has. Advice, please. James Wilson, Devon Answer: The GLA will be replaced next year by an all-new model, while the Countryman is relatively fresh (it was launched in 2017). Don’t worry about the GLA’s lack of integrated sat-nav – it has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so you can run your phone’s maps on it. The GLA is quicker than the Mini but not as fun to drive. Both aren’t especially comfortable but the Mini is roomier and more practical. It gets our vote. John Evans Question: Is it worth paying to have my nearly new car’s paint protected with a sealer? The car salesman is very insistent. Karen Pitchford, via email Answer: If properly applied, it probably is. That’s a big ‘if’, though, since you’ll never know for sure. It doesn’t help that the stuff is insanely expensive and thrust at
Origin: James Ruppert: the ideal sub-£5000 multi-car garage
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James Ruppert: the best ULEZ-beaters for urban families
Well, this is becoming something of a regular occurrence: the ULEZ (Ultra-Low-Emission Zone) question. Promise I won’t make a habit of this, but it isn’t just London which is affected. There’s heaps wrong with the scheme, not least that some include motorbikes, but I’m not here to write about those. Indeed, I am here to write about something pretty awful. Let’s see what the reader’s question actually was. “I am looking for a petrol-engined automatic car that’s ULEZ compliant and can fit three full-size car seats across the back. Budget up to £8000. Priorities are safety, comfort, reliability and some driver appeal. And it can’t look as ugly as a Seat Alhambra. Please help.” Not quite sure what their problem with an Alhambra might be, although I accept that unless you have a big brood or are in the private hire game, MPVs are universally grim to look at and drive. Never mind, let’s waste a few hours of life on the ULEZ checker with real registration numbers. What emerges is a handful of models that gives a buyer some sort of choice. Yep, Fords Galaxy and S-Max, the go-to MPVs of London’s leading minicabbers, are the obvious answer. Actually, the S-Max does look slightly interesting and is quite nice to drive. A 2.0 Ecoboost Titanium would seem to be the perfect family mover. I did find a privately owned 2011 with 61,000 miles, and all for £7200. Add a lot more miles – 100,000- plus – but sold from a dealer with a warranty and an absolutely loaded specification plus an added X in the name, and it raises the buying bar to £7450. Unsurprisingly, there don’t seem to be many recent petrol auto Galaxys, so we can leave those there. I did stumble across a Mercedes Viano at one point, but that was snapped up very quickly. The R-Class 350 is probably the most prestigious and blingy model you can buy; a 2009 example with just over 60,000 miles at £7995 would seem to be less offensive than an Alhambra. The more you look at the R, the more likeable it becomes, and an automatic petrol one is relatively affordable. When searching for petrol MPVs you inevitably fall down the grey import wormhole and find yourself looking at the chrome overload that is the Nissan Elgrand. The 2006 example I saw with just over 40,000 miles with no less than eight seats costs just £7000. The sensational news is that it is ULEZ-exempt. What a wonderful way to look down on the other City dwellers who have to take the bus or get on their bike. All this is rather depressing, and depressingly necessary. It’s not the future, either: this is the very real present where we have to check what we are actually allowed to drive. What we almost bought this week Few cars are as shabby chic as an old Volvo estate. The 850 (1991-’97) still looks fresh, too, while the 2.5, five-pot petrol engine is a lusty old thing. This example is a 1997/P SE auto with 155,000 miles and, according to the seller, no mechanical issues. It costs £495. Throw in a year’s MOT and it’s a deal. Tales from Ruppert’s garage Well, this will be interesting: the nipper’s Gordon the Golf is due its first MOT in a few days. One of the tyres is more than an advisory and there’s been another pheasant strike, which has cracked the offside bumper and pushed it beyond the lip, to the extent that we have to stage an intervention to pull it square again. So what is the youngster going to drive to work while the Golf is in for work? Well, there are BMWs, Minis and Land Rovers available. But what’s the insurance on a V8 for a 21-year-old? More details on that soon. A to Z Bangerpedia C is for Chrysler PT Cruiser: This is a 1930s gangster-style family MPV that drives like a hatchback and has plenty of standard kit. Not much else is going for it because it’s no people-carrier, taking just five on board – and don’t even try to get the seats out. Mind you, the boot is big and they remain really rather cheap. At some point they might become rare and ironically interesting. For now, though, this is a cheap set of fairly ugly wheels. You’re better off with the 2.0-litre petrol rather than the 2.2 CRD. Manual is more fun than the grim automatic, but who cares? Readers’ questions Question: I’ve just bought a 500-mile ex-dealer demonstrator. On the test drive I asked the salesman if it had been run in. He said new cars don’t need to be. Was he right? Paul Goodall, Scarborough Answer: We’re told new car mechanicals are so much better machined these days and modern oils more efficient that running in isn’t necessary, but keeping the revs down in the first 1000 miles can’t be a bad thing. It’s unlikely a dealer demo will have been treated in such a way, but if you’re really worried have the oil changed on your car at around 1000 miles to rid it of any metal particles, should they exist, and then think no more about it. John Evans Question: I need to find my young daughter a car that is small, economical and reliable. What do you advise? Susan Hurst, via email
Origin: James Ruppert: the best ULEZ-beaters for urban families
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