It’s a weekend again. So I’ve been thinking lately about the things I could write about in my blog to keep it updated, this is one of my favorite ideas, so I thought I would implement it in this weekend update. It’s all about cars, no not this blog, life. If you are a driver and you work for a living you will definitely use your car on a daily basis, I cant think of a single day since I passed my test that I haven’t used my car, apart from holidays.

Cars are fantastic though. They give you so much freedom, if you really wanted to and had a spare bit of money you could drive to the other end of the world by using more or less one boat from the UK. Since I am only 19 years old I obviously haven’t had they much experience, I’ve now been driving for 17 months, and in the UK you have to be driving 24 months to be off “probation” so I only have 7 months to go without getting pulled over.

My dad manages a company so he has a special fleet insurance policy because of all the vans he has and I am technically an employee, which means my insurance is something a normal 17 year old boy doesn’t have to worry about too much because it isn’t 3 grand which is great, the day I passed my test (December 18th 2007) I didn’t have a car, so my dad being the great dad he is lent me his 2 year old VW Passatt which was great, a bit of a spoiler for a 17 year old as it’s a 2.0 TDI Engine! But it was fun, probably the best 6 months of my life.

Then I moved on to my first car, which was a Daihatsu Sirion SX, my granddad bought it and sold it to me, it wasn’t a brilliant car but it was a good car for my first car. Being an SX model it had a 1.3 16v engine which produced around 70 PS, 0 – 60 in about 7 hours. It did have a few luxuries that most standard vehicles don’t have, Electric windows, front and back, Air Conditioning, Extra Alarm System, just a few extra bits that made it kinda special, I had this car for around 6 months as well.

Now onto the new car that I’ve just bought, which is more or less the reason I am writing this blog, next week im moving on to my next car. It’s a brand new Vauxhall Astra in black, 5 doors, I haven’t gone for the top spec yet, im just starting off from the 1.6 petrol and this is around 115PS, which isn’t too bad, its going to be better than my Daihatsu I think. Ill update this blog once I have an assessment.

And here is my assessment, few months on, the 1.6 Astra Active is surprising. I was origionally going for a 1.9 CDTI, 150 BH, but they seemed a little expensive as I would be paying a 8 grand more than I have paid for mine, but having had 1 .6 petrol for a few months I realise that I would be better off with a petrol. However if I had a little more money in my pocket I would of definately gone for the 2.0 litre, 240 BH, more than double my own power. But this is double the price of mine. Lately ive been driving around mostly yorkshire, and the car is stunning round corners, and powerful enough to enjoy.

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