In the category of "I realise nobody actually gives a damn but I'm going 
to tell you all anyway": I have a new car.

Or rather, a newER car.

I had a mark-I Renault Megane. I now have a mark-II Renault Megane with 
a bigger engine. (I still have yet to determine *exactly* what model 
I've bought, but it has a 2.0 L petrol engine which may or may not be 
turbocharged.)

It's the one with the unspeakably ugly arse. The one I've always hated 
and said nobody should ever buy. And it's grey. Metalic grey. I'm still 
not entirely sure why I did this. I can only conclude it had something 
to do with the cute girl selling it to me...

Being a new car, it comes with its own new set of niggles.

- The back is ugly, like I said. The front isn't the pretiest thing 
ever, but actually seeing it in daylight, it's not that bad.

- It's grey, the most boring colour known to mankind. Even the 
backlights on the instrument panels are grey.

- The clutch doesn't enguage until you completely remove your foot from 
the pedal. You can lift the pedal all the way from the floor to almost 
fully released, and you're still not moving. Only in the last 5mm or so 
of travel do you get any power to the wheels.

- You don't get a key. Instead, you get a huge lump of plastic. If this 
is within 200 yards of the car, all the doors unlock, and the "start" 
button is enabled. (Yes, you actually start the engine by pressing a 
huge "start" button. How stupid is that?)

This means that if I park my car and go shopping, and I happen to walk 
past a shop front that's fairly close to the car park, my car will 
unlock itself and allow anybody who notices and hops in to start the 
engine and drive off.

(Presumably once they get out of range, the engine will stop and they'll 
be locked in? Or maybe it won't - imagine if you were driving the car 
normally and the radio ran out of battery power. Could be quite a safety 
issue!)

I still haven't found a way to lock the car yet. Presumably if I walk 
far enough away, it will lock. (But I'll be far away, so I have no way 
of verifying this.)

- Rather than having the normal 4 or the extravagent 5 gears, it has 6. 
I'm not sure why. You'd think they would use this to add more gears to 
the top of the range; but no. They just took the other gears and spaced 
them closer together. In other words, you need to change gear more 
often. (Which, considering that the clutch doesn't work properly, isn't 
much fun.)

- Due to the absurd conical shape of the rear screen, the wiper only 
wipes approximately 10% of it. Admittedly the 10% in the middle, which 
is the part you're most likely to want to see out of, but even so. Oh, 
and the screen is tiny in the first place anyway.

- It does not appear to be possible to turn the headlights on or off. 
They just turn themselves on or off when they feel like it. (Presumably 
too many French people decided to drive off in the middle of the night 
with no lights on or something?)

In addition to all this, it has the usual minor stuff that all cars 
have. The wipers don't work very well (but then, they never do). The 
brakes are very sharp. (Presumably it just had new brake shoes or 
something.) It's taken me ages to fiddle with all the mirrors such that 
I can see properly. And so on.

So it's a rubbish car then?

Well, not so much. The steering is absurdly light - not sure if that's 
good or bad. The suspension seems... "better" somehow. The car doesn't 
tip over when it goes around corners, and driving over lumpy roads (or 
just ramps) doesn't shake you around so much. It's better-damped or 
something.

I couldn't say whether the 20% bigger engine makes it go any faster, 
since I'm constantly in the wrong gear. (I've yet to figure out how to 
access 6th gear. Every time I try I get 4th instead.) Selecting reverse 
is a tad tricky too. I guess I'll get used to it.

It's got a CD-changer in the front, which is nice. It's slot-loading 
though, so any CDs you put in it are likely to get ruined. But then, I 
always use custom CDs for the car anyway. If one gets broke, I burn 
another copy.

All of the windows are electric, not just the front ones. And it has air 
conditioning. (Does anybody else remember when only the most expensive 
luxury cars costing more than the average house had such features?)

In spite of the wonky back end, the boot is surprisingly spacious. And 
its floor is *flat*, which is useful. I pity anyone who has to ride in 
the back seat though. You'd have to be a dwarf or something! ;-) Then 
again, I'm not expecting to have more than one passenger, ever.

On an unrelated note, I asked my insurers to transfer my car insurance, 
but they screwed up. The net result of this is that I'm now with a 
different insurance company who charge me about 40% less for more 
comprehensive insurance. My mother seems kind of annoyed that she's not 
a named driver any more - but, um, WHY? You have your own car, women! WTF?

My mum was always borrowing my car because it's much bigger than her 
little toy car. But now she has a people carrier, so I see no reason for 
her to ever come anywhere near my car. :-P

Overall I'm happy with my car. Just gotta iron out the kinks. (Starting 
with that back window...) Oh, and it would be kind of nice if I could 
look up the spec list for it, but first I'd have to figure out WTF it *is*!

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