Hello battlestar!

What made me happy today? Hello battlestar!
About 2.5 months ago, I blogged about how I would be saying goodbye to my battlecruiser. Yesterday, the day had finally arrived! I took the battlecruiser (the Ford) for it's last drive to work. It felt kind of weird, because even though the car had it's flaws, it served me well.
But a little before 11 o'clock, I got a call from the reception. My new car had arrived! Eagerly, I dashed towards it. The first thing I noticed was that choosing a red one was a great idea! Good thing the man delivering my car took me through the basics of this car, because otherwise I would have been lost. So many buttons, thingamagicks and dudemabobs! No complaints about the service either, they delivered it right to the door of the office. And if I ever need to have maintenance or repairs done, I just have to call the garage. They'll pick it up at 10, and deliver it back at 4. Service much?
So I turned the keys to the battlecruiser over to the rental company. No teary goodbyes, but I'll always remember the battlecruiser fondly.
Time to get in to the battlestar, and put her in the parking lot. That's where I encountered a small issue. I couldn't figure out how to get the car in reverse for the life of me. After about 5 minutes of fiddling and messing with the clutch, I decided to call the garage. Turns out, you have to push the clutch down in order to get it in reverse. Boy, did I feel silly. Any way, embarrassment aside, off we were to the parking lot. Too bad it was only a 150m drive :-)
But driving home, I got to put the battlestar to the test a bit more. And let me tell you, that car is a smooth drive! She pulls up really well (one of my main complaints about the Ford). She handles the turns smoothly, and is very comfortable! The engine purrs like a little kitten :-)
The battlestar has little nooks and crannies for storing items, which is very convenient. Most certainly if you spend a lot of time in your car, like me. The trunk space is generous, I could easily fit in there. Of course, the battlecruiser had more trunk space, but I didn't need that. The pedals of the batllestar are arranged much better, the gears on the clutch are closely together, which makes for easy gear shifting. The placement of the hand brake is a bit odd, but in no way cumbersome.
I could go on and on about all the options and features, but I don't want to bore you to death ;-) Suffice it to say: I love my brand new red batllestar! I'm going to have a lot of (safe) fun driving her around! The Volvo V40 is an awesome car :-D

Bye battlecruiser!

What made me happy today? Soon I'll be saying goodbye to the battlecruiser!
Yup, a new car is coming my way. And it was totally unexpected! As you may remember, I got my driver's license recently. When I went to drop off a copy at out human resources department, my colleague informed me that I still had to pick a car.
Wait. Pick a car? But I already have a car... Well, as it turns out, that was not my permanent car. I got to pick a definitive one. Sjeesj, do they spoil me or what? So I had a hard choice to make. I like the battlecruiser a lot. It's a Ford C-max grand, and has a ton of trunk-space. But once you hit 70 kph, it starts to get sluggish. It has a 1.6 diesel engine with 95 hp, but I feel like it's just not enough for a car this size. My battlecruiser can fit up to 7 people, or a ton of luggage. The way it handles in sharper turns isn't that great either. I'm also not convinced of the way the pedals are arranged, for some reason the gas pedal is a lot further away than the breaks... Again, it's a great car but it's also not very eco-friendly. It uses 6.4 l per 100 km, and has a Co2 exhaust of 120 g / km.
So keeping in mind my two most important rules for picking a car (being comfort and trunk space) I got to it. I took a look at the list, immediately eliminated several cars for being to small. And in the end I chose the Volvo V40. Fuel consumption is rated at 3.4 l per 100 km, and the Co2 exhaust is 88 g / km. It has a ton of safety options, which all come standard as Volvo is very engaged towards safety. Like it says on their website 'By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo.' And if you see the array of safety features and safety options that are available for the V40 I think they might even manage that. The trunk space is about 100 l less than the battlecruiser, but the Volvo should be a lot more comfortable. So the choice was made.
And then they told me I had to pick a color. Oh dear me. It took me a long time to decide on the car, and I didn't think about that! My first impulse was 'black', as my clothes always are. But then I got to thinking. Black does get warm in the summer, it shows dirt really well and is hard to see when it's dark. Most of the other colors in the range didn't really appeal to me. Several shades of grey and silver weren't for me, I don't really like those. The copper one was a big no, definitely not my thing. That left me with blue and red. I didn't like the shades of blue, and red is a very noticeable color, so red it was!
Now I have to wait a week until I get my new car. But I don't doubt that my battlecruiser will continue to serve me well :-)