I love my car!

Hi everybody!

I drive a brownish-purple 1999 Fiat Punto. Recently it's been living up to the old joke:

What does FIAT stand for?

Fix it again tomorrow.

(Hey, I never claimed it was a funny joke).

Anyway, in the past month and a half, I have had to replace:

• Both rear shock absorbers (so badly worn that there was a banging noise from the back of the car, and the mechanics said not to corner too quickly before I could get them replaced, or I might slide off the road backwards).
  
• Oil sump (Rusted through, mechanics didn't know how long it would hold on for).
• Mid to rear section of exhaust (Actually fell off on the motorway, and was dragging along the floor. Breakdown guy turned up, and just ripped it out, saying "that'll get you home". It did indeed work fine, but I felt a bit like a chav driving home with the noisy exhaust).

Total bill so far: about £700.

This week, it suffered a serious fault. It became really hard to start. It stalled when I stopped at traffic lights (which was pretty embarrassing with the difficulties in restarting it). The power supply was irregular, so it lurched along the road as I drove. Basically it was really dangerous, so I took it back to the dealer ASAP. After about £200 worth of diagnostic checks, they worked out it was the fuel injection, the casing had cracked, and there were problems inside. Quite a major job for fixing, so I had to leave it with them. I had to travel from near London to Loughborough by train.

I'm a bit of a tree-hugging hippie. I recycle as much as possible, bring my fruit and veg waste home from Loughborough to compost it. I do my utmost to save energy, reduce my water usage and so on.

However, two train journeys from near London to Loughborough have been enough to swear off public transport if at all possible.

Firstly the price: My Punto is pretty fuel efficient, and does the two hundred mile round trip to Loughborough and back for about £20 worth of petrol. The cheapest return ticket by train was double that, at £40, which had restrictions on when I could travel, and forbade me from going via London.

Secondly: convenience. Bringing stuff up by car is significantly easier than carrying it on the train. The train journey requires at least two changes, and takes from two and a half to four hours to make it. There was only one train per hour. Having to change so many times required the trains to actually arrive on time. One of the legs ended up being a rail replacement coach (despite my checking everything was fine just before travelling), and so it was a close run thing. By comparison, my car journey: two hours door-to-door, sticking to the speed limit, and despite the roadworks on the M1, keeping the speed down to 50 mph. I can also travel whenever I want, unlike my return train journey, trying to catch the 6:25 am train, the station was half closed, so the usual entrance was closed, so I had to find the back entrance, and I missed the train by thirty seconds, so ended up having an hour wait.

These are pretty big advantages to my car. The only advantage I could think of with the train was the ability to sleep on the journey. This was somewhat nullified when I overslept on my way home, missed my stop (arriving in London), which extended my journey by an extra hour and cost me an extra £7.50.

This is why, despite my ethical belief that we should do our utmost to save the environment, I am thrilled to have my car back. I'm just about to go to Loughborough, and am glad that I'll be able to do it in two hours with my music playing, in comfort and no stress, setting off when I can. I feel a tiny bit guilty about my carbon footprint, but when the disadvantages of train transport are so huge, I don't feel guilty for long.

I still think we should use public transport where possible, but the rail system (as it currently stands) is an expensive, inconvenient, over-priced joke. I blame privatisation (being too young to really remember the days of British Rail), and yearn for the efficient train networks of Switzerland or Germany which are amazing value for money. If the trains here were as clean, efficient, reliable and inexpensive as those in Europe, train travel would be a more tempting option, and perhaps we wouldn't have to be taxed and congestion charged out of our cars?

AcidCat