Impromptu modern shit / future shite hire car road test, Opel Corsa vs Nissan Micra

[John F]

I've just been over in Germany, where I had the opportunity to put a couple of small modern cars through their paces & draw a comparison between them and my more usual aged chod.

 

First up was the mighty* Opel Corsa. 13,000 km on the clock in white with nifty black alloys. Billy, get your kleenex ready...

 

 

 

 

 

First impressions were actually not bad. It looked fairly smart for a modern small car, and was fairly well equipped with gubbins... steering wheel controls for radio & cruise control, trip computer with consumption gauge, aircon, electric everything, etc. The petrol engine (no idea what size) was extremely quiet, it drove & steered sharply and positively and the gearchange was good. The dash layout was OK, and it had old-style controls for the heater & blower which worked fine.

 

However, the interior mirror was loose - something I only noticed when we'd left the airport and were already on the Autobahn. I reported this by phone to the hire company, Enterprise Autovermietung... more about this later.

 

Behaviour on the Autobahn was also fairly good. Although the car (probably) had a tiny engine it proved capable of an indicated 120-ish mph. Fuel consumption was fairly shit at these velocities, about 25 mpg. Dropping down to 70-80 mph saw consumption improve to about 40 mpg, but I had 500 km to cover so a heavy right boot was applied more often than not.

 

However, the worst thing about it was that it was bloody uncomfortable. The driver's seat was typical modern GM i.e. a mixture of rock-hard and not very supportive, and the door armrest was too low to use when the left arm was on the steering wheel. There was no armrest for the right arm. After about 400 km I found myself swearing more & more at the car, and needed to pull over every 150 km or so for a rest.

 

Upon arrival at my destination, the loose interior mirror decided to give up the ghost & fell off:

 

 

 

 

I had a look to see if it could be re-attached, perhaps a bolt had worked loose Ã¢â‚¬â€œ nope, it had been fitted using just a sticky tab - FFS! So, the car hire company agreed to swap the Corsa for another car. CU l8r, you little shitbox.

 

 

Next up was a Nissan Micra - also in white, also with a tiny engine, also petrol, also with about 13,000 km on the clock, but with added Ugliness. And a sat nav.

 

 

 

 

 

Panel fit was also a bit shonky too, something I wasn't really expecting from Nissan. The bumper / passenger front wing interface was especially crap.

 

 

 

The ugliness continued on the inside, with a weird blob thing in the centre of the dash for the radio, sat nav and heater / aircon controls. The heater controls were electronic & completely unusable, I gave up trying to find how to divert cool air to my feet after wasting 10 mins looking through the handbook. It also had what looked like a sunroof but in hindsight it was probably just a glass panel.... I eventually gave up trying to find out if that opened, too. The engine felt & sounded as rough as an old n/a diesel, at low speeds it almost sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders - I had to actually ask the car hire agent whether it was petrol or diesel!

 

Power take-up from stationary was very poor for a new-ish car... it often either stalled or span the wheels, the rev band where normal set-off was possible was razor thin. It also proved very difficult to drive the car at imtermediate throttle positions without the car 'shunting' slightly between on-throttle and off-throttle Ã¢â‚¬â€œ a real pain, this. The gearbox was bloody atrocious, gear-crunching was not uncommon and it had to be forced into reverse.

 

But were there any plus points? Well, yes. the driver's seat was more comfortable than the one in the Corsa, the door armrest was fine and it also had an armrest for the right arm - I didn't need to make additional recovery stops like in the Corsa. Also, once the engine was up to motorway speeds it sounded more refined* and proved to be considerably more economical than the Corsa (averaging about 40 mpg at 100 mph).

 

And the interior mirror was firmly attached.

 

BUT: I estimate that for the current market value of either of these cars, I could drive & maintain pretty much any piece of 20-year old chod in greater comfort for about a decade.

 

And that's the crux of the matter, really. Both of the modern city cars I 'tested' had already developed faults, or were evidently cheaply manufactured, and neither of them offered better comfort or substantially better fuel economy than a mid-sized mid-90s turbo diesel. Or even a petrol... my old Cav 2.0 SRi managed 30-35ish mpg at similar speeds.

 

So... in my subjective opinion, and perhaps more objectively in terms of value for money, modern cars really are shit. Or at least these ones were.

 

 

A final word about Enterprise Autovermietung - avoid these bastards like the plague! Their agent failed to make a note of my phone call reporting the loose mirror in the hire contract, as promised, and the chiselling bastards charged A THOUSAND FUCKING EUROS to my credit card for the detached interior mirror. I've spent most of today trying to sort this out with them, but I've yet to meet a more incompetent set of bastards than these lot.

[captain_70s]

The engine felt & sounded as rough as an old n/a diesel, at low speeds it almost sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders - I had to actually ask the car hire agent whether it was petrol or diesel!

If it was a 1.2 it will have been a 3-cylinder. My old Toyota Yaris used to sound like a cement mixer!

[Junkman]

They both look abysmally horrid.

I find it hard to believe, that something this unsightly hideous can actually work, hence I believe it really doesn't and avoid it like bedbugs.

The extent of ugliness cropping up as time progresses is rather fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way.

Not is this newfangled stuff just ugly, it is ugly on such an unbelievable level. A lot of much prettier things are still ugly.

[hairnet]

the pre facelift micra was ugly but not as bad as yours

 

theyre built in thailand hence the drop in quality

[John F]

If it was a 1.2 it will have been a 3-cylinder. My old Toyota Yaris used to sound like a cement mixer!

 

That might actually explain it.

 

I wasn't even remotely tempted to spend a further 10 mins looking through the manual to find out how to open the bonnet... it took me long enough to find the remote fuel filler flap lever...

 

They both look abysmally horrid.

I find it hard to believe, that something this unsightly hideous can actually work, hence I believe it really doesn't and avoid it like bedbugs.

The extent of ugliness cropping up as time progresses is rather fascinating, in a train wreck kind of way.

Not is this newfangled stuff just ugly, it is ugly on such an unbelievable level. A lot of much prettier things are still ugly.

 

^ This.

 

Although in fairness, I appreciate that pedestrian / vehicle occupant safety regulations largely dictate the shape of modern vehicles. Which is another reason I prefer older ones.

[John F]

the pre facelift micra was ugly but not as bad as yours

 

theyre built in thailand hence the drop in quality

 

Better not let KruJoe (or his missus) hear you dissing Thailand...!

[John F]

++ STOP PRESS ++

 

I finally managed to persuade the staff at Enterprise Autovermietung to remove their heads from their arses long enough to discover that I had actually reported the wonky Corsa mirror, so they've graciously* agreed to repay the EUR 1,000.00 they stole from me.

 

In fact, I kicked up such a stink over their inability to supply non-defective vehicles, to correctly document reported deficiencies and to deal with customer complaints in a proper and transparent manner that they eventually gave me a credit note for two days' free hire just to get me to go away.

 

WIN!

[HH-R]

The front of the Micra looks thunderously shit, where did it all go wrong for the once beloved* car?

 

*relatively speaking

[trigger]

Those new Micra's do look proper shite.

[MarvinsMom]

isn't the current micra built in Pune, in india?

 

mercedes has a plant there too, dunno what models they churn out from that factory though.

 

i had K12 micra, basically the same car only from sunderland.

 

it was quiet will screwed together, though terrible on the motorway, and bloody uncomfortable too. the engine was screaming at 70odd mph, i disliked it that much i changed it for a rover 75, that was a good few years older!!

 

at least now i'm comfortable sat in the bloody car!

[Cavcraft]

I came within a gnat's pube of buying either a new Corsa, or better still a 2013 Limited Edition one in red with a black roof recently.

[Jazoli]

Wife had a 2014 Corsa, hateful steering, interior trim made of egg cartons, it was shit, the 2015 Astra that replaced it is a very nice car in comparison