Trying to find my parents their new car. Tall, economical and so forth.
Finally got them a Mercedes A-Class A140 Avantgarde.
Hopefully, they're going to love it. They seem happy with the 'performance'.
Richard
Remember to get them a weightlifter's belt and a regular appointment with a good chiropractor ;-) Handy little car though - once you get used to it eating roll bar drop links and rear trailing arm bushes.
John F - 3 years and 63,000 miles in an A140 (X79 VSG where are you now), now enjoying bangernomics for a bit.
P.S. Hope they enjoy it, although your old man should probably put his nicest guitars in an extra layer of bubble wrap when carrying them in the car.
Well, if you felt the A140's performance was alright, that's a start I guess! The choices they went through were Rover Streetwise (I kid you not - the only thing funnier is that the dealer wouldn't discount the thing!), Suzuki Ignis 4Grip (silly name, nice car IMHO - awful seats though), and the frontrunner was the Citroen Berlingo.
Amazing how reluctant people are to sell you a car these days. No/poor test drives, appalling product knowledge, generally sullen attitude. Mercedes garage was (as historically) nice and helpful.
It's got a long warranty and only done 10,000 miles - it's a 2003 model with full-length sunroof for the same price as the 2004 Berlingo with the same miles, so I'm happy I got a reasonable (if not stunning) deal.
Plus I'll get my Beetle back (I loaned it to them whilst I tried to find someone to repair the Subaru Outback, which is now presumably leaking coolant in my yard. Damn thing).
I liked the seats. Really liked the LWB model, but they couldn't be persuaded to spend another £2,500 to get an exdemo delivery miles A140 Classic SE - now very cheap due to the new, IMO rather overstyled model.
Richard
I reckon that the fact that the engine is an 8 valve job sort of lends itself to the character of the car. It'll never be a screamer, but I suspect that's not what people buying an A class are generally looking for.
Also to be fair, build quality is now much nicer than when had mine - even on old model cars.
John F Bangernomics convert and sometime GTM pilot of a weekend.
crap, tall little eco cars the yaris i believe is teh winner
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