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When advising buyers what car to go for, one of the first things we ask them is how they'll use it. While Irish drivers are obsessed with diesel power at the moment, petrol cars can make sense depending on your circumstances, especially if you're going for a small car and you don't plan on astronomical annual mileages. Likewise, petrol-electric hybrids are suited more to a city life than one in which you pound the motorways.
So, where does our Golf BlueMotion fit in? Well, in truth, it's driven in and around Dublin city the…
There's no doubt that, if fuel economy is your top priority and you're a high-mileage driver, then the BlueMotion version of the Golf is the car for you. The official combined consumption figure is 3.8 litres/100km (74.3mpg) and it gets pretty close to that. We're consistently amazed by its ability to avoid fill-ups, even when confined to the environs of Dublin. On the motorway it's peerless.
Though it's not quite peerless, as Volkswagen offers the same 1.6-litre TDI engine in the rest of the Golf range. Sure, you do without a list of further…
We've got hold of a Volkswagen Golf for a few months to live with it every day. In some ways it's a more realistic test of a car than our usual week-long loans. Paddy will be the 'owner' of the car most of the time, but I'll be getting behind the wheel regularly too to give a second opinion.
Our car is the BlueMotion model, which is the most fuel efficient Golf available. It's not difficult to spot some of the modifications made in the name of efficiency. It sits lower for a start…
The Fiat Qubo has joined the CompleteCar.ie long-term test fleet and when it was first suggested that this car would come, I must admit that I wasn't what you called thrilled. Up until now I think I had only seen the Qubo in green (Disco Green) and it is certainly 'distinctive'.
But the arrival of a new addition to the Comyn family, young Noah has made me look at cars in a very different way. Even the normal family hatchback is filled to the brim very quickly with buggies and all the other 'stuff'…
Alright, I admit that winter tyres may not have been necessary as yet, though I did feel vilified in having them fitted to our long term test Golf when the temperature plummeted to zero in the middle of December. Then it decided to come back up to a balmier 14 degrees around Christmas Day...
Still, it's only the first week of January and many are predicting cold weather and snow for later this month.
However, I'm not as ready as I was, as one of the tyres suffered a puncture before the holidays. Annoyingly,…
It's been a bit of a busy day here at CompleteCar.ie. I headed into TV3's studio first thing for a brief chat on Ireland AM about new laws that will affect learner drivers in Ireland. If you missed it, you can see the slot here. More detail is given in our news story though: Six penalty points will put new drivers off the road.
Along the same theme, the RSA (and others) launched a new awareness campaign yesterday relating to driving…
It all happened by accident. I was supposed to collect the Seat Ibiza ST, a car which sounds like it has performance potential, but is really just a Seat Ibiza Estate, which Shane had driven before anyway. But when I showed up at Seat's Liffey Valley headquarters, the Ibiza had gone AWOL and the Leon 1.6 TDi was offered by way of a replacement.
It had been quite a while since I had driven a Leon. Probably because it is a long time…