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| You can have any colour so long as it's red. |
Here, dear reader, for your careful perusal and edification, is another road
test.
My fleet manager (she who must be obeyed), is utterly
reliable, in that she always has requested vehicles available for the itinerary
booked.
Where she does occasionally fall down is in providing a
vehicle fit for purpose. Supplying a Hyundai Santa Fe diesel with a range of
over 800km is overkill when all I need is something to get me 80km up the
bitumen to Millmerran.
On the other hand, setting me up with a diminutive Hyundai
i30 wagon (petrol) which has a safe range of 500 – 600km when I need to work at
Yowah and Thargomindah is seriously bizarre.
Both these things have happened this month, but being the indefatigable
worker that I am, I made do. Providing the bloody things have wheels, I’m good
to go.
Last week I used the i30 for the big loop – St George,
Cunnamulla, Yowah and Thargomindah.
It went OK.
Despite its un-fleet appearance (bright red), it turned out
to be solid, comfortable, and capable of negotiating some dodgy tracks on the
Black Gate short cut between Yowah and Thargo.
To be honest, the diesel version, if its engine and gearbox
combination is anything like the Santa Fe’s, is probably the way to go. This
one (petrol) gave about 7.5 lit/100km on the long stretches, and was a doddle
to drive.
It also had a reasonable sound system with a USB port, and
cruise control, so the 300km stretches that I drove went by pleasantly. I was
able to listen to podcasts of
Late Night Live and the
Conversation Hour on a
five dollar memory stick bought for the purpose.
Hyundais once had a terrible reputation, but they’ve
improved at an amazing rate. These days they’re built like brick dunnies, and
come with all the safety kit. This availability of state-of-the-art safety kit
is what sells them to the fleet buyers.
The good things about this bucket of bolts included the
steering, the ride, and the practical interior.
Not so good were the radio reception, the external mirrors
which refused to stay in place against the slipstream, and tyre wear. On this
car, the fronts were on the way out after only 27000km.
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| Fronts on the way out. |
Tyre wear is not a problem on fleet vehicles, of course. Most drivers simply don't look at the tyres, and if they do, they don't let the fleet manager know that the tyre needs replacing.
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| And only 27236. |
Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I won't drive anything until I give it the once over. Once or twice, I've refused to take a car out because the tyres weren't legal. It doesn't make me popular.
