When we asked for an Infiniti M as a long-term car, it was unavailable, but Nissan Middle East offered us a QX56 instead, for a month. We hadn’t driven either the Nissan Patrol nor its sistership Infiniti QX56 yet, so we jumped at the chance.
It’s a busy world. People are in a race with time to be as ahead as possible in every aspect they can think of. There is hardly any time for anyone; and given the situation, people want the best in life; by saying best in life, I mean whatever that can make life easier and to be at ease. And such things include, for an instance, mobile phones which are capable of replacing one’s alarm clock, calendar, organizer, netbook, music players, video players, navigation systems and what not, besides serving the basic purpose of a phone and thus eliminating the need of having so many things at a time.
Our black Renault Safrane V6, a brand new 2009 leftover model that we purchased last Ramadan, is on its way to completing 5000 km, and is soldiering on just fine. It also has the best fuel economy in our 3-car fleet by far, for obvious reasons.
So we finally put our money where our mouth is and bought a car that we recommended as an Editor’s Choice more than a year ago. That car happened to be the 2009 Renault Safrane V6, a midsize sedan that is badged as a French Renault, built by Korean Samsung, and designed by Japanese Nissan. That last bit was crucial in coming to our decision, for the Safrane shares a platform with the Altima and the Maxima, with various key components that are purely Nissan items. As luck would have it, the Safrane is not a resounding success, which means buyers can pick up brand new 2009 leftovers at nicely-reduced prices straight from the dealer.
Our 2010 Chevrolet Cruze long-termer has left the building, having served as our primary mode of transport for the past month. It was practical, efficient and easy to manoeuvre around cramped city streets, so it was the car of choice many times over our Jeep Grand Cherokee, even when the occasion required us to make a good first impression. The Cruze looks upscale enough, with its angry face, big 17-inch wheels and relative rarity.
We had been holding off on an update for our 2010 Chevrolet Cruze long-termer because we were trying to find time first to do another round of performance testing, as requested by a reader who wanted to buy one. But it turns out there is no discernible change in performance since our last test, so we’ll go ahead and do a story about the interior instead.
Our Chevy Cruze long-termer has been running well for its first week. As Ramadan draws to a close and the uncertainty of when Eid falls is the topic of the moment, we’ve been out and about at various showrooms, looking to purchase a midsize sedan. It was ironic that we were trolling for new cars while actually driving a brand new sedan, but the Cruze is a bit smaller than what we were looking for. It competes firmly in the compact category, although it is a bit larger than most of its direct competitors. Incidentally, Chevrolet offers as many as three larger midsize sedans to suit every taste.
The grey 2010 Chevrolet Cruze is back with us again! It almost feels like I own this car, having driven it twice before, once for the initial review and once as a courtesy car from GM when they took away our Malibu long-termer for a week. This time, we’re getting to keep this car for an entire month, during which time we’ll settle down and play with its features further and explore its fuel economy capabilities. And just in time for Eid too.
Since my last report, much has happened with the “Z.” Besides getting a job in Abu Dhabi which called for multiple trips in the week to Abu Dhabi and back to Dubai, I had taken the car twice to Fujairah, became airborne with the car (almost becoming airborne myself!), and eventually selling it where it was shipped to Iran in June 2010. As a petrolhead, it was a fun experience to keep it always waxed up, hearing the deep exhaust and induction noise and most of all, driving with the roof down. An added minor benefit of having blue xenon lights is that traffic seems to get out of one’s way much faster.
After a little more than a month, the 2010 Chevrolet Malibu long-termer finally left our fleet last week. We would’ve liked to keep it longer as we still had a lot to cover about it, but General Motors Middle East wanted to put the car back in use as a press test-drive vehicle. But before we gave it back, we just did a quick run to see what the engine is capable of in terms of fuel economy.
