long-term update

Back in the early days of summer this year, we asked Volkswagen Middle East if they’d be interested in providing us with a long-term car. We were fine with any car, as long as it was for a decent amount of time, and we even offered to pay part of the cost. They soon got back to us, offered us a VW Passat CC V6 for no cost, and even let us choose the colour. While we didn’t ask for any specific colour, we found it rather astounding that VW would import a brand-new unmolested car from Germany just for our test.

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So after 8 months and over 20,000 km, the Mondeo has departed. In an unanticipated move, I spontaneously decided to sell the Mondeo as the idea of owning a four-wheel drive, which sprouted up from nowhere in a corner of my brain, and had incurably spread all over my mind like cancer in short notice.

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You might be wondering why there have been no updates on our 2000 BMW M Roadster, the ultra-rare sports car of which only a handful exist in the UAE. The truth is we haven’t been driving it much, because it is a race-car for the streets. Race-cars aren’t particularly good on crowded streets.

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The 2010 BMW 535i Gran Turismo left us many months ago, after less than three weeks with us. We figured we should do a wrap-up article before closing the book on this car, especially since BMW themselves are considering ending production of this car for obvious reasons.

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So its summer time again – a period of nature’s harshness which is inevitable. And hence it was time for me to test one aspect of my Mondeo, which is actually a factor majorly considered when it comes to purchasing cars anywhere in the Middle East – the air-conditioner.

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Some of you may have noticed that my brother Marouf does not write news articles for us any more. That’s because he is now a web editor at a sports newspaper in Abu Dhabi. And that means he has to drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and back everyday, a distance of 270 km daily. We’d already sold our Peugeot 307 2.0 last year, I wasn’t going to have him rack up miles on my fuel-hog Jeep or my exotic BMW, and our Renault Safrane is in use by the Old Man of the house. So he was doing the daily road-trip in our trusty old 1997 Toyota Corolla,

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The BMW 535i Gran Turismo is not with us any more. It was taken away from us in less than a month for “internal use” but after asking for it back numerous times, we’ve given up on seeing it again. We figured we should give it some proper coverage before closing the chapter on it, so here is a look at this luxury car’s luxurious interior.

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So it’s been over two months and about 7500 km with the car. The experience has been a very good one indeed, so far. The car provides a smooth commute as always and has been functioning very well. There hasn’t been any niggles except for some slight squeaks from the gearbox area as mentioned in the previous updates, which has now been fixed.

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Our 2009 Renault Safrane hit the 10,000 km mark, so we took it in for a dealer service in Dubai. Making the appointment a day earlier by phone was hassle-free, and we dropped off the car at 10 am in the morning.

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The 2011 Infiniti QX56 is no more with us, having gone back to Nissan Middle East earlier this month. It was a good ride, initially overwhelming us with its size, but then proving to be very manouevrable in all but the tightest of cases.

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