After six months of missing gears, hitting kerbs and stalling – I finally passed my driving test.
But at one point I was certain I’d failed. I left the Clio in third gear approaching a junction and thought it was in first – I put my foot on the gas, the car spluttered forward, and stalled. In the middle of the road.
Thankfully all was not lost. The next 40 minutes flew by, and after recovering from a shaky start, I began to relax and enjoy the drive. One reverse park and emergency stop later, and the rest was plain sailing.
After making a mess of the turning the road exercise, I parked outside the test centre, switched off the engine and leaned back, ready for the bad news…
“I’m happy to say you’ve passed”.
What? Did I hear him right? Despite my instructor having the cheek to say I only had a 50/50 chance of passing, I’d pulled through successfully. I grinned like the Cheshire cat.
Before heading into work I booked a Pass Plus course, which starts this weekend.
But tonight I’ll be out celebrating. I think I’ve deserved it.
If you’ve got a driving test coming up, you can ask me anything about the test - just send me your questions by 2pm today.
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11 Comments
February 13, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Congratulations Dominic, a celebratory drink tonight will be well earnt
February 14, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Hi Gareth,
Thanks for the congratulations.
Now all that’s left is to find the right car for me. I’m off to read some of our own advice articles…
February 25, 2008 at 3:48 am
First of all, congrats, mate !
What’s the legal age to drive there in UK, Dominic ?
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Anyway, do you like the Grande Punto ? Personally I think it is a good car, especially for a city drive, and at least there in UK you could have it in 3dr version, which we don’t have here in Brasil
Cheers,
Edu
February 26, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Thanks! You have to be at least 17 years old if you want to learn to drive here in England.
I would happily own a Grande Punto, they’re terrific value for money and I’m impressed by the 1.9-litre diesel model. But at the moment I’m still saving up for my first car - I think I’m going to go for something old but reliable and affordable. Maybe a ‘97 Clio or Fiesta.
What would you recommend? What was your first car?
March 3, 2008 at 1:36 am
Thanks for replying, Dominic
Mine was a Fiat Brava 1.6 16V ‘01, which was given to me after m parents bought a C3 1.6 16V Exclusive, in 2005
I have great memories of it, very good times aboard it, despite it’s excessive soft ride (coupled with the 185/60 R14 tires resulted in some scary moments on tight turns) some lack of low rpm torque and low gas mileage, the best average, combined hwy/city was 26 miles per (imperial) gallon, or 9 km/l
anyway, it was a great car, great time
And now I’m without a car, but I have plans to replace it with a Punto (here it is not called Grande Punto as it is in EU) so I’m just waiting for Fiat Brasil to decide if they’ll keep the 1.8 8 valve 112/115 hp (originary from GM/Opel/Vauxhall) or replace it with a new 130 hp 1.9 litre (1.85, exactly) based on their own 1.6 16V (they enlarged bore and stroke)
March 3, 2008 at 1:49 am
Well, being more than 3500 miles away from there it’s hard to guess or recommend something, so, based on my experiences here, my choice would be a Fiesta, too
In our market we have the 2000-2002 1.6 95 hp Duratec (known here as “Zetec RoCam” RoCam stands for “Rollerfinger Camshaft”) and it is a reliable, nice, nimble, fun to drive car (given it limitations, hehe)
I don’t know the UK market scene, prices, so, what’s the price range of these 2 cars ? (Clio and Fiesta)
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My email there on the form is my IM contact, feel free to add me, if you have Live Messenger
Thanks,
Edu
March 5, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Talking about third gear accelerations, several occasions I did the same with our Brava, but, the third gear had a ridiculously short ratio, it started up well, never stalled, this gear reached less than 70 mph (to be exact, 115 km/h) in the speedometer, cutting at 7100 rpm
This is a point of our “automobile culture”, cars here usually have their gear ratios completely screwed, execssively shortened, as the carmakers here are forced to cease in favour of the brasilian “taste”
the preference here is a car with more acceleration and momentum, and with short ratios even in fifth gear, because the drivers here have some “lazyness” in roads, choosing to overtake in higher gears instead of reducing to fourth ou third gear
The result is a Polo 1.6 screaming at almost 3600 rpm when travelling at 120 km/h in fifth gear, the first series (MY ‘03) of this particular Polo (9N) were even more short, 3900 rpm at 120 km/h, simply pointless
March 7, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Eduardo there’s a lot of interesting specifications you’ve listed there. I’m quite interested in how most Brazilian cars have their gear ratios altered so drivers don’t need to change down as many gears to accelerate.
The old mk3 Fiesta and Clio models range from £300 to around £2,000, depending on condition.
My current budget is £1,000 and I’ve spotted a couple of nice mk2 Volkswagen Golfs for well under that price…
Stay tuned and I’ll let you know what my first car is when I buy it. Maybe I’ll upload a picture so you can see how old it is!
March 7, 2008 at 7:23 pm
No problem, I’m already visiting Auto Trader Blog everyday, you’re providing good content, so thank you and Auto Trader team, great job
Back to the “used car” subject, we never had the Mk2 Golf here, we only had the Mk3, Mk4, and now the Mk4.5, a partial restyle done in their brazilian design center
Usually here when a guy comes to buy his first, used car, the obvious choices provided by our market are the Fiat Palio or Uno Mille (Mille stands for its 999 cm3 displacement, 53 to 59 hp) VW Gol, GM Corsa or Celta (based on mk2 Corsa, but with a nasty, poorly assembled, plastic filled interior) and the Ford Ka or Fiesta
March 7, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Anyway, back to the “brasilian drivers and their preferences”
Here the drivers are not well trained as they should, and alongside this lack of training there are many odd preferences, this “short gear” is one of them.
I personally remember 1994, when VW launched a 5dr notchback called Pointer, based on Escort MK5, its GTi version had shorter gear ratios in a way that when in fifth gear you reached the top speed at 6300 rpm with the engine cutting, this absurd fact was proved in that time when some local Auto magazines compared the GTi against the GLi version
Not surprisingly, and fitted with the same 120 hp engine but with longer gear ratios, the GLi was faster by 8 or 9 km/h, and revving a lot less, with the top speed (195 km/h) being correctly achieved at the max power rpm (5500 rpm, I think) and not at the cut, 0 100 km/h times were a fraction slower, but still acceptable given the better top speed, silence aboard at cruising speeds, and consequently better mileage on highway
March 22, 2008 at 5:49 am
Dominic, I’ve sent you an email, probably I guessed correctly your email address, and if I did it, you already received it
cheers, have a happy easter
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