They should have named it Tardis! (Daihatsu Charade)

Name: piglet

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Product:	Daihatsu Charade
Date:	25.03.06 (849 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Best spec & price in its class

Disadvantages: finding one in the first place/parts can be hard to get

Having decided to buy a small new car rather than a bigger used one because the extras that come with a new car save a lot of money and hassle (3 years of free breakdown cover, and 3 years warranty, a year's tax and no MOT's for 3 years, plus no costs from having to fix what the previous owner wore out) I made a list of what was really important to us and began researching online.

The list looked like this:

MUST HAVE: ABS (Antilock Braking System - an electromechanical system used in vehicles and aircraft to avoid wheel locking during braking.)

NICE IF IT HAS: EBD (Electronic Brake Force Distribution or EBD is an automobile brake technology that automatically varies the amount of force applied to each of a vehicles brakes. Often coupled with Anti-lock braking systems, EBD can apply more or less braking pressure to each wheel in order to maximize stopping power.)

NICE IF IT HAS: CD player instead of cassette.

MUST HAVE: Driver's Air Bag

NICE IF IT HAS: Passenger air bag

MUST HAVE: decent amount of leg and head room

MUST HAVE: good fuel economy

MUST HAVE: an on-the-road price below £8000

I spent 3 weeks looking at lots of different makes and models, including some very popular ones like the Kia, Ka and Corsa, and some truly obscure models the names of which I forget - one was only £4000 but it was basically a tractor engine in a very basic car-shaped shell - and kept coming back time and again to the Daihatsu Charade. It had a better specification for around £1000 less than the others in its class.

The next step was clearly to test drive one, since that's the only way to check out that comfort, road handling, leg and head room etc., all meet one's requirements ...

It was surprisingly difficult to actually find a dealer willing to sell us the car! I made several attempts online, from Cornwall to Inverness and didn't even get the courtesy of a reply, which was a bit off-putting.

However after emailing Daihatsu HQ we found a dealer willing to drive a test car from Perth to Aberdeen, and we duly turned up, my husband very sceptical about the car given its small size and amazingly cheap price tag. (from £5995)

One half hour test drive later, my husband was enthusiastically praising my superior taste, wisdom and internet search skills ;-)

He even - and you have to give him loads of kudos for this - allowed me to choose the colour.

That may not sound like any big deal: however the Charade comes in not only a very attractive lavender colour and the ubiquitous blue, red, silver and gold, but also in my favourite colour....

.... which is pink. (Daihatsu call it amethyst - trust me, it's pink. Very!)

We could have had a blue or lavender car within days, but had to wait an extra 5 weeks for a model this colour since it had to be ordered and shipped from Japan. Hee hee hee - it's been SO worth the wait.

As a reward for his gallantry on the pink choice, my husband's shared my pleasure in the fun this colour seems to provide for an amazing amount of people .. we get smiles and friendly comments all the time. It's really been an added bonus - and since I do enjoy being one of a kind, it suits me extremely well.

We've had the car 2 years and 3 months now, and have done 32,000 miles. We've frequently loaded it with up to ten 15kg bags of animal feeds, and we've bounced it up and down our appalling farm track, plus making 250 mile journeys to visit family. It does the round trip from 45 miles north of Aberdeen to the centre of Edinburgh on one tank of petrol (£25 at prices current at time of writing)which I think is tremendous value.

Oh, and the tyres are small and cheap to replace, another definite advantage.

The Charade has coped with everything except the track - it needed a new exhaust this January, and that was a minor annoyance as there wasn't one to be had in the UK. (I'm not sure I believe this - but we couldn't access one anyway so it was an academic point.)

However we had a stainless steel exhaust made by the local garage for £200, and it's guaranteed for the life of the vehicle, so I shan't be complaining!

The availability of parts isn't a major problem - I had a "Senior Moment" when I didn't see a portacabin (don't ask, but I wasn't drunk!)and whacked a huge dent in the wing which necessitated getting a whole new one. The car was only away a couple of days, and you'd never know it'd been damaged.

Two years on I can honestly say that second only to my beloved old Saab 99 now wearing a halo in the great garage in the sky, the Charade is my favourite of all the cars I've driven. Since these include the original VW Beetle and a wonderful vintage Hillman Avenger, that's a huge vote of confidence in this little machine.

It's surprisingly fast - great for safe overtaking - corners well, its brakes are fantastic when you need to do an emergency stop (and we have dozens of kamikazi rabbits up our way so it does plenty of those!) and it is comfortable even on long journeys. It looks very compact from outside but is surprisingly generous both in leg room and in head room. I think it was modelled on the Tardis.

The heater is very efficient. There is an option for air conditioning, which we didn't take on cost grounds, and similarly you can have fog lights fitted on the front. There is central locking even on our 3 door model, and the whole package including the metallic pink option, cost us only £6250.

We love it .. wave if you see us; you'll know it's us because I've added some bullet holes bought on Ebay to the boot, put a pink (natch) flying nodding pig in the back window and have a bat tax disc holder ....

Summary: Small car with character, verve and economy.

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