Second Birthday

62,200 miles, 25th June 2006

Tomorrow I will have had my Mk V exactly two years. It is quite fun remembering how I felt the day it arrived on a transporter outside my house and the first few miles driven in it. My feelings about the car haven't really changed very much. It's still a great car.

The miles are clocking up fast and so are the number of stone chips on the bonnet but this doesn't bother me. A couple of months ago I saw workmen creating a new hedgerow alongside a stretch of the motorway I commute on. They appeared to have done an excellent job and I admired the branches of the hedgerow all woven horizontally together. After a few weeks though the new hedgerow started to grow and the woven branches soon became hidden. At first I thought this was a shame but then I realised that the new appearance, whilst attractive, in a sense wasn't the hedgerow's true appearance. In the same way, a car is meant to be driven and by being driven is prone to stone chips (and as I also experienced for myself this year, the risk of accidents). But this doesn't mean the car is any less attractive. In a way my car is now more attractive for having covered over 62,000 miles and still looking so good and feels so nice to drive. I'm still very proud to own it.

My car is now out of warranty which is a little worrying. However, touch-wood everything is working fine in the car right now. In a way I feel a little bit liberated from the clutches of VW dealers and the charges they make for servicing. I always now have the option of taking the car to a non-VW dealer or doing jobs myself. That said, I have discovered this year that many parts bought from VW dealers are actually quite competitively priced, e.g. replacement headlight bulbs, wipers and screenwash. However, I will no longer be buying LongLife oil for topping up from VW after the last litre cost me £17! Yesterday I bought 4 litres of Castrol Edge 5W30 from Halfords for £43.

All-in-all an enjoyable and relatively uneventful second year of ownership.