Toyota Aygo

Yesterday, Daisy and myself purcahsed a new car. It’s a 6-month old Toyota Aygo.

Although buying a new car is somewhat against the general eco-principles that Daisy and I try to live to, it became clear that it was becoming a necessity.

For the past year and a half, since my car died, Daisy and I have been sharing our car. When I needed to go to work, I would take Daisy to work first. Due to the locations of our respective works, this car sharing meant the car was actually doing more miles than two cars going separately to the locations. As I’m going to be going to work a little more often during the first year of my new project, this would quickly become uneconomical (and less ecological).

Another problem was that Daisy’s car that we were sharing has just run out of MOT and, without some work, is not going to pass any time soon.

However, we tried to get a car which was as ecological (and therefore economical) as possible. The Aygo is very basic (and therefore quite inexpensive). It only has a 1 litre engine which will get it to 60mph in about 14 seconds. It’s not sporty, that’s for sure, but I’m old and staid now and it suits me perfectly On motorway driving it should return about 70 miles to a gallon of petrol. It’s cabon-dioxide emissions are 109 grammes per kilometre, which puts it in tax-band B, in the UK. This means we only pay £35 road tax this year and next year it will only be £20.

We purposely bought an almost-new car such that we would still retain most of 3-year the manufacturer’s warranty. As it’s the “plus” version, it has extra air-bags and child-seat fixing points. We got one without air-con, partly to save money and partly because it’s more ecological not to have it.

It’s really the first time I’ve had a modern small car and I have been surprised at the room inside. It’s very spacious, although the boot space is tiny.

Anyway, I intend to keep a log-book of the mileage I do in it, so I shall be able to let you know exactly how economical it turns out.