Thanks for all the kind comments and glad you like rosie.
Well we had our first long journey this evening, travelling back from my parents down to guildford. Heres a little summary of my initial experiences.
Positives
- power and lots of it. It just feels like there is so much power on tap there. Way more than i felt in the 350.
- i love the interior. It looks and feels like a quality place to be. Not one rattle or squeak on the way home.
- i love the connect premium. Voice activation for everything and seemless integration with the iphone, its great. Navigation system did not take me the way i wanted but its very informative and clear to follow. Pointing out little things like distance and time to rest breaks is nice.
Voice activated phone works like a charm, great piece of kit.
- audio syste is fantastic. Connected my ipod and away we go, sounded great and better than the old bose.
- buttons and controls are all in intuitive places and fell like quality.
- she looks great. I pulled up at a service station to get fuel and under the full lights the rose colour really shone. She has great poise too and looks ready to pounce. Kept looking back at her all the time while i queued lol
- handling is fantastic, the car feels very very tight on the road and cornering is great.
- did i mention the power.... she flew and i never really rev'd hard
- fuel economy. In all honesty i was pretty amazed, she is far more econmoical than my old zed. Averaged 29-30mpg easily, the 350 on a similar journey would have drunk more.
- the hood looks socmuch better than the 350 one both inside and out. No more looking up to see a climbing frame, its all hidden.
- I was expecting rear visibility to be a problem but had no problems at all.
- i love those bonnet bulges. Driving down the m4 with all the lights reflecting off the black bonnet just looked awesome.
- i think i have really fallen for the sat nav woman. Her voice is dam hot
Negatives
- no exhaust noise at all. Was to be expected and will be the first thing to change.
- the ride is harder, you do feel more of the bumps. Not sure if that is the suspension or the tyres.
- there is more tyre noise from the road but its negligable. Also i dont think it helps having no exhaust note as all you hear is road noise
- the seats were not as comfy as the 350. Mind you it took me a while to get comfy in the old car so ive just got to fiddle.my fault for being over 2m i guess lol. Seat seems to bulge a little at the base, but i'll play with it.
Overall im totally chuffed to death. She looks and drives so well and i cant recommend one enough.
Now im going back to sit in the car and listen to the sat nav woman again.