Louise Limb – contributor
In the couple of months since my last entry, the trip to have the brakes looked at again is still very much on the ‘to do’ list (I just drive even more cautiously for now), along with servicing and a peek at the back box of the exhaust, since ‘flatulent elephant’ has now been added to the mental chart of weird noises and sensations emitting from my gently aging steed. My Grand Vitara has served me well (and is so much more solid than the two Vitaras that preceded it), with only the usual catalogue of replacements and repairs, with the addition of course of marque specific irritants like plastic door handles that snap off in your hand, weak bits of trim (for example the power socket – formerly known in the age of the Morris Minor as the cigarette lighter) shattering under normal use and that old chestnut I have now to endure, the possible corrosion of the co axial cable leading to the radio aerial.
However, like my teeth, the vehicle is now middle aged and will start to need what the car salesmen like to call, ‘work’ on it. And I have very little money to do this with, so it’s just as well that on a sparkling spring day in the Dales the old girl still looks a dream parked up, the scratches down the bodywork from country lane hawthorn and holly hardly visible in the gleaming deep blue paintwork and tough grey plastic. Of course, parked up is as far as I get on this glorious spring day, as the not so friendly no vehicle sign at the entrance to Gorbeck Lane shouts its permanent Traffic Regulation Order at me. Grrr…
Suzuki Grand Vitara
Spec: 3dr SE 2.0L Tdi
Mileage: 62,174
MPG: 35–40ish
Recent costs: None
Arrived: October 2008
You can read more about this Suzuki in the July 2012 issue of 4×4 Magazine – available here
