car with a deadly dull interior and no wallowing in corners

[jsp56]

Hi,

I would like to buy a newish car with a really extremely dull interior (no exciting coloured backlighting on the stereo buttons, no little screens anywhere, ideally all analog instruments except for perhaps a small grey display on the radio). I'm upgrading from an '06 mondeo, but everything these days seems to be like the Blackpool illuminations inside by comparison. :-)

I also would like a car that has a very smooth ride, with no wallowing in the corners.

I wondered if anyone might know where I should look for such a thing? The '11 Ford Focus is nice and the vauxhall corsa seems okay, but none of them seems to have the gravitas and super-smooth ride of the mondeo.

Do you think the day of such cars is gone, or should I keep hunting?

Thanks,

JSP

[jsp56]

The mondeo unfortunately seems to be very garish inside now and also, just *huge*. Weirdly, even notionally quite small cars (e.g. Fiesta) seem to be wider than our Mondeo now, and the streets near us are very narrow. I'm trying to reconcile myself to a step down to a smaller car, but it's kind of hard to give up on our old one. Might have to throw away the engine and tie a sail on top.

[jsp56]

The Saab 9-5 looks lovely but is also quite huge. I think we'd struggle to pass an oncoming cyclist in one of those. :-) V. nice though.

[jsp56]

The japanese marques also all seem to be very colourfully backlit all over the instrument panel, but thanks for the idea. :-)

Clear a Tata is the answer.

[jsp56]

Thanks for all of these great suggestions. I'm having a good scout around and looking at them all.

I went to see the Toyota Avensis today and it's absolutely beautiful inside, and the lights can all be dimmed down to the nothing - so the perfect car in the respect. They didn't have a single one for me to test drive and WhatCar don't seem wild about it, but it's joint top of the list just now. It has exactly the same dimensions as my 2006 Mondeo, which is much more suitable than the huge modern Mondeo.

The other good car seems to be the 2011 Ford Focus Sport which has an attractive dash, with lights that can be turned right down and a non-glaring screen. It drives like the smaller class of car that it is (Sport model with big wheels wobbles from side to side a bit, and Zetec with small wheels and harder suspension bumps up and down).

Without having driven the Toyota, I'm torn between buying the Ford Focus to get 5 years of reliable driving for 8k or using the 8k to keep my ultra-stable 2006 Mondeo on the road for another 5 years. I'll phone round some garages and do a bit of head-scratching about the Mondeo before making the decision.

Thanks again for this great information!

JSP

[jsp56]

Hi,

Thanks for asking. I bought the car when I had a motorway commute, but I've since given up work to be a Mum and I only take it for very short journeys - perhaps 2 miles each way, every other day. I don't think it likes this kind of driving at all because we've had to make a number of expensive repairs. (Brake discs, battery, and now the turbocharger apparently failed). There's another thread in my name about it. I don't know much about cars and I really don't want to have to constantly visit garages and wonder whether the car is going to fail on me every week or just every other week. From that point of view, I'm inclined to buy the Focus and pass the Mondeo on to someone who can drive in the way that it was built to be driven.

Jen

[jsp56]

I know just what you mean. I've test driven a Golf and it wasn't a patch on my 2001 fiesta.

[jsp56]

Hi,

Yes I know just what you mean. We're leaning toward the 2011 Focus, and tbh I think I'd go for something more the size of a Ka except that I have family to visit at the other end of the M11. I wouldn't relish doing that journey regularly in a really itty bitty car. I used to have a Rover Metro and then a Ford Fiesta (2001) and they were both just right for me. I did motorway driving in them in Scotland, but the M11 can be really dangerous in a car that can't accelerate out of the way of a huge lorry when needed (not a problem in the Metro, but it was in the Fiesta). I never encountered the huge lorry problem on the M8, but the M11 is a totally different kettle of fish.

I think if we do change the car it will be a low mileage 2011 Ford Focus Style automatic petrol 1.6L. Finding one may be tricky. The trip meter is bright, but I can just cover it with a bit of cardboard - job done.

Thanks!

JSP