Green and Mean

[nc1]

Picked up my 400HC last night - Beautiful - must have returned to the garage at least 4 times last night to look at her (wife not too amused on valentines evening - but I'm sure she'll learn !).

First impressions on owning - terrific - I went around the M25 at 70mph (honest)(I'm not fully comp through Mannings until I do a driving lesson with ride-drive) - with a big grin on my face.

Filled up with Optimax (thanks for the hints on that)- and just looked at the face of the TT owner at the pump opposite as I roared off - marvellous, worth every penny !

And its going to be a fine week-end !!




I'm actually going to re-register on the site as 'Green&Mean' - so may be barred for a few days !

[yum]

Congratulations, I hope that you have many happy hours with her.

Why does Mannings require a ride-drive course? this is the first time I have heard of this.

I did one in November and was very disappointed. Email me through the profile and I'll give you the details.

R

[bryanlister]

Please tell more about Ride Drive Yum. I am interested in doing one of these - but to be honest, every course I have ever done seems to be the same as the last. More a driving 'test' than a driving 'lesson'. I was hoping these people may be different? Come on, spill the beans........

[Green&Mean]

bryan,
I'll let you know after the course - probably going to do it in 2-weeks time.

[ianhfoster]

What can I say - you'll love the car and you'll have a great time on the RideDrive day.

Myself & the better half did two days with Julian in out BRG 4.0 Chimaera nearly 2 years ago now and he taught us so much. But after a few too many track days I'm well overdue for another one... Easy for us though as we only live 2 miles from them

(Un)fortunately I think it could have been us who introduced Mannings to ride drive as we sent them the copies of our reports from Julian to get the additional discount at the time (now with Tesco's as I get free track day for any day not just TVRCC)...

Enjoy today's fog though!

[martvr]

Can someone post a contact number for Tescos please. Before I get a flood of home delivery shopping offers that's for insurance. TIA.

[yum]

Bryan

My opinion on the ride-drive course as emailed to green&mean; I would have preferred to email it to you, but your profile does not allow it.

------------------
The Ride Drive course was really not worth the money.

I had a very pleasant day out with someone who I would liken to a favourite
uncle. He did not have a structured approach to the session and there was
more of the anecdotes of "when I was" rather than "have you thought of doing
this" or "you are driving too fast/too slow/too far out/in the wrong gear"
etc. You will get another person, depending on the area, but make sure that
he spends time examining your driving, and tell him that you are prepared to
accept criticism. there was little active instruction, lots of passive
chatting.

Ride-Drive's response to all of that is that they are conscious of that fact
that may TVR drivers are headstrong and they are wary of being too critical
as it would just irritate the driver. So the person is paying £120 - surely
he is expecting some advice and criticism?

-----------------------

It was neither a driving test nor a driving lesson, just an expensive but pleasant trip to the Dales.

Regards

Richard

As regards tesco, just go to the website www.tesco.com

They came in with a quote within £100 of Mannings, so didn't bother changing.


>> Edited by yum on Sunday 17th February 18:47

[bryanlister]

Thanks for that Yum - must update my profile. It sounds like you have had a simialr experience to mine with 'Drive Alive' and 'Drive & Survive'. One of the instructors was ex-Police from the 1960s. His dream car was a Transit van 'cos he admired the way they went when he was chasing villains.....(oh dear). Quite what this had to do with my defensive driving course - I will never know. But like anything else, there will be great instructors and mediocre ones.

[JonRB]

As I understand it, Ride Drive is a roadcraft type of course, rather than a car skills course, in which case you'd be better off with the Institute of Advanced Motorists (see other earlier posts on this topic). Then get out for some track-based tuition to learn how to drive the car itself.

I've done the former and am planning to do the latter, by the way.

Regards
Jon

[pbrettle]

The better half and I did the half day ride-and-drive course before christmas and I did think that we got something out of it. Dont get me wrong, I am one of the generation of FWD cars - everything that I have before the TVR has been FWD (not even 4WD!). So a TVR is a completely different driving experience that I am currently used to.

So, did I learn much - not really - but did I get confidence and learn more on how to "make progress" safely - definately yes. Money well spent as I am more aware on how to drive the car swiftly and within the limits....

However, I will be doing track days with some professional instruction - this will allow me to learn the limits of the car in safety and what to do when it does go wrong. The ride and drive course will not (and really cannot) teach you about the handling limits of the car on public roads.... I guess it is all about expectation levels...

Cheers,

Paul

[yum]

That's good. Looks like you had a better experience. My issue was on active involvement - the chap sat there very passively chatting, anecdotes about when he did such and such. I expected him to have an agenda and a structure, but he didn't seem to.

My lesson would be to set the rules of the game early and make sure that he knows what you want out of it.

R