Was a thread about car insurance...

Fair enough, yeah better start taking a brolly then aye.

Haha, do you sing along to all the ballads?

Well, in an unexpected turn of events, I got my first car today 2000 corsa, blue 1.2litre. Gonna get it insured on 1st of May.
It's got a tapedeck but it came with one of those tape-aux things so I can connect my phone to it.
Clutch feels very different, much less range in it. So the biting point is way lower than I'm used to. Also there is 0 grip on the pedals, so I'll replace the rubbers before I start driving it. YAY so happy

YAY! Welcome to the Corsa club, we have cookies!

What's your insurance like? I don't know if it had anything to do with the biting point or just the nervousness of driving alone for the first time without dual controls but the amount of times I stalled with my Corsa is ridiculous considering I didn't stall much in my instructor's car. My lack of experience of stalling made me panic as I had forgotten what to do the first time I stalled in my corsa! I ended up letting go of the brake and starting the engine... IN GEAR! My boyfriend feared for his life that day!

Anyway congrats, Woody!

It's loaded into my car ready for monday, (the brolly) haha

And i'll sing to anything! hahahah so glad people can't hear me when im in the car

and thats great news : D : D
I have a corsa too, honestly love mine to pieces! (I finally got my handbrake sorted too so im back on the road)
And thats good then, my usb in it won't work properly im not sure why, and really? I mean i did notice that it had a low biting point, but thats personally something i love (hate high biting points) and i though the range of it was pretty decent, but maybe that's just me, never the less, lovely little cars

Good to hear, won't get caught unawares anymore.
Well, whether or not people will hear you depends on if you have the window down I suppose haha. Just don't get too into it and close your eyes when you sing

So many corsa drivers in this thread haha. Good to hear you got it fixed!
I think I liked the higher biting point because I've got big feet, so I've got quite a bit of length between the heel and ball of my foot on the pedal, only feels like I move a touch from having the clutch down to it hitting the bite. I'll get used to it and I'm sure I'll not want it any other way after a while though, if I got really comfortable with the last clutch within 20 hours of lessons despite never having driven before, then should be able to adjust to this one pretty quickly hopefully. Just a case of getting round a car park once my insurance is active, hopefully I don't stall or worse on the way there haha. Think I might drive round the backstreets in my local area first, plenty of closed junctions to practice my peeping & creeping to really get used to the feel of it. Feels very delicate, got so much zip on it which I guess once I get used to it will be really helpful at traffic lights

Indeed, although now i bet it won't rain for ages, but thats a good thing anyway : D
Haha well i don't like having my windows down to much, the noise from outside annoys me so i just let some air in then close them, but yeah no closed eyes aha. I only really sing when im at lights tbh, the rest of the time i find I'm concentrating so much i couldn't even tell you what song I've just listened too lol probably not a bad thing though.

And ey there is, Corsa's are cool
and yeah about time, only a week and half since i noticed it going, but better late than never though, my step-dad brought it back and i parked it and the handbrakes really tight now, i don't pull it up as high anymore but I'm not sure if i will have to pull it up more on a hill, we'll see tomorrow. When i took mine for a test drive i thought it was super super low, as you described literally felt like i'd bring my foot up a tad then we'd be off, but now it doesn't feel like that, still feels low but not as low, i like it I think you'll adjust to it pretty quickly, i found when i stalled i'd be back up and off in a matter of seconds i think the low clutch helped that tbh and yeah thats what i did, just drove round my area off the main roads, just to practice as you say peeping and creeping, and i wanted to practice moving off but without the handbrake, did some hills too because we have a few definitely helped me get a feel for the car. And yeah they seem to be nippy little cars, i love that about them

Yeah, win-win either way i suppose
Haha, fair enough. I liked having my windows down when doing manoeuvres since I could hear if any cars were coming, wind gets annoying on carriageways though.

Yeah I do get the feeling I'm gonna get used to it and start liking it. I learned in a Corsa as well, but the engine was a 1.4 and the clutch felt really different. I thought a smaller engine would mean less clutch action but I guess I was wrong. It's definitely more likely to stall though of you do something wrong I think since the biting point is probably only a few inches from the floor, I might try just doing the see-saw motion with the clutch and gas straight from the get-go rather than adding gas and finding the bite first. May or may not work well, there's the possibility that I'll end up over-revving because the clutch will be too low, which isn't which of course isn't dangerous but isn't very economical or fuel-efficient either. Just have to give it a go and see. I think that's what I've always done with those really quick stop-n-starts that you get into when you just go to pull off, then you have to stop, then just as you stop it's immediately time to go again. Always worked for me and never got marked down for it during my tests. As I said the biting point on that car was much higher too so I think it should be fine Since the car is so zippy though I'll have to be careful with that, probably end up flying off the mark haha. Obviously just use the clutch to ease out of a minor road either way though.

I never thought about it like that (having the windows down) probably could of been useful, i sometimes wind my window down when getting off my street, its turn left only and it's 40mph, 3 lanes but cars fly down pretty fast and if its raining or something i can get a much better view with the window down, but it goes up when i've pulled out aha

Was the Corsa you learned in really different? clutch wise, see I'm not sure I'll ever like a high biting point, but in a few years i'd love a new shape corsa, I'm hoping after driving a few years though i won't notice the difference between cars much, my step-dad literally gets into any car and just goes, and he now drives an automatic. and do you think your corsa is more likely to stall? I mean i have stalled twice probably due to the clutch being low (and me being lazy with the pedals) i was obviously started bringing my clutch up and didn't do the gas, silly mistake on my behalf but other than that i find it's very lenient with me, I've once been in 3rd gear slowed right down (pretty much stopped) at a roundabout, then a gap came so i went and it didn't stall on me, also went for 1st to 4th one time :') didn't even start screaming at me lol it was just obviously very slow till i changed the gears down. But if i did that in my last car it won't be having any of it haha, i think you get to learn what your car will and won't do. But yeah i think you'll be fine, you probably won't even think about how low the biting point is or anything and yeah you just have to be careful, they just want to zoom off in my experience lol

Big step up indeed! Congrats! How much did you pay for it if you don't mind me asking? Also, how is the drive like ?(assuming you took it for a test drive)


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:O Sweet Ride man, mind if I ask where abouts do u live?, how old is the car and what is its engine capacity? Are U the named driver? How many years NCB do u have? What company did u insure it from :P?

Im getting quoted £1400 as second driver on a 10 year old 1.0 Polo, living in north west london

Yeah mines like the same, it's a 55 plate but i think both ours will be Corsa C's, i wouldn't imagine there was too much difference between ours, i think its the newer ones which tend to have more differences, my sister in law has a newer one i might have to ask her to let me have a go in a car park in a couple of months, although i won't be changing my car for a long while yet anyway, but i do like Corsas so i could well stick with them.

And yeah my step-dad's just off, no problems. Although cos mines a box i checked his scores when he took it to the garage, he got me a 4/10 and 5/10 :0 hasn't effected my score too much though, he definitely drives better in his 'posh' car haha

And ahh i see, i think you'll soon just adjust, i think my clutch on the car i learnt on was around half way, but tbh i don't have a clue anymore and that wasn't long ago at all really, and i find mine will happily move on clutch only, even uphill which i find pretty weird, but it came in handy when my handbrake went lol, when i first got mine i was in and out of it every minute haha :') not even driving it, just popping out to get something, or to check something etc :')

Yeah most likely very similar. Just the differences between this one and the one I learned in, it's like a completely different brand of car haha. If you do have a go on her car you'll see what I mean probably, the biting point is about 6-7 inches off the floor, when fully released the clutch pedal was about a foot off the floor.

Ouch suppose it's better to not let anyone drive your car, or get him to make up the difference if it makes the cost of your insurance go up somehow haha.

Yeah I'll most likely get used to it and start to like it. Like I said I used to start the see-saw motion with the clutch from the floor sometimes, if it worked in that car it'll surely work in this one. Had a little mess around with the clutch on my driveway again today, the biting point is definitely only a couple of inches off the floor. So yeah, might as well just not bother with the initial "set a little bit of gas, find bite" thing and just see-saw right off the bat. Except for hill-starts, obviously.
Mine definitely stalls if you bring it up too much without gas haha. Is yours a petrol?

Awh i might stick with my car forever then :') haha i did expect they'd be the same or very similar not pretty much the opposite, so thats good to know It does seem pretty high tho, thats what the C2 was like, but it did need a new clutch which probably didn't help. i guess before i but my next car (got another 3-4 years yet tho) then i'd definitely have to give one a test drive to see if i like how it drives, because half the reason i got rid of my C2 was because i didn't like how it drove haha. I just love the bright green and yellow corsa's haha.

well i was gonna take it down to him but i had so much work on this weekend i asked him to take it, but luckily my insurance can't go up, i just get money back instead, it's knocked me £10 off, but i've got 2 months to get it back up, if not he owes me £10 although I'd probably owe him more because he's the one who does my car repairs :') haha

Yeah i think i do some see-saw motion usually at junctions and always on hills (but i do sometimes use my handbrake on hills instead), although at lights now i just keep my clutch and gas down then bring them up when the lights go amber or when it's almost my time to move, the biting point being low kinda allows me to do that without being slow at moving off which is a bonus. and it's petrol, so i was kinda surprised when it started moving on clutch only, it's only a 1.2 too but on flat ground it will happily move slowly which is good for parking, on a hill it will still do it but it's not as smooth till you add gas, it would stall if i brought it up too much with no gas tho

Maybe I should have tried getting a C2 haha. To be honest though I just thought "wow, a Corsa, I'll already be used to it". But yeah, I'll get used to it soon enough. Might see how I go with this car for the next year. My insurance will go down by about £500 in a year's time provided I make no claims. So might go for something a bit bigger next year, only time will tell...

Ahh I see. Yeah it'd be his fault so only fair that he pays the difference hehe. Though maybe it's fair to let him off too if he sorts your repairs out.

Ah yeah, that sounds just like mine then. Very zippy clutch but there is a stalling point haha. There was no juddering when I was trying it on my drive, just zipped along then stalled all of a sudden. As long as I identify that stalling point and stay clear of it though it'll be all good.

haha they're alright cars, but i wouldn't rate them tbh, Corsa's are definitely better and yeah i guess you'd expect them to be quite similar, but i suppose at least you're broadening your driving experiences, one exstream to the other kinda thing, high biting point to low biting point Id love for my insurance to go down (a good amount), it's far too expensive -.- but yeah i would as you said see how you go for a year, you never know what cars and bargains could come up

haha yeah we'll let him off this time, it's not the worse scores he's got me lol, and i might be needing him to have a look at it again because my steering felt somewhat lighter than i remember, although i haven't driven in 2 weeks so hopefully it's just me and theres nothing wrong

Yeaah i bet they're both very similar, and yeah the first time i went and sat in my car i was messing with the clutch and i raised it up, not realising it ha stalled i was pressing the gas and i was like omg it's making no noise whats going on :') i'd just stalled it hahah, and yeah it'll probably become natural knowing how high you can take it with no gas, and you'll just be off driving

Yeah either way I'm happy with the car, it's obviously been really well looked after Only thing that really needed sorting was the exhaust since it was a bit corroded and had a blow on the middle box, but I've had my uncle sort it already so got a nice new shiny exhaust on it, which makes the engine sound pretty savage as well haha.
If I do decide to get a different car next year I'll make it some sort of convertible, probably something around insurance group 10. Can't really complain about my insurance at the moment, got my quote all ready to go and I'll be paying just over £200 for the initial installment, then just under £120 per month for 10 months. Not bad at all for someone under 25 with no driving experience

May just feel different, there were quite a few occasions in my lessons where the steering wheel felt lighter on some lessons for some reason. If it feels like it all the time since you've had the car fixed though then could be something different about it.

Haha, well that's a positive I suppose. No judder means if you do stall then it could be quite inconspicuous and nobody would notice if you restarted the car and took off rather quickly, which happens to be one of my strong points despite the fact that I didn't stall very often throughout my lessons.
But yeah, on the day I get insured I'm gonna just go round all the quiet roads in my area doing a load of slow-emerges to get the feel of it, then go up to Toys 'r' Us car park in the evening after closing time and practice some slow bay-parking and stuff like that.

Yeah im going to try look after mine too, i suppose it was pretty well looked after previously, it hadn't been driven in weeks (possibly a few months) because the engine had gone, but my step-dad specializes in them which is why i ended up with it, but i'd hope for some good money back when i sell it to go towards a new car in a few years, it's got quite a good mileage too, just over 50,000 and i don't do many. Well know you've got a nice new exhaust like you said, suppose it's all good as long as it's easily sorted Your insurance seems very decent indeed, i'm probably gonna have to stick to the lower groups, although most the cars i like are in the lower groups anyway, my mum and step-dad went to look at a 'barbie car' as i call it, looked like your typical barbie girl car (im talking about the plastic ones you buy at the toy shop) hahah, was a convertible and it'd been wrapped in pink, not sure i would of really enjoyed a pink car but insurance was £15,000 on it anyways, wasn't new or anything either, i live in a bad area for quotes too tho so doesn't help

Yeah im hoping it's just me because i haven't driven in a while, I'll probably leave it for now because after Thursday i won't be doing much driving because i only have exams at uni no classes so i don't need to go in and i don't really need to go anywhere really so it'll probably just be parked a lot of the time now until September

And yeah i have stalled it 2/3 times before but it allows me to get going that quick that you don't really feel it tbh which is obviously a good thing. But yeah definitely sounds like a good idea just go get a feel of it round your area, i think people must of thought i was crazy i'd go up and down this street, one time there was a learner car just parked there i must of passed them about 10 times :') haha

Fair enough, same for me really my uncle worked at an MOT garage for years, so I know who to call if I get any problems.
Hahaha, maybe play the barbie girl song out the window to complete the look? I suppose a barbie car like that is expensive on insurance since the driver is likely to crash because they're too busy doing their makeup in the mirror lol.

Yeah I guess the novelty wears off soon enough, at the moment I'm planning on driving my car all week as soon as I'm insured haha.

Yeah so that's my plan for the first day, go round my local area until I start to get comfy, then venture off down all my old lesson routes, pretty busy areas with a few carriageways but I know them like the back of my hand, so it'll allow me to get used to handling the car both in traffic and at high speeds. Then some car park stuff in the evening for some proper clutch control practice and stuff.

It's nit to know you've got someone to call if things go wrong, and i don't have a clue about anything haha. That and I'd have to die my hair blonde, and suppose wear more make-up hahaa, and yeah probably why :') definitely glad they didn't get it, but i suppose i wouldn't loose it in a car park lol


It took a long time for the novelty to wear off with me i think its because i only did 'practice journeys' kinda thing, never actually said 'i need to go here, so i'll drive) instead i'd just drive round, but it's wore off on my journey to uni, not quite so much on the one back home, i can't wait to get in the car and get home! Probably because i know im off home

and yeah i'd stick to places you know like you said, one less thing to worry about if you know where you're going and the route just comes naturally to you

Yeah handy indeed. My neighbour is also a retired mechanic so he may prove useful at some point.
Haha, yeah, don't do that lol. Oh yeah you'd spot it a mile away hehe.

Fair enough. There have been so many moments where we've been like "man I really fancy a KFC" but had no real means of getting there to satisy our cravings. We have now! Plus, I can play the "if you all chip in to pay for my meal, I'll use my petrol to go get it" card hehehe.

That's pretty good, i have my mum....which is pretty useless, my neighbour is okay-ish with cars i guess, nothing too technical but helped me try fix my window washer thingy aha

omg i was the same! When i was nearing my test i was always like as soon as i pass and get a car im heading to KFC, but i have yet to go -.- i really need to tho. and that sounds like a good deal there :P