After much anticpation, I picked up the new car tonight from the Honda garage. The hand-over process was more thorough compared to the one at the Chrysler place when I got the Neon. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that with the Neon the guy spent more time actually outside introducing me to the car, whereas with Honda there was none of that and more of an explanation of the pre-delivery inspection and other stuff.
Since my salesperson, Natasha, wasn’t available I was dealt with by this really cool scottish guy called Mark. We had a bit of a banter, as we call it north of the border, making the whole experience very pleasant. Comedy moments ensued when he had to give me a bunch of flowers(!) as part of the hand-over of my car. Not sure why, must be company policy or something, but the general manager thought it was pretty funny and there was some gag thrown about that this was what two scottish men did when they met for the first time!
As for the car, well, it’s ace – lots of cool little features that clever Japanese designers have put everywhere. It’s very different to drive compared to the Neon – it feels so much lighter and the suspension is definately firmer too.
My only complaint so far is that the stereo speakers seem pretty weak. There’s no bass, no thumpity thump, just mid to high range, really. I looked for one of those obligatory buttons you tend to get on Japanese stereos – you know, the kind you have to keep pressed in all the time or it just sounds like shit – but there doesn’t appear to be an obvious “bass-boost” button on there. I’ll need to have another flick through the manual to see if there is a way of giving the sound some substance, though, as we got kind of spoiled with the cracking sound system in the Neon.
Tonight we took it out for a spin up the motorway – watching the odometer climb into the teens as we sped along the dual carriageways out past the airport. Tomorrow will be our first proper commute in traffic, though, so it’ll be interesting to see how it differs from the larger Neon.