I’m starting to feel like a motoring journalist or “Top Gear” on the cheap. I’m teaching in Lithgow each Tuesday for this semester so I get a TAFE car to travel back and forth on Tuesdays. I’ve made 3 trips in 3 different cars – a Toyota Ascent sedan, Toyota Camry and a Holden Epica. They are all automatics with 4,5 and 6 speeds respectively and this what causes problems (other than the lack of headroom in the Ascent and Epica) – the 6-speed box in the Epica is useless. It doesn’t like 100 km/h – you get to 100 and the box changes into 6th and the car starts slowing down Press the accelerator and you drop back to 5th and get back up to 100 and it changes into 6th and slows down. 50 km of this is very frustrating and the “cruise control” doesn’t do any better!

However, the biggest problem I have is that in all three cars you can’t see anything of the car past the back window and the rear door handles. This means you can’t see where the car finishes when reversing, which is sort of needed when parking.

I can heartily recommend that you shouldn’t buy any of these vehicles … LOL