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“The purple Micra is gone. I did not own it myself...”

written by lewist on 25/01/2007

Good Points
Reliability
Fuel economy
Low running costs
Performance not bad for a little engine
Reasonable comfort

Bad Points
This one had no power steering
Basic
No motorway presence

General Comments
The purple Micra is gone. I did not own it myself though I did drive it a lot. It was my wife's transport to get to work for four years, then my daughter's and finally my elder son's. He has inherited his Mum's Almera and the Micra went to the auction. This review is by way of a valedictory for a great wee motor.



The Micra was a very basic item. It could seat four - though not in comfort for those in the back - and it had a wheel at each corner plus an engine. With only the driver it held its own on the motorway though it was a temptation for any boy racer or BWM owner to try to bully on the M8. Fold down the back seat and there was quite a lot of carrying space.



Over the ten years it was in the family the car needed very little work. It was easy to flood the carburettor but then the problem was easy to fix after a friendly AA man showed us how. The exhaust gave up at eight years and the battery at nine. At nine it also needed major surgery underneath in the form of a strut that seems to be a weakness for the rot, though we thought it worth fixing. It cost a bit but not as much as buying another car would have and this was a car we knew, a good friend who did not let us down, right to the end. Apart from that it needed service parts and not much else.



The purple Micra transported my wife the seventy mile round trip to work, then our daughter used it including a year when she travelled daily from Glasgow to Kilmarnock, then our son used the car to travel to band practices and gigs.



Somewhere around Glasgow someone is still driving our old purple friend. It is not a thing of beauty, being a bit battered and bruised in places and in its twilight years with over 90k miles on the clock, but I just don't think it will let its new owner down. It may not be a limo but it did the trick. It's not a macho guy car but it got from a to b and didn't cost much in the process.