30 Jul 07
After I dropped the car off at Autohaus and mounted my bike to pedal to the dentist's, I soon realised how little attention I'd previously paid to the cycle path network that was right under my nose. Unlike one or two other networks I've attempted to navigate, it seems to have been created by people who actually ride bikes and who don't want to go crashing up and down kerbs or maiming pedestrians.
That said, I did get magnificently lost and ended up having to take the escalator to get out of a shopping centre that I somehow rode into. Not a mistake you often make in a car.
The service itself was as uneventful as you could hope for and conducted with the efficient courtesy I've come to expect from Skoda. I'd have been surprised if any faults had come to light, as the Roomster is running as sweetly as ever, and I've been getting fuel consumption figures in the mid-40s from the 1.9 turbodiesel engine.
Most of its 9,000 miles have been accounted for by commuting or airport runs, but there was also a Glasgow epic and, recently, a vigorous caravan-dodging tour of some East Yorkshire tourist spots. It's much more fun to drive across the moors and dales than on the motorway, where it can start to feel a bit crude after a couple of hundred miles.
For my £143.08, I got a change of oil and oil filter, and a check of everything else. One particularly nice touch: like all garages, they insisted on topping up the screenwash, even though it was almost full - but, sweetly, they gave me the rest of the bottle, which should see me through to next spring.
