As some of you may know, I have owned 20+ cars in my driving life and only two of them have been non-VWs... - a Nissan Micra and a Subaru Impreza STI. I am currently working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and have been here for 9 months - although it feels like 9 years - and have been without a car for that time, using the nasty white Hyundai and Toyota taxis ubiquitous around these parts.
Riyadh is a city where cars rule and the only rule is 'the bigger and more fuel thirsty the vehicle, the better and your puny little Euro trash car better get out of my way if our paths cross, because my 20 tonne SUV-mini-articulated lorry crossover will crush you otherwise.'
Oh and by the way, it is perfectly acceptable for a car to cut you off, when moving off at the traffic lights because he (women are not allowed to drive
) wants to turn left even though he is in the far-side right-hand lane and has to cut across 2 lanes of moving traffic risking his car and his life
Also the desert isn't far away and there are many occasions if one ventures out of the city to find yourself in the desert where a 4x4 SUV with proper low gearing modes is useful, e.g. Nissan Armada.
The only way to relate to the driving experience here is a comparison with the rules in the film Mad Max... there are no rules and only the strongest, fittest and largest survive
Plus with petrol costs the equivalent of 6p a litre with a 80 litre tank costing just under 5 pounds it would almost be criminal not to get something with a V8 in it - a work colleague filled his Nissan Pathfinder 80 litre tank for about 4.80 - sorry I have no pound sign on this keyboard.
With all this in mind and eyeing a few long distance trips across the desert to Mecca and Madina next year and the Gulf States after that (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain), an SUV like the Nissan Pathfinder or GMC Acadia -
http://www.autospectator.com/cars/files/images/2009-GMC-AcadiaSLT-08.jpg - or Yukon would fit the bill perfectly. The GMC Yukon SUVs are very imposing and these black monsters are everywhere -
http://www.suvtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/0510_01z+2007_GMC_Yukon_Denali+Front_Passenger_Side_View.jpg and it is hard to appreciate the sheer size of these beasts if you haven’t stood in front of one.
Another favourite amongst the locals, is the Nissan Armada weighing in at 2650 kg (about two Mk5 GTIs) with its 5.6L 32 valve aluminium-alloy V8 producing 360hp and 517NM of torque to give it a 0-62mph of 8 seconds flat -
http://saloncars.com/catalog/images/08NissanArmada.jpg Given the arrival of another (and final
) baby this year making that 3 children in total I have to take the size and suitability of the interior into consideration. I have spoken to a lot of people who have been here for a few years and the unanimous message I got was, buy a Toyota or GMC and you won’t go wrong both in terms of residual value and maintenance costs. Any attempt to ask about VW was met by a horrified look which translated into ‘are you NUTS or what!’
VW here has a reputation for selling expensive cars that have equally expensive parts and maintenance costs and low residual values. This seems to be a specifically Saudi phenomenon, because the GTI is popular in Dubai, Bahrain and Qatar.
So after all these considerations, my first port of call was the VW showroom.
Old habits die hard.
They had a red Mk6 GTI on show for 124,000 Riyals (about 21,600 pounds) with leather seats, 5 doors, rear view camera, RNS 510 (?), Xenons, 18” Monza Shadows, DSG, front and rear parking sensors, sunroof and some other extras I have forgotten. As soon as I saw it, my mind was made up and I thought, that’s it, I’m getting one.
I enquired about cloth seats, but it would take 2 months to arrive and cost more as the spec shown was a special spec for the Middle East. Ordering one from the stock in Saudi would take 5 days for arrival from the post of Jeddah and I have a choice of Pearlescent Black, T. Red, C. White or S. Grey… I told the salesman that I’d be back in August and then kicked myself for not even attempting to negotiate… he could see how starstruck I was and fawning over it in my excitement, I completely forget about negotiating.
You have to understand that 9 months of seeing just Chinese, Korean, Jap and American motors on the roads had left me weak at the knees upon seeing something so familiar as the VW GTI.
However, I decided to give Amercian and American-made Nissan and Toyota fuel hungry SUVs a look in out of curiosity as well as to see how much larger the interior was. The GMC Yukon looks really imposing from outside and really nasty and plain from within… but I like the V8 engine.
The GMC Acadia was a surprise however, with an almost pleasant family friendly interior with drop down DVD for the kids and a lot of space… I bit my lip and reminded myself that the GTI has just as much (well almost) room for rear seating as the Acadia uses its space for 3 rows of seats instead of two and unbelievably costs 500 pounds more than the GTI. However, that Acadia made a bit of an impression on me purely out of guilt for putting my children in the back of the GTI on a long journey… and we aren’t talking 100-200 odd miles here… more like 500-800 miles!
I went to see offerings from Ford and Honda and thought… no chance with their cheap and tacky interiors. Toyota were ruled out pretty quickly because they seem to be capitalising on their immense popularity in the country by charging rip-off prices for their vehicles.
The thing with the Toyotas is that their engines last forever and take a lot of abuse and boy do the drivers here in Saudi know how to seriously abuse a car, its scary
On the flip side of course, the brakes on a Toyota might take a day off at random which means I don't want one
The Nissan showroom was memorable just for the HUGE size of the Armada and its luxury interior – only a grand more than the GTI?!!!! WTF!!!
A lot of car for the money… Oh and I also spent 10 minutes drooling over a GT-R they had in the showroom.
So, what am I going to do? Get a Candy White Mk6 GTI come August of course…
I mean, come on, am I really going to go for an American monster SUV over a GTI – no chance… *
*Unless of course my missus has something to say about it….
