Reliability

We can always rely on the trusty Datsun (well Nissan Almera but to us she will always be the Datsun!) to be reliable. She will be nine years old on the 25^th of this month and has now covered over 105,000 miles yet she flew straight through yet another MOT yesterday. She may not be a looker and she is certainly no racing car but she is more valuable to us than her monetary value would suggest.

We don t need a fancy car for either work or pleasure, the boat is our weekend play thing and my job involves mud and muddy clothing, so a big expensive car isn’t really necessary. We need reliability and economy which the Datsun gives us in buckets.

We have owned the Datsun for nearly eight years now and in that time, other than the usual brakes and tyres and servicing has needed nothing else. Reliable motoring indeed. But this was nothing more than we expected. We bought “new” Datsun on the back of the reliability of “old” Datsun, a 1991 Nissan Sunny which we owned for six happy years. “Old” Datsun was very cheap motoring, we bought her for £50 crash damaged but with nine months tax, nine months MOT and a full tank of fuel, spent two hours and no money repairing her, ran her for six years and sold her for £200. When the time came to finally sell her on and buy something else we of course turned straight to her predecessor, the Almera.

Sadly Nissan no longer make a suitable replacement for the Almera so when the time eventually comes to replace the Datsun we will be looking elsewhere, but that is potentially a long time to come yet if the reliability of the old Datsun is anything to go by!!