As mentioned earlier, I got an 06 SRi 2.0T as the loan car while mine is being repaired. Went out for a spin in it this evening (my first real 'proper' drive in it) and I took a few snaps at one of my favourite spots (Beachy Head).....
Oh, and I knocked off a snap of the nice sunbeams!!
My 'thoughts' on the (06) SRi.....
I don't know exactly what the previous SRis came with, but here's what this one has, and hasn't got.
Things it has got.....
Things it hasn't got....
- Front cup holders with sliding cover
- Rear cup holder (pop out from rear seat)
- Twin exhausts (not sure if that was always standard on SRis?)
- Chrome window strips
Things I like about it.....
- Rain sensitive wipers
- Auto dimming rear view mirror / indirect night lighting.
- Cubby hole under headlight switch
- Rear interior light
- No map lights - just the basic single light
- Sunglass holder!!! Can't believe that!!
- Vent on rear centre console
- Cigarette lighter - just a 12v socket. Wouldn't bother me personally as I don't smoke, but sometimes the lighter is handy for other things! It still has the front and rear ashtray though, so what exactly is the £50 Smokers Pack then? Just a cig lighter!!?
- Information display/matrix in the rev counter - shows warning icons/doors open etc. All those are now little symbols around the dashboard, rather than in one area.
Things I don't like about it....
- Seats. Give a nice hold when driving. Pity they weren't leather!
- Steering wheel - tad smaller than pre-facelift and better for it.
- Suspension - improvement over pre-facelift but still think it could be much better (see below).
- Nice raspy noise from the exhaust.
- The boot - bigger than the Signum in 'standard' position i.e. without having to drop seats down. But to move lots of gear the Signum wins hands down once you drop a seat or two - especially as they go totally flat.
Things I really missed on the Vec (SRi) that my Signum has.....
- Rear visibility (this obviously applies to all Vec C's). I found it very difficult to judge where the back end is when reversing. I found it easier on my Signum (before I had parking sensors) to judge where the back of the car was. The Vec really needs reversing sensors (IMO)
- Spec - for an SRi I really expected a much higher spec. Maybe the Design model has caused the SRi to take a beating?
- Handling - giving it some on a country road I was somewhat surprised. Going quickly into a corner caused the car to squirm a lot. Braking going into a corner casued the car to squirm to the point I thought the back end was going to give!!! Vx really need to tighten up that a lot!! Maybe it's because I'm used to driving mine with the Irmscher kit on, but I thought the SRi suspension on the (shorter wheelbase) Vec would have been better than that.
- The silly system for adjusting the side mirrors. I sussed how it worked, but just found it more faff. I could've adjusted both mirrors quicker individually rather than the method you have to do with the new system.
- Brakes - they felt c**p, but looking at the spec they have the same as my Signum - 302mm front, 292mm rear. Maybe they needed adjusting? (unusual for a car that's only done 4000 miles), but they certainly didn't pull the car up as quickly as I was expecting (and am used to).
I've probably missed a few things. I'll edit the post if I think of anything later!
- Leather seats!
- Electric seats (with memories). What's with all this manual seat moving melarky?! Really missed it when trying to adjust my position when driving, especially forwards or backwards. With electric, just a little zip with the switch. Doing it manually inevitably ends up with seat either shooting forwards or backwards!!!
- Auto dipping passenger mirror when reverse selected. Really missed this when reversing and pulling up against kerbs.
- My parking sensors!
- My BSR remap!! Standard 2.0T isn't sluggish, but boy do I miss it!
- All the other bits and bobs you get on the Elite (Signum) spec. - climate control, leather seats etc.
D
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