With 1000 miles under the tyres, I thought it appropriate to document my experiences as a newbie seven driver.

It seems to have been sunny ever since I received the number plates, so its perfect blatting weather (and the school holidays haven’t started yet so not too much traffic around).

I now keep sun-block, peaked cap and sunglasses in the car. I actually got noticeably burnt on the back of my hands during my first long drive so sun-block is essential (although didn’t have much use for sun-block for the month of July as the weather was so awful).

One of the first thing that becomes obvious as soon as you go on the road is how small you are. This is particularly the case where there is more that one carriageway. Is that lorry I am alongside aware of my presence? So I am driving very defensively – trying to avoid being alongside anything and always having lots of room in front of me and somewhere to go if someone tries to drive over me.

Paintwork

Sadly, my paintwork is already scarred. This was entirely my fault. I was doing a check on the engine so had removed the bonnet and leant it, end on, carefully up against the neighbours fence.

Not noticing the obvious similarity between the bonnet and a spinnaker, I was surprised that it quickly blew over in the very light breeze around at the time. As with buttered toast, it of course landed paint-side-down on the tarmac which has resulted in some very unsightly chips in the paint. Damm.

Fuel

I have been tracking the MPG over the first few weeks. Like all cars I have owned, the petrol gauge doesn’t move from ‘full’ for ages before starting to move quite quickly once past half way. I haven’t had too much of a problem filling up – the auto cutoff on the filler hose doesn’t seem to trigger prematurely if I fill up carefully.

I am getting ~60 mpg and that, surprisingly, does not seem to be much affected by how I drive.

Comfort

I have found the car really comfortable to be in. The seating position is perfect for me and a longish day in the car doesn’t result in any back or shoulder discomfort with my arms happily resting on the door pocket and on the tunnel cover respectively.

Pedals

The big issue that I had anticipated was shoes vs pedals.

I have manged to find a pair of semi-formal shoes that have got a very narrow and thin sole which seem to just work for me. My normal trainers are a nightmare for driving because of their width. Just a few mm in extra width is all it takes for me to find myself braking and accelerating at the same time. That makes me feel very unsafe.

I later found some really cheap shoes (essentially what used to be called ‘plimsoles’) in a sports shop. A snip at £10 a pair – I have subsequently found many similar alternatives referred to as ‘surf shoes’.

They have a thin sole that means I can feel the throttle when I am on the brake and vice versa making it possible to drive safely but also allow me to brake and blip the throttle at the same time. Just don’t tell my kids that I am wearing these otherwise they will set fire to them as a blatant fashion crime.

There have been a few occasions when I have put the heater on. It works well (although its a bit ‘all or nothing’), as does the heated windscreen.

Noise

There are times when the car gets noisy. This is particularly noticeable when driving on motorways (from nearby traffic rather than wind noise or exhaust noise), and when the hood is up.

I now keep a set of noise-cancelling ear buds in the car which are pretty useful.

Other people’s reactions

Its been really nice how people react to the car. Complete strangers come up and want to talk about it and many of my neighbours have asked to go out with me for a drive. Strangers have stopped me at a petrol station to ask to take a picture. I have also received a few thumbs up from passing motorcyclists which is great. I suspect that they don’t realise that they have a bigger engine than I do.

First service

I have been watching for leaks by putting some bits of clean cardboard on the garage floor where I park the car and so far, no problems (apart from a coolant leak – see below). So I was not surprised that my first service didn’t come with any dramas.

Leaks

I have noticed a few small spots of dampness on the garage floor. These appeared to be coming from the joint between the engine and gearbox. It was only a few drops but there doesn’t seem to have been any loss of oil or water. Even so, it was a concern.

I made the classic mistake of assuming that the fluid is coming from where the drip is. Eventually I realised that there was a cooling water hose on the top of the engine that had worked a bit loose and weeping ever so slightly. Ten seconds with a screwdriver and it was sorted. No more drips on the floor of the garage.

[This wasn’t the last of the cooling fluid leaks, but they were all easy to fix with a screwdriver. I presume I was being a bit too careful to avoid over-tightening the hose clamps during the build and the thermal cycling had loosened them over time. The leaks were minor and not impacting significantly on the amount of coolant but noticeable on the garage floor.

I have had some further leaks over the months and it does seem that the hose clips loosen over time. I am going to look into ways to try and control this – either a drop of superglue on the thread or some locktite].

Brake Split Pins

This was something that another owner pointed out to me. There are split pins that hold the front brake locating pins in place (not sure if that is the right name). Anyhow, the advice I was given was to keep an eye on them because the split pins are not very springy and can fall out. These are on my list of quick checks before going out. I have tried to rotate the locating pins so that the split pins can’t fall out.

In the end, I put a loop of the smallest cable tie I could find on the open end of the split pins, which seems to have done the trick.