Dear Alex,
I want a car with controls via switches and knobs, rather than having to use a touchscreen. Are there any new cars for less than £25,000 that fit the bill, or touchscreen-free used cars under five years old that you could recommend?
– PG
Dear PG,
I’m afraid that you are going to have to accept a certain level of touchscreen control, even in a five-year-old model. That said, not all touchscreens are made equal and some cars offer more conventional buttons than others. Often, the simplest cars happen to be the most affordable, which is why the Dacia Sandero is often beloved by those who seek simplicity and ease of use.
It has a touchscreen, but the system is simple and very easy to understand, in my experience. Operating major controls such as the heating/cooling system, lights, wipers and so on is via chunky dials and levers. You can even control the stereo using a column-mounted control pod, which has buttons for the volume, frequency and much more besides – as a result, you rarely need to delve into the touchscreen.
The best part is that even the top-of-the-range Sandero costs only £17,065, leaving you plenty of change to add metallic paint and an emergency spare wheel (the latter a £200 option) – and it comes with a six-year warranty.
Also worth a look are the Hyundai i20 and Bayon. The i20 is a small hatchback, the size of the Sandero, while the Bayon is a small SUV based thereon.
Again, both have a touchscreen, but also plenty of buttons and switches, meaning your interaction with the screen doesn’t need to be all that frequent. Both are decent to drive, relatively frugal and have a solid record for reliability – backed by a five-year warranty. The i20 starts at a little more than £20,000 and the slightly roomier Bayon is £24,000-odd.
Also consider the Toyota Yaris. Toyota’s touchscreen software is a little more fiddly than Hyundai’s, but if you can live with that, the Yaris has plenty of common-sense buttons and switches in all the right places.
Toyota lists the Yaris at £23,995 for the entry-level Icon model, but I’ve seen pre-registered and ex-demonstrator versions of the mid-range Design – which is much nicer – for well within your budget.
And any Yaris benefits from Toyota’s service-activated warranty, which will run until the car is 10 years old, provided you use a main dealer for servicing.
When will Jaguar finally fix my faulty car?
Dear Alex,
My Jaguar F-Pace developed a fault in April and was recovered to the nearest franchised dealer in Cambridge. Jaguar assistance arranged for a 2.0-litre Volvo to be hired to me while my car was repaired – not an equivalent to my 3.0-litre car, so I complained. I was given a case number and a case officer to give me weekly updates, but each update simply said: “We have no idea when parts will be available”. After six weeks, my hire car had been upgraded to a Mercedes S-Class, but Jaguar remains unable to tell me when my car will be fixed. Can they just keep fobbing me off?
– MI
Dear MI,
Let’s deal with the hire car question first. Yes, it can be frustrating when a courtesy vehicle doesn’t match your own, but it’s often impossible to match a car like-for-like, and given Jaguar no longer makes the F-Pace – or any car, for the time being at least – I have some sympathy.
No doubt it has an agreement with an external hire fleet to deliver a suitable alternative; it would be unlikely such a fleet listed a 3.0-litre SUV and I suspect it took a while before an upgrade – in this case the S-Class – became available. At least the switch was made in the end, to Jaguar’s credit.
Less defensible is the length of time it has taken to fix your car. When I asked about this, Jaguar was unable to give an explanation for the delay.
My best guess is that a part had been ordered, but its supply was delayed; even so, it seems a little bizarre that it took so long for it to arrive. And all the more bizarre that, once The Telegraph got involved, Jaguar was able to source the part within a couple of weeks, fit it and return your car.
At least the issue is now resolved to your satisfaction and you have your car back, while Jaguar has offered a gesture of goodwill to make amends.
A Jaguar spokesperson said: “We recognise that the length of time MI was without his vehicle fell short of the standards we expect of ourselves and the level of service our clients should receive. We appreciate how frustrating this situation has been and would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused.
“While the delay stemmed from an issue with parts availability within a highly complex global supply chain, we recognise that this context does not lessen the frustration experienced by MI.
“We are pleased that the repairs have been completed and the vehicle has been returned. MI has accepted an agreed goodwill package and we are pleased to have reached a positive resolution.”
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