I don't know what started me off this morning but as I was driving to work I proceeded to get worked up about the design features on my car.

To be more precise I was actually scripting out my appearance on Top Gear doing my stint with The Stig in the section known as "Star in a reasonably priced car". This is obviously after my career goes stratospheric and I become a famous person. This is another facet of my life that if I put as much effort into actually becoming rich and famous instead of what I would do when I was rich and famous, I might actually become rich and famous.

Anyhow the great Jeremy Clarkson usually finds out about that weeks star's car ownership and when mine came up it would all come to a halt at my present car. I would then carry out such a character assassination of the manufacturer involved that it would never sell another car in the UK ever again. It would not matter to the manufacturer as they are French and judging by my car they will buy any old tin on 4 wheels!

OK so my car is French. But that is as far as I go.

It is my own fault as I always said I would never own one of these cars and I let myself do it all the same.

Oh how many ways are there to hate a car? If it is so bad, I hear you ask, why keep it? The answer is simple yet complex. Although it is a bastard of a car it is also a genuinely nice car to drive. There you have it. Whilst it is working it is a pleasure to drive. Frugal on diesel, so much so that it is by far the largest car I have ever owned and yet is the most fuel efficient I have ever owned. All the mod cons and my first ever car with cruise control, I LOVE cruise control. It has made the journeys down to the south coast SO much easier. lastly I have to keep it because I can't afford to ditch the finance on it.

What irritates me about it is some of the mind bogglingly daft aspects to it's engineering.

Take the ignition key. The whole lock and key concept is not knew and is well understood. A key is used to fit in a barrel and twist so as to activate locks and stuff. A key is a universally understood item of household paraphernalia.

It seems the builders of my car thought that it was time for a whole root and branch redesign of an age old concept.

So lets look at the design brief. The car needs a key with which to gain entry to the car and engage the electrics so that the starter motor will spin and the engine will run. Keys are well accepted design, they can have a fob attached so that they can be hung to walls and have decorative ornaments attached. They are mostly made of a sturdy metal design so that dropping it doesn't damage the key.

So my designers have taken all these positive attributes and swept them away. Instead I have flimsy piece of plastic with a battery driven radio transmitter that is encoded to be read by a specific card reader. Great, very secure. But dear reader how many times have you dropped your keys on the floor as you emptied pockets or juggled kids. When you dropped your keys did you have to check for damage? No as long as you don't bend the thing it will still work. Unfortunately I have to treat my card as though it were a precious life form and it would die with the slightest jolt.

How about the card reader? When was the last time you placed a key in a lock only for the lock to tell you it was going through some sort of gender reassignment as a hole in the wall? My card reader did almost just that, well it refused to recognise the card. How long does it take to get a key cut? an hour at most. It takes a minimum of 2 weeks to get a new card or in my case where my key snapped in two INSIDE the card reader it took 10 weeks yes 10 weeks. 10 weeks of the car sat in my drive doing nothing whilst my car company came to some deal with a new manufacturer.

This has been a long enough rant but there is still

1) why did they have to cram so much stuff under my hood?
2) why is it so hard to change a light bulb?
3) hydraulic gearboxes, is there any need?
4) Why are main dealers staffed by morons?
5) Why don't I buy a Ford next time?