Tag Archives: Cars

Tofu

As you probably are aware, I now own a Yaris. And today, I got surprised when Toyota UK on Twitter linked in a tribute to their Corolla AE86 on their Twitter feed, namely the Corolla GT86, although disappointingly, there was no Eurobeat on the trailer.

For those of you who don’t know, the AE86 is the car used by Fujiwara Takumi in the Initial D anime series, a young man doing early morning tofu deliveries down a winding mountain pass, learning how to drift as he went, and minimising the jerky movements of the car, since tofu is an extremely fragile food.

Toyota made reference to this also in my Yaris by adding an app to the car called “A Glass of Water” which simulates having a glass of water in the car, and when you finish your journey, it tells you how much water you would have spilt had you had a real glass of water in your car.

Takumi’s father used this same technique while training him. Putting a glass of water in his cup holder and Takumi would try to minimise the amount of spillage during his delivery run.

I am impressed how Toyota have been embracing the references to their cars in the anime, and when I mentioned this on my office’s slack, surprisingly some people also got the reference ^_^

Car Update

TfL finally replied and my application for exemption of the CC is refused. Even though my car meets the CO2 emissions requirement, it doesn’t meet the 20-mile EV requirement (must be table to travel 20 miles with zero emissions.)

Details on this article: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-6516655/Electric-cars-no-longer-Congestion-Charge-exempt-London-2025.html

They refunded the £10 I paid for registration.

However, I may still be able to get an exemption. Since my dad also uses my car and he’s registered disabled, he may be able to register my car as a blue-badge holder, which gives 100% exemption.

Car Update

Went to get my spare key from Toyota. Took them 2 hours to get my car into the workshop and get the key reprogrammed. They left a sign in my car when they were done. They had also washed and cleaned the car in the process.

A mobile coffee truck came along while I was waiting outside for the car to be done. I got a coffee while I waited

Car Update

My V5C arrived this morning. So I can use that to check and apply for my CCharge discount eligibility. I already know the car is exempt from ULEZ and LEZ.

Though it does seem the CCharge will be chargeable for all cars from 2025 and exemption for EV only from 2021.

So remind me again, why should people buy a EV or hybrid if they don’t get any benefits?

My Toyota Roadside Assistance confirmation form also arrived, it’s Toyota branded, but the assistance is provided by the AA.

Barclaycard emailed me. Time to pay my credit card bill…

Training in Quarantine – Day 72

Another cloudy and rainy day. I did get to do my walk in between the showers.

Car update — I’ve finalised finance with Toyota and we’ve pencilled in Wednesday for pickup, but that depends on when I need to return my hire car.

Other news — My neighbours moved out recently and now we’ve had some people come in to pick up left over stuff and another van dropped off this morning, seemingly to drop of some paints and stuff.

They parked up pretty close to my hire car.

At least they didn’t scratch it.

Since different people are coming in and out of that premise, they’ve mounted a key locker on the front of the building holding the key to the flat, and locked it. Foolishly, they left the key combination visible as I went out to my walk. Then when I came back after my walk, they had reset the dials. Tried the combination I saw, and the lock opened. Cue Mr. Burns clip….

Training in Quarantine – Day 71

Cooler day, but has been raining on and off all day, so instead of my walk, I did my FitBit workout — and struggled with several of the exercises.

Finished it, and was about to go out to walk, and it started raining again….

EDIT: It stopped after a while and I went ahead and did my walk.

Training in Quarantine – Day 68

1 hour walk today, in 25degC heat, including some shopping at the Co-Op (which luckily had no queue outside).

Chased up Toyota as they hadn’t called me, and they finally called me in the afternoon. They confirmed I had passed credit checks so the backup car was reserved for me.

However, the first choice car was still reserved for the other buyer and they were still waiting to find out if they passed checks on another finance company (Black Horse).

So it seems that the finance is primarily with Toyota Finance and the secondary finance company is Black Horse (which, ironically, is who I had my finance with when I had my Skoda.) According to my Toyota sales person, Black Horse is a higher interest finance company.