2002 Daihatsu Sirion EL review from UK and Ireland

NOTHING.

I purchased the car on behalf of my elderly grandfather when new, but within a few months he could not get used to an automatic, then he had a stroke while parking and crashed the sirion. Insurance repaired it as it was less than two weeks old, but as it was the new facelift model the first boat load in from Osaka had no bonnet panels onboard, so it took his insurance company 2 months to repair, that is one of the problems of buying a car that only just been released.

Car spent next 6 months stored away until I was given it with only 228 miles on the clock. At the time my Renault Clio Bio diesel car was running OK, but as it was free, it was bye bye clio.

While the sirion was cheap to run, the handling and interior are not sporty on this model with just standard basic blue trim, but with electric windows/mirrors, central locking the spec compared with the clio were worlds apart.

As the time I was driving a lot and the Sirion very quickly hit 20,000 miles in 12 months. It never missed a beat.

An ideal town car great for parking and good cross country, sadly lots of my driving was on motorways and kick down was often on to keep with the flow, so mpg suffered, 40mpg average compared with 48 mpg on rural cross country roads soon adds up.

Unfortunately the local dealer could not sell enough new cars and Diahatsu pulled the franchise. As the car has five years free servicing this was a problem until they opened a new dealer around the corner from my work.

First visit to the new unknown dealer I got given a 1.3 F Speed as a courtesy car, not bad! I arrived in the bottom of the range and left in the top of the range, I thought it was meant to be the other way around it is at my local citroen dealer.

I Changed jobs and now had a daily comute of 350 miles on the M1 and if it was not for the company paying my fuel then I would have had to have brought a diesel.

Thankfully I managed to relocate near home and mileage slowed down.

My mother will miss this cars the most as for parking in busy car parks are a doddle, retracting mirrors and auto box mean that the little space nobody can fit in always contained my sirion.

Handling wise the car will not grip like a lowered wide wheeled diesel clio, but then you have to adjust your driving style, one minor point is the small battery is about golf trolley size that on the odd time has not started the sirion with the lights or radio on, but it has always started a minute later.

Spacewise not great under 5 foot fine in the rear, taller you will struggle, I always struggled at 5'10" in the front and long journeys would make my knee joint sore as theres no clutch to operate to keep your leg moving freely.

Performance well 0-60 time well slow about 18 seconds empty, but I had 1/2 a ton of gravel in it once and it could not reach 60, the bhp is only 57.7 but 0 -20 in town traffic made up for this.

Now as I have changed my job, earn more money and work from home, the 350+ miles a day are distant and I struggle to hit 20 miles a week so I am upgrading probably to an high mileage Audi A6 / A8 as mpg and pence per mile are not really important and give a better image for my company.

I would not hesitate to recommend the car to anyone, thankfully the car has been sold to an elderly gentleman in Norfolk that will see the car out tootling along the coastal roads and parking outside village stores like it should be doing.

Many thanks Diahatsu, in future we may meet again.