The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I've been using comparison websites because I don't want to phone up a company to ask for prices until I have a full driving licence. I'm not taking what they say as completely true either, just trying to get a general idea of what the price might be.

I reckon the £1600-£2000 quotes are at the top end of the spectrum and the £1200-£1600 is a more rational figure, having said that I could be completley wrong as at my age (17-18) insurance can be very high.

Just got hold of some cash after a part time job so am trying to book some driving lessons, its my current plan to have passed the tests by Christmas time (ish!) and go about sourcing a car from then on.

When I was 18 (4 years ago) my insurance on my 1500hl was £1250 with alloy wheels declared. That was with norwich union

1300dolly wrote:Fair point Oli, its just that i have always found comparison sites too be more than double the true cost, the cheapest i can get the vectra insured for through comparision sites is about £6-700 compared to the £200 i pay through RH specialst who even give me TDC discount.

...Ouch. That's quite a difference. Next year is going to get interesting as I start to add some bits to my car... A small fortune will dissapear I suspect.

Good luck with your driving lessons.

Taking my 1st driving lesson on Friday, in a Proton Savvy... so it looks like a Dolly/Tolly would be a step up from the learner car!

I hope to have pass the tests around Christmas time or early next year... in my over optimistic mind.

captain_70s wrote:Taking my 1st driving lesson on Friday, in a Proton Savvy... so it looks like a Dolly/Tolly would be a step up from the learner car!

I hope to have pass the tests around Christmas time or early next year... in my over optimistic mind.

I just googled for a picture of the savvy and felt queasy.

from what 70s has said to me about this learner's car, he will be lucky to finish a lesson without the doors, or some other vital componentry, dropping off

Phil_G wrote:from what 70s has said to me about this learner's car, he will be lucky to finish a lesson without the doors, or some other vital componentry, dropping off

The most noticable problem I've had was lowering the window to wipe rain off the side mirrors.
Its an electric window and made the worst groaning noise as it brought the window down and the speed it came down at varied considerably, I was quite worried that it would just die and refuse to go back up! Ther instructor said he thought the motor might be on its way out!

(The car also had some 1960s model cars in the cup holders and I was shown the basics of how a clutch works using a slightly rusty Meccano model!)

I wonder how a Dolly would compare to it, without the power steering, ABS etc. Obviously the windows which would be of the wind down variety too!

Dolly steering will give you much more feel for what's going on - and won't be noticably heavier cos you won't have those bloody stupid low-profile-and-way-too-wide-for-the-car tyres on it. With proper tyres nothing smaller than a Rover P5 should need power steering unless you're a girl or in your late 80's

You should never notice the lack of ABS unless you screw up. Try to remember that it doesn't let you stop any quicker than non-ABS, it just stops you having to learn how to stop quickly properly (hence the emergency stop is only done on 1 in 3 tests now ).