Monday

Back at work after the Christmas holiday and it seem ages since I was in Spain in mid-December and picking up my rental car in Malaga.

I was told it was a Tata Indica by the lady at the desk and she said it was going to cost 39 euros – I said I only wanted to rent it, not buy it.

After driving it for three days I felt such relief that this terrible car never came to the UK, but for a mercifully brief period when it was imported wearing the Rover CityRover badge – now that was a mistake.

The Indica has to be the most uncomfortable, noisy, poor quality car I have seen and driven in many a year.

Tuesday

Down to the Toyota plant at Burnaston, near Derby, to discuss the facelift to the Auris and the new Auris HSD (hybrid synergy drive).

Toyota seems to have put right most of the things criticised on this car when it was launched. It has had a fair amount of criticism for being a little dull with its exterior design and the quality and fit and finish of the interior.

The designers and engineers have managed to change its appearance with a few small cosmetic alterations and it does now look more appealing.

The UK plant has been a major success for Toyota as it now employs more than 3,500 people and in 2008 produced 217,400 cars.

There are no figures yet for 2009, but it will not exceed 2008’s record year, as sales were down throughout Europe.

At the plant all the workers call each other ‘members’, which sounds more like a bowling club than a car factory, but whatever they are called, the level of dedication and quality is very high.

Wednesday

The VAT increase has caused a massive amount of work for our new vehicle data department which has been working overtime to ensure the data was processed as quickly as possible.

Thirty-one people have managed to make a huge amount of changes, mostly caused by the rise in VAT from 15% to 17.5%.

Add to this a large number of new models, price increases and options and we have had to change them all manually – 659,421 prices in total.

This wasn’t helped as most manufactures didn’t just change the VAT exactly by 2.5% – there was plenty of ‘rounding’ to the nearest £5.

The changes break down to 342,117 for cars, 294,895 on LCVs, HGVs accounted for 19,485 changes and motorcycles 2,924.