It’s hard to believe we’ve had the Honda S2000 for five years now. It’s harder to believe how little we’ve driven it due to lack of time. However, despite what some people believe, a sitting car also requires maintenance. And the tyres on the S2000 have expired by now, as per the RTA.
When we got the Alfa Romeo 156, it was covered in a thin layer of dust on the inside that seemed to be semi-permanent, stuck in the nooks and crannies of the textured dashboard, door panels and centre console. The dark-tan leather was also blackened from years of neglect. After some hard scrubbing, the leather became a bit lighter, but none of the dust on the rubberised plastics seemed to come off. We then noticed an ad for Green Steam car wash and gave them a call to check out if it’s a cost-effective alternative to an expensive detailing job.
About a decade ago, when we first saw the soft-closing door mechanisms on luxury cars, it blew our minds. Doors just closing on their own meant no more question on whether the door was fully closed or not, something that could happen when passengers are climbing in without paying attention as you wait by the road to pick them up. But then again, with warning systems nowadays, it’s less of a concern, although the main idea behind this feature is to close a door in a stately manner, without slamming it like an uncouth monkey. Now there’s a company in Dubai that offers this feature as an aftermarket add-on for any car.
Much noise was made about Farba Guard possibly giving preferential treatment to Mashfique’s trusty 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee when it went in for a detailing job last year and that the same quality was not provided to other customers. To silence all that, and just because we had the opportunity to avail the discounted DriveArabia price, we grabbed a friends’ 2007 Ford Focus for some pampering.
Let’s get it straight right off the bat that we aren’t equipped to do conclusive tests on tyres. Everybody has their own opinions on which brand is better or worse, but most of them are just hearsay and conjecture. We’ve always had an open mind about tyre brands, which is why we’ve used everything from Made-in-Germany to Made-in-China rubbers, depending on the car, none of which really failed us. So when Bridgstone approached us to try out their all-new Potenza S001 flagship tyres on our Honda S2000, we were wondering how we’ll compare it to what we already had on.