Car Shop Guide

Child safety
If you have young children, cars with Isofix child seat fixings are worth seeking. This is an International Standards Organization system for fitting child seats that locks the seat to the car’s body (the seat has to be Isofix, too). This is much safer because the seat effectively becomes part of the car and the system is intended to be foolproof after it was found that around 80 per cent of non-Isofix seats were incorrectly fitted. (See Chapter 04 for child seat recommendations.)
NCAP
All cars have to comply with international safety legislation relating to how they cope with a crash, but newer cars are generally safer. Look out for details of how the car fared in the New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), of which there are European and American versions. This is an independent test programme where cars are crash tested and rated for adult and child occupant safety as well as pedestrian impact safety.

Goodies
Some luxury and convenience equipment is well worth having, while other gadgets are not worth the bother. We’ll talk about the effect equipment has on the car’s value at trade-in in other chapters but it is worth explaining what a few do and how worthwhile they are.
More than cool
Air conditioning (air con) isn’t just a summer luxury. It helps clean the air coming into the car, which is a boon for allergy sufferers and means they don’t have to drive with the windows open at the height of the hayfever season or in heavy traffic fumes. Modern systems also use less fuel than the drag created by driving with the windows open and in the winter it speeds demisting. It is well worth paying extra for.