Well, I hired that Impala, so I paid for car insurance. I think in Britain if you have a certain kind of policy you can borrow other people's cars and be insured third party without being a named driver, but I've never been on that kind of policy. Car insurance in Britain is very prohibitive to young drivers, especially teenagers. Some people in their early-mid 20s get good jobs and buy fast cars but they often have to pay thousands of pounds a year in insurance.

ah i see, in Spain you cannot drive any car until you are 25, once you are 25 you can drive any car, anyway i now can drive any car i want as it does not count as illegal because the car is still insured but just not for me, so if i have a crash it is my problem, but i didnt know that Audi was in such condition, a shame, anyway you did you have to take a special permis when you went to USA or were you alowed to drive your car as normally?

I was once interested in having his Audi, but my dad and uncle (who has always had to help grandad fix that car) strongly discouraged me, because it is old and would cost a lot to run and repair, it would be a waste of money. It'll probably end up on the scrapheap when my grandad dies one day (even though he doesn't use it anymore I bet he won't get rid of it in his lifetime).

No, I've never driven it. When I said "parked on the driveway" I meant HIS driveway, I don't live with my grandad, he lives 300 miles away from me in the north of England, so I only see him once or twice a year. I think his Audi is now declared off the road, it's not taxed (in Britain you must pay road tax on a car to drive it on public roads), it's MOT has probably expired, it hasn't moved for 2 years. I don't know if it would even start up now. It's basically worn out. Also in Britain you can't drive a car without having an insurance policy that covers it, it don't know how it works in other countries. It's illegal to drive a car that you aren't insured on.

I have driven automatics before, my dad's Omega and an '07 Chevy Impala SS in America.

Yes it si for you, you say your grandad has an automatic Audi parked in the driveay right? and you have never diven it?

Sorry, is that question for me? What do you mean exactly?

You have an automatic at home and you have never driven it?? if it was me i would have "borrowed" it lots of times to my grandad

I think automatics can be better for elderly drivers, my grandad is 84 and he still drives his Peugeot 406 but it is a manual and I really think he should have bought an automatic, his previous car, a 1985 Audi 100 (still sitting on the driveway) was an automatic, and when I've been in the car with him, I get nervous every time he takes one hand off the wheel to change gear, I don't find his steering very smooth anyway. Of course it's debateable whether people above a certain age should still be allowed to drive, although it depends on the person.

"Stalling" a car engine is when it is in gear and the revs drop too low and the engine shuts down (unless the clutch pedal is pressed down or it is in neutral), so you have to restart it. I'm sure you already understand that concept, but in English it is called to "stall" or "stalling" a car. The word stall has various other uses in English when used in different contexts.

I haven't voted on this because I don't have a car at present. I belong to a generation that learned on manuals as a matter of course; and while I've quite enjoyed driving big or powerful cars with automatics, in my experience they aren't a good idea on small European-size cars, as you seem to get jerky changes (I first noticed this when being given a lift in an automatic Austin 1100). An exception to this might be the DAF-derived CVT system now used (I think) on small Fords, but I've never driven or been driven in one.