Our cars update: Mazda 6

I can take the sound of fingernails being dragged down a blackboard without any bother, but the sickening noise of an alloy wheel grinding into a kerb is just too much to bear.

It's been many years since I last kerbed a wheel I still remember the poor Citroen C5 victim but now the Mazda 6 has suffered at almost every corner. They say bad things come in threes, and so it is with the 6 estate's unfortunate alloys.

To start with, I noticed the rear passenger wheel had been scraped quite badly by another driver too cowardly to admit their heinous crime.

Next, I took a tremendous chunk out of the front passenger wheel while trying to squeeze between a car that was turning right and a particularly aggressive brick-work kerb that was going nowhere.

Finally, I was side-swiped by a van driver performing an impressive modern-day version of Boadicea's bladed chariot wheel attack. His 14-inch steel wheel buckled so violently in the onslaught that his tyre burst and peeled from the rim leaving me with an alloy that I feared would need to be binned.

Not so, said mobile repairers Wheel Wizard (01675 471150) who ground, buffed, filled and polished the three wheels back to perfection in just a couple of hours. Their prices start at just 65 a wheel.

Now the Mazda is perfectly pristine once again I refuse to lend the car to anyone, drive three feet from every kerb and start to sweat at the sight of a Vauxhall Astravan.

Mazda 6 2.0 D SL estate
Mileage: 13,000
Driven by:Pete Lawton, What Car? consumer editor