When researching new cars on the Internet, you will find plenty of reviews from experts that will bombard you with a whole host of technical specifications. They’ll tell you about the torque, the brake horsepower, the fuel efficiency and even how many seconds it will take to get to 60mph from a standing start.

And while this information is all very well, and may even mean something to petrolheads, it doesn’t help me in any way. The truth is, the more technical the information I am given, the more confused I then become. I’m not remotely interested in whether my chosen vehicle will be able to outpace a Renault Megane, for example, in a race from here to that bus stop in the distance.

The things I really need to know are on the more practical side. For example, how easy will it be to change the channel on the radio whenever some annoying breakfast DJ starts to ramble on at the top of his voice every morning? When it gets dark outside and I turn the headlights on, will my dashboard be backlit in a pleasant colour? Can I control the temperature so the car’s interior isn’t like the surface of the sun? Or the Arctic tundra?

For the non-techy motorists, these are the questions that really need answering. Another important area is overall cost, of course, because there’s no point having a pleasantly warm vehicle with channel-changing steering wheel flippers and a soothing blue-lit dashboard if I can’t afford to run it. Will it be fuel-efficient? And will the NVC gap insurance be affordable?

Like many other road users, I like to make the interior of my vehicle as comfortable and practical as possible. There are several questions that I have in this area, and I can’t seem to find websites which offer the answers that I need: are there plenty of cup-holders? Do I have somewhere to dump all the spare change that I don’t need and will never use? And will my Nationwide Vehicle Contracts sat nav stick to the windscreen without tumbling to the floor every time I go over a speed bump?

So next time you’re considering the purchase or the leasing of a car, it’s worth bearing in mind that you’ll find it difficult to access the information that you REALLY need to know – unless you’re a petrolhead of course!