Sensible fella! My main home is a 1972, Willy Leech-built semi that was erected as part of a scheme that was almost revolutionary, back in the day, for its aerodynamic efficiency at the expense of headroom, this because long before the Government invented climate change, this coast was already used to being blasted by gales.rich. wrote:we got a house instead
As for build quality of new cars on an objective level; it's generally atrocious! Penny pinching measures are apparent in every aspect of (for example) that VW's construction, the dash and front door cards were made from a relatively pleasant, rubbery feeling plastic but the ones at the back were made from something that Proton wouldn't have used back in the eighties, when their cars had strips of plastic instead of hinges for glove holes and ashtrays, etc. I get why VAG do this, it's because in spite of the MK7 being bigger than an Austin Maxi there's no room at all behind the driver's seat with someone long legged driving ergo nobody will ever really have time to study just how nasty the materials are.
When I bought the current old car, I did so without having any memories of how they drove or their build quality so was able to compare it objectively to the appalling quality of moderns that I (and others at work) have owned and surprisingly often rejected, a common phenomenon these days compared to during the seventies and not just because it was harder to do then.
The DPF issues that are so widely publicised are a useful tool for makers as they tend to be more newsworthy than the actual problems with new cars. DPFs are fine if people allow them to regenerate actively and the Golf (presumably others too these days) does this regardless of whether the operator wants it to happen because you can turn the key, remove it, leave the car and go indoors and the car will finish the regen then shut itself down and go to sleep. But a few garages up in the islands refuse to sell new Diesels as their roads aren't long enough to allow cars to regenerate passively and all of a sudden, these Daily Mail loving and seventies worshipping enclaves are spearheading a frankly pointless movement to kill off the Diesel as an option. This is all very well but while folk are moaning about DPFs, they're having the wool pulled over their eyes about the actual reliability and quality of other stuff. The only reason that some people consider new motors to be more reliable in general is that the vast majority of new car keepers are running the cars on 3 year finance plans and as such, never own the car so aren't as well placed to go down the legal route to reject their shabbily assembled money pit, this because most - perhaps all, who knows - such plans are full with precise and inescapable small print that provides very specific penalties and escape terms which make rejection an expensive action to see through. And no, I'm not saying that rejecting a car bought outright is going to leave the owner without a single financial disadvantage but as long as it's cheaper than the equivalent period worth of depreciation, it's not too devastating.
Kia, Hyundai and the Maruti brands are supposedly among those that are genuinely good these days and even their punters are finding some issues caused mostly by wiring that's on its limit, cheap electronics and the attendant problems with lead free solder, suspension so hard yet so badly damped that yes, these cars might be brilliant on a smooth, flat, well made Asian super highway but not on the potholed cart tracks that pass for roads in the UK these days.
Maybe the fact that my only truly satisfactory new car was the 1987 FSO 125P 1500 - that I bought from the dealer in Reading back then - is significant? I ran that for a few months and, when a suitably good example of the A60 Farina came along, sold the Polski back to the dealer at a profit because they were short of cars to sell and mine still looked and worked as well as a new one.
Try that with any modern car since the first year's production of the BMW Mini and you'll be laughed at by blokes who wear Paul Smith and carry an unused set of golf clubs in their boot "just in case".
Thanks to work, where one of my duties involves placing the next generation of Mech & Prod engineers, I get to see at first hand the things that are causing cars of all brands to make unscheduled returns to the dealers' workshops as my students are working in these establishments for their practical experience and yes, in spite of the this and the haters' views I still managed to buy cars that failed and what's more I'll gladly admit that the smell of fresh upholstery turned me.
But ask the older, more experienced hands in any major dealership's service department whether their brand is truly reliable or well built and if you've known these folk for any length of time and they can trust you to keep your gob shut, they'll tell it like it is and advise you to spend the cash on something else. Anything else in fact, such as a 12 month taxi voucher, a rail card if you have trains that stop in your area or a motorcycle, apparently they're genuinely better these days. Even better than my CX500? Surely not.
And don't assume that gadgets make a good car better. The reverse is true.
"Torque", to the owners of such devices, is an Android app that tells them how much fuel their horrid little excuses for engines are wasting! And yes, a good Reliant kitten will leave a new Focus 1.0 Ecoboost standing up any hill from a standing start. As would a decent 1098cc Minor, a 2CV, a 1960s Fiat 500 (OK, maybe not..) or a well piloted Raleigh Chopper.TerryG wrote:Ford's 1.0 ecoboost is a bad new car. They are utterly gutless. Ford claim the same power as a 1.6 but they have so little torque you need to change down to get over a speedbump :S
Is it wrong to overtake an Ecoboost Focus on a 3 lane (two up, one down) section of the - famously mainly uphill - A68, then pull back in to the left lane and slow - accidentally of course - to a crawl before booting the kickdown switch in my proper car, with a real engine, so leaving the Focus' driver waving at me with a special waving finger and shouting obscenities at his sackless P.O.S?