August 2009
Picked up the latest copy of TG magazine in Whsmith and the review of the Jazz i-Shift fairly lept off the page. The overall rating - 7/20. With the reviewer saying that a manual Jazz is a 16/20 car, but the i-Shift is one of the worst gearboxes on sale today
Honda pride themselves on listening to customers. I wonder how if they'll respond to this from a big-selling magazine?
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I'm in a dilema. We've had two Kias before. Both Prides. One excellent (M reg) - we ran it for 10 years fault free. The one that followed (W reg)wasn't anywhere near as good.
What are newer Kias like? I hear good things about picantos but I'm thinking of a diesel Carens on an 06 plate having just tested a 17k example and rather liked it. Are they reliable? I tend to keep a good car a long time or get rid of it if it starts playing up rather than risk it costing me a fortune. The reason I'm wary is that I've just had a problematic Citroen Xsara HDI and on a limited budget cannot afford another duffer. Any advice appreciated. Read more
Howdy, I've been offered an Accent for very reasonable money but the kicker is this, when you start the engine, the lights come on without the switch being turned and wont go out even when the key is removed from the ignition, I appreciate that this would suggest some form of short but have no idea where to start looking, any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Cheers for reading. Read more
Not sure who should be aware but this is the second time I have seem "mamoth " car sales say they have a Seabring on the road for £7,000 + giving you a £11,000 + saving when in fact the opposite is true.. the car is on sale for £11,000 + with a £7000 + saving.
Once is understandable but twice seems unusual. Read more
wouldn't pay 7 grand for a sebring with chrysler's current situation....
My daughter and her husband are looking at an 09 plate Auris 5 door 1.6 Vmatic (valvematic) TR in a local main dealership. Has 2000 miles on the clock and are asking £11.6k.
Reckon there is room for manoeuvre on price?
They like Toyota's as they have a Yaris which they are keeping as a 2nd car. Although dull to drive etc, I understand Auris is reliable.
Cheers Read more
The 09 1.6 engine does have the 10% extra power / torque / mpg, even though the units are only minor lifts i would defiantly test drive both engines to see whether the newer engine is really worth the fairly hefty premium as the increases are only minor.
Technically the new 1.6 engine isn't going to be more reliable. The pre 09 1.6 has been powering auris and corollas for many many years with a lot of success. Fingers crossed that the 09 engines aren't plagued with high oil consumption as this is a new engine variant, with variable valve timing so the engineers have clearly been poking.
Although I have seen a few of these on the road, I haven't really seen one close up until today when one was parked outside the work.
A couple of design features that I don't like are the rear boot hinges and the front bonnet shape.
The boot hinges are very pronounced on the external surface so much so that they have designed 2 bumps around them. This almost looks like an afterthought.
For years now I have been seeing boy racers that somehow want to customise the front of their Saxos and Corsas by extending the bonnet slightly over the headlights. It looks silly on those cars and I don't think it looks any better on a brand new Scirocco.
Thoughts? Read more
saw one this morning twice. definately the same car, some weird greeny gold sort of dayglow baby poo. don't like the colour like the car. black would be good.
I am planning to drive around Europe some time next year. I would love to do it in my current MX-5 but in reality it is probably too small to carry two people and all their gear on such a trip.
What are the thoughts on a Merc 190E? I quite like the idea of cruising around in a 2.6 litre safe in the knowledge that nothing's going to fall off because it's ridiculously over engineered.
Can't be anything too ridiculous as I'm twenty-one and I don't like paying insurance companies too much money.
Budget not more than about £2,000 as I want to keep the Mazda! Any thoughts?
Many thanks, Will
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Seems really interesting to me. If you are careful choosing the car you could even make a bit of cash selling it on after the trip! A good older one polished up after would tempt someone. A garage gave lent an old 2 litre estate which went really well but was unloved but you could a few hours work would have it looking good.
Is it just me, or does the following not seem ridiculously cheap for such a pristine example of an undisputed classic? I mean, shouldn't it be in a museum or something?
tinyurl.com/lrkn2m
Isn't it amazing that you can buy a car that has had so much time, money, care and attention lavished on it for so very little? Read more
In summary then, the reasons why we are not driving around in the successors to such glorious cars as the Maestro and 200 series:
1. Lack of a coherent model plan due to unmanageble size of BL/Austin Rover.
2. Badly managed development programmes.
3. Lack of government investment.
4. Militant unions and economic malaise.
5. TC Mits (The common man in the street) behaving like a judas and buying foreign.
6. Jeremy Clarkson.
The only thing absent from my list was 'inability to build a descent motor-car' because this is simply not true.
Despite the fact my dads car has just passed the MOT (with a load of advisories) the back axle bushes needed to be replaced. It was expensive because the rear axle had to be removed.
What exactly do these do? I understand what bushes in the wishbones do but I have never heared of the phrase axle bushes before. Read more
They are probably the bushes that the axle hinges on at the front attatchment to the car body. See torsion beam axle.
www.autozine.org/technical_school/suspension/tech_...m
Hi 406 HDi 90 Estate left hand indicators flash twice then stop,does the same with the hazard flashers. I can hear a tick tick like a flasher relay coming from the dash board with the end cap removed but cannot find it. Any ideas please, thanks Iain Read more
On a '99 I'm pretty sure yours wont be com2000/multiplexed.
Browse
I do hope they listen, that i-shift box in the Jazz is a big mistake.
How anyone can defend it (and there are a few on here) as being OK I'll never know!