September 2025
Hello. I have always had a soft spot for small compact Japanese cars, sensible, dependable things that do their job without fuss. In the past I ran a Honda Jazz CVT to 267,000 miles and a 2013 Toyota Yaris Hybrid to 101,000 miles, both being incredibly reliable. The Jazz was utterly straightforward mechanically and electrically and its CVT never once troubled me. The Yaris hybrid was astonishingly economical, about 67 mpg in summer and roughly 60 mpg in winter, yet it felt rather dull to drive with vague steering and very little feedback.... Read more
Just to say thank you and three cheers to John, the honest man himself.
I know this isn’t your site anymore but I post this in the hope that you might drop by occasionally.
All the best and happy motoring.
Metropolis
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I will always be grateful to the man himself. Back in 1998 I started a business in car A/C and wrote to HJ offering some advice about a question he’d been asked earlier in the DT. He published my response, and my business went bananas. The phone rang off the hook for weeks, and I received so many emails I got a warning from my web/internet provider.
My first post here was early 2001, it seems from the archives.
I’ve driven countless cars over the years, from Fiat Panda 750 to McLaren 570S through luxury saloons and knackered hatchbacks. But what was the most disappointing car I’ve ever driven? Was it the Nissan Bluebird ZX Turbo that was about as sporty as Nora Batty despite the bright red paint and spoiler kit? Or the horrible Mk V Ford Escort that everyone loved to hate?
I think it has to be the Ford Capri. After listing after one as a new 17yr old driver I finally drove one in my 20’s, aaaand absolutely hated it. It was awful. Cart springs and an ancient asthmatic carb fed pinto motor do not a sports coupe make.
But what was your greatest motoring disappointment? Read more
Harvest Gold 1973 Mini Clubman. Totally unreliable, shocking brakes, rattles everywhere, should have bought the basic model. Upgraded to a basic Renault 4-wonderful piece of kit for someone on £2000 a year salary and a £8k mortgageWe had a wee blue Renault 4 GTL Van back in 1981. Great wee van it was too, and bizarrely cheaper to buy than a new Mini Van.
Hardly news, I know, but we seem to be in a parallel world. I have been idly browsing a few ads and have come across (I won't link to it) a 2006 Volvo V50 1.8 petrol with 98,000 miles on it up for £8,499. I bought a 2007 Ford Focus estate (the same car) with fewer miles on it for £1,250 in 2016! Read more
In which case unless it was a typo-then I’d say it was a £chancer at work
I drive trucks for a living and most of them have pretty good adaptive CC and I really miss this when driving my 15 year old fiesta. I've read lots of threads on bangernomics here and people say "don't swap an old car you know for an old car you don't" which makes perfect sense. However I think I'm willing to take a risk just for the comfort of cruise control.
Also I'm getting a bit bored of driving a generic car. Again it might be an added risk factor but I like the idea of driving something a bit rather with more character. These two jumped out at me... Read more
I think your best bet is to fit cruise control to your current car, just need to find the kit from another higher spec model or there might be parts on ebay etc and fit it or pay someone to
Hi all,
Would appreciate if anybody has met with this issue before, the headlights on this Mazda 3 are unusable due to extremely dull light. Bulbs have been changed, the outside of the headlight has been polished, and have been advised it may be an aged projector lens.... It does look frosted when the lights are on, however they both do and quite uniformly, so my question at the moment is whether they could be actually supposed to be frosted? If they should be clear obviously new headlights units should solve the issue but it's a huge cost without being sure of the problem. ... Read more
When I moved to France in 2009 I had to replace the headlight units on our L200 pickup with dip to the right units for driving on the right. A local brit-run garage supplied a pair of Depo aftermarket units, made in Korea, together with some uprated tungsten bulbs they were the best headlamp set up on any car I've ever had, you could see for miles on a country road at night here when it's really black out conditions - no street lamps ! EG -www.eurocarparts.com/p/depo-headlamp-471820241
Those Depo aftermarket units are sometimes fitted to 120 Series (there will be others needing them) Landcruisers by switched on owners, seldom see a derogatory remark about them, indeed lasting at least as long as the OE units, OEs need regular buffing after about 12 years due to sun damage but in the end the crazing gets too deep in the lens to polish out, they Depo units also have the correct fittings to accept the electric motors from the OE units, keeping the ability to alter beam height from a dash switch.
Dedicated switch for headlight aim that is not hidden in some sub menu in a hideous digi screen only visible if you have the vision and computer knack of a child, i've spent the last week enjoying the, er, benefits of digi dashboards whilst my regular truck has been off the road with major mechanical failure, its only 18 months old but thankfully made just before everything went digi that come with umpteen bings and bongs going off all day long, as i said on another thread there's never a 12 year old child handy when you need one to find and delete all that garbage.
Hi there, I'm back asking for help. It's decision time. Need a small used petrol automatic with decent amount of poke. Budget £18,000. Looking at 5 door mini cooper (need boot space) and toyota yaris so far. I don't want to sound like I'm screaming up the A40. Any opinions would be appreciated and also is there anything else out there thay I should consider. Thanks. Currently whizzing around in a turbo charged picanto so used to getting out of bother quickly ?? Read more
We are very happy with Mrs F's nippy little 2019 (Mk 1) Peugeot 1.2 puretech EAT6 which we bought new. Plenty of 'poke' from the 130hp version but the 110 is probably more than adequate. Big advantage for regularly hoiking stuff in and out is the low level lipless rear hatch.
Now before this closes I've often wondered everyone's favourite car owned?
My top two are a Frog Eyed Sprite from nearly 40 years ago while the other is my cvurrently owned 1998 Fiat Coupe 20V N/A.... Read more
In many ways primitive by modern standards but in my youth I had a road rally spec. (Group 1?) Talbot Sunbeam with a tweaked 1.6 with twin weber 40s, big valves, interesting cam etc.
Was a real Q car - other than the exhaust & the Lotus Sunbeam alloys it looked very stock until you clocked that it had bucket seats (& no back ones), roll cage etc.. Could get wheel spin in 3rd but had the aerodynamics of a brick so ran out of puff quickly at the top end....
Hi all,
I'm in the market for a reliable front and rear dash cam setup and would love to hear your recommendations.... Read more
I currently have a Nextbase (Toyota's "approved" solution) set up in my Corolla.
My Avensis had a Thinkware system & tbh even though it was a lot older it was in many ways a superior one to what I currently have. Had the Thinkware for 7 years with no problems. Unlikely to be the cheapest though.
Tricky to type this tbh, being over sixty now recently done my annual bowel cancer test thing , came back and it appears they've found something, in hospital Monday for the camera up the posterior, not looking forward to it tbh, light diet and no alcohol from tonight, I know its a delicate subject but has anyone been though similar? Is it really as uncomfortable as I imagine?
I know this forum is 99% male and most of us aren't in the first flush of youth (I'm 62). Read more
Just seen this thread.
Re colonoscopy, it is always worth a look see.......
In addition Suzuki have increased the 7 year service warranty up to 10 years / 100k miles.