I hadn't realised that I was listening to quasi motor-trade politicians !
Thankfully global platforms mean that we can now get American reviews of cars that are available in this country. I quite like Car & Driver. Their former editor, Csaba Csere, is an automotive engineer who spent twenty years at Ford. He knows the technologies-and the pitfalls to look for.
Most of the British reviewers are too grateful to be a given something to play with and just type up the spiel given to them by the PR dept.
We need Jeremy Paxman to do car reviews. I'd love to see him ask the question "did you promise a 20% improvement in fuel consumption?" fourteen times!
Edited by unthrottled on 31/08/2011 at 21:01
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Well when car companies get annoyed when you dont like their car and refuse to lend you future ones it leads to journalists all saying everything is lovely. Remember Vauxhall and Rover blaming Jeremy Clarkson for their failings? If you read through WhatCar, Autocar etc its essentially a cut and paste job of praise-the-eco-car in the vast majority of cases without any real in depth reviewing or research. If i was paid a reasonable sum to review cars and not do much else i'd want to take the time to know everything about it, and i'd have a tab on the review for 'boring stuff' which unthrottled and three beardie blokes in Northampton would click on to have a look.
When i look for car reviews im more interested in owner reviews. People who have put their own money into a car are more worth listening to. But by the same token someone who doesnt like it is more likely to bother going online to tell us than somebody who does like it.
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If you think that investigative journalism and critical comment is lacking in car magazines - you should try reading caravan and motorhome road tests!
Oh, you want us all banned don't you?
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Lemons.....the Smart Car. Hailed as a revolution in city motoring; economical, space saving, reliable. Yeah right!!!! Plus they look like the Lego creation of a singularly unintelligent child.
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The smart! Who could forget that? Me.
Plus they look like the Lego creation of a singularly unintelligent child
Brilliant.
P.S. I don't think the 500 is a lemon, just the twin air and only because of the hype surrounding it.
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The magazines I read slate the products if they think they need slating and praise them if they need praising.I would have thought that manufacturers go out of their way to get good write ups and in general the products fit the job they are intended some of the real lemons are those so called super cars generally unreliable, require servicing frequently at megga money, uncomfortable and do nothing that a Mecedes won't do or any other decent car for that matter.nd also the drivers look real plonkers or DD's.
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Segway. Not quite the year though, more accurately, the decade.
If ever there was a dafter device, only sir Clive Sinclair could have thought of it. An answer, if ever there was one, in search of a question.
No doubt they're great fun (..I'd love one myself!) & indispenable on golf courses or for Gadget Show 'urban tranport shootouts' tests with giggling gurning presenters shouting their heads off on them - but a general tool for getting aruond? Wrong, like crime in mult-storey car parks, on so many levels.
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Get past the bumptious geek image and they're very good. Yes, they appear on tedious gadget shows, that's the fault of the show, not the product.
The question the Segway answers is "how do you address the urban transport problem?" and it does so very well.
If it had been a British invention, people would be hailing it as a saviour.
I'd rather have one than a twinair, an electric car, or a 'smart'.
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Believing what a motoring journalist writes is analagous to believing in fairy stories or politicians telling you of WMD.
Motoring journalists have form so anyone over 21 who believes what they write is naive and gullible and deserves what the get. in my view..
Lemons? Horrible looking cars like a C3 Picasso - they may be great in a functional sort of way but a bus is better styled. See Ford Edsel.
As regards a Fiat TwinAir, a Fiat 124 was a hoot to drive as well . It lasted until it rained and then it rusted an dthe electrics failed..
You only need look at the styling of most 4x4s and SUVs to realise their owners have undergone taste and sense extraction surgery. See BMW X% and Porsche 4x4 for pointless power and bling...
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You only need look at the styling of most 4x4s and SUVs to realise their owners have undergone taste and sense extraction surgery. See BMW X% and Porsche 4x4 for pointless power and bling...
The Cadillac Escalade springs to mind. The build quality of a Yugo, price tag in the clouds and absurd styling. Autocar's review of it makes me laugh; the only redeeming feature they can find is that it's big.
Ooh madf! You've insulted one of unthrottled's favourites there; the Posche Cayenne.
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Well remembered (you will be a good teacher)!
I know the Cayenne is awful. The genre of vehicle is a hopeless mismatch of components with diametrically opposed attributes-low profile tyres on a 4X4 indeed!
But I actually like it. In matt black.
It's not chunky and square like the Range Rover or the MB ML series. The 4.5 V8 has a perfect accoustics-typical cross plane burble under load, otherwise unobtrusive.
I see it as the descendent of the mighty 1970 Buick station wagon.
We're going off topic-lemons have to be cars that fall short of their billing . The escalade does what it says on the tin!
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The question, "how do you address the urban transport problem?" is the problem here.
Because that question was asked, someone came up with an 'answer' - and so, there must be a 'right' answer, somewhere - since the question was asked (all very American logic). So, let's shoehorn our needs into one vehicle & fit the world around that - it's right because technology comes up with answers, yeah?
I don't think there is an answer, but many answers - feet, bicycles, cars, taxis, buses, mopeds, electric vehicles etc. - even Segways.
They answer to a small constituency in very specific circumstances, with a particular income & liefstyle profile & possible alternatives for other tyeps of journeys.
Then there's the problem of being neither 'fish nor fowl' - they won't easily integrate with pedestrians or road vehicles - to fast for one, too slow for the other. In both environments they're clumsy intruders for which other incumbent users have to make allowance or room - they intimidate/overwhelm on pedestrian pavements & fit much less well than bikes on the roads due to profile & lower ultimate top speed. I'm also unconvinced about their safety on roads - much less to hold on to in a crash, you're in a vulnerable upright, top heavy 'head first' position, less easy to dismount & crash gracefully from, in extremis.
Don't get me wrong - I love 'alternative' forms of transport & would like to have one for fun. Cripes, I've had roller skates, skateboards, motorised push scooters, bicycles, motorcycles in my time & loved all of them - all have a niche & 'application' .
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People are disinclined to walk very far. Businesses know this because shops that are not located very close to car parks suffer. You and I might walk but there's a huge body of evidence to suggest that most people will take the car for even a short journey. If you try to make parking difficult, drivers stop using their town centre or use only the supermarket with free parking. We can't build more car parks because a.) they're ugly b.) there often isn't space.
bicycles are a awkward on narrow crowded streets-they're unstable at low speed, and can't turn sharp corners easily. bikes are for going to places, not window shopping on the High Street.
Mopeds are like bikes, but heavier and less versitile. They also take up quite a bit of space.
Buses restrict freedom and most people won't use them unless they lose their driving licence. My dad has a bus pass, I think he has used it maybe twice. They also require a high population density on the routes in order to work. You often see buses transporting nothing but fresh air round the country-not really very economical or green.
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Yes its quite laughable when green campaigners complain about big Range Rovers toodling through town with one person on board but ignore the que of buses with about 7 people on them between them, chewing up diesel and chucking out particulates like theres no tomorrow. Buses in the countryside are pointless, you get villagers come out and say 'theres only one bus per week here' well you chose to live there so buy a car. It'd make more sense to have a minibus or an MPV taxi for the fact the demand is very low. Sorry i hate to bang on about this but the portrayal of the bus being 'green' does annoy me. When it plainly isnt. Its also laughable when councils say theres not enough room for cars in their streets, so they ban them but then invite more buses down with nobody on them.
People are disinclined to walk very far. Businesses know this because shops that are not located very close to car parks suffer. You and I might walk but there's a huge body of evidence to suggest that most people will take the car for even a short journey. If you try to make parking difficult, drivers stop using their town centre or use only the supermarket with free parking.
Very true. Ive noted this in my investigations into shared space schemes as im seeing more shops in them close more frequently. People will say 'yeah but thats the recession' but these are shops which survived the recession but have closed this year, now, in 2011. Parking is absolutely crucial to business, we all know this, but unfortunately councils want their towns to 'look nice' but have absolutely no thought to viability or practicality and impliment these pathetic, horrific, horrendous shared space schemes which not only waste money, divert traffic to streets ill equipped for it but put shops out of business as well. Frequent visitors to here will have read my complaints about one nearby to me, i dont bother going there anymore. You used to be able to pop there for the odd thing, park outside, go in, come out, job done, 2 minute job. Now you need to park up in a car park, pay, display, walk 10 minutes to do that one thing, whats the point in that? I dont bother going there anymore and im not the only one, local papers have pointed out passing weekday trade has plummeted horrifically as its no longer convenient to just 'pop into town' anymore. Some will say 'but it cuts congestion' or 'it reduces accidents' but its easy to reduce accidents by stopping people going there. I could make Afghanistan the safest place in the World if i emptied it of people.
Buses restrict freedom and most people won't use them unless they lose their driving licence.
Correct. Its been so long since i used a bus i dont know if they still take cash or not.
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I didn't think lemons actually existed anymore. To me a lemon is a car that is absolutely useless in every respect. It used to be possible to buy one of these, but now is it actually possible. Even the cheapest cars are pretty good, Hyundai i10 being a good example. For sure there arelenty of undesirable cars out there but it doesn't make them lemons!. In some respects car that haven't been successful can sometimes be the ones to buy. Nissan almera being a good example. As a car it was about as interesting as watching paint dry, but actually was reliable and functional. Add poor resale values to this and it makes a great second hand buy providing you don't want thrills!
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I'd say that 30% below the rated fuel consumption was fairly lemonish!
We all know that the figures are difficult to replicate in thereal world but there are too many reports of poor consumption from the twin air to attribute it entirely to spirited driving.
Although I'm starting to see the charm of a two pot in a little 500, it's difficult to call it a game changer.
A two pot should be simple and cheap. The twin air is neither.
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Alot of people make the mistake of believing theres no such thing as a 'bad car' these days but thats simply not true. Theres plenty of terrible cars out there. Horrible little Malaysian cars and Chevrolet-badged Daewoo's for instance. Yes they're cheap but they're not THAT cheap. Its still quite a chunk of money, so much more you start getting into the if-i-spend-a-bit-more-i-could-buy-a-Focus or if not, chance it on the used market. £5-7k can buy you a hell of a lot on the used market.
For me a lemon is a car which seems to serve no purpose or you're not quite sure why it exists (Ford Fusion, Peugeot 3008, BMW X6, Ford Kuga etc or just any 'cross over') yes they work, yes they'll be reliable which is more than people could say about their cars in the 60s so as a machine to use for transport its fine but that doesnt mean all cars are pretty good nowadays. Another lemon definition is a car which fell way short of what was expected of it (BMW Z3)
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Took me four attempts and half an hour to post that. God your site is awful.
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That comment qualifies for lemon of the year: it doesn't tell us what the problem was, so we can't do anything about it, and it incorrectly implies that the Almighty has a website.
For the umpteenth time, if you have a problem with the moderation or the workings of this site, please address them to moderators@honestjohn.co.uk. We can then forward comments, if reasonable and specific enough to be acted upon, to the system developers.
(I'll be away for a couple of days at our younger son's wedding in Devon, but my co-moderators are around looking after things.)
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Kept trying to post it but when i click on Post Message it just sat there doing nothing for ages until eventually some message of Error 500 or whatever comes up on the screen. Did this a few times then finally posted after a long wait.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
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Congratulations to our moderate father in Law. I trust you've got a suitable speech sorted.
I think I know what your advice to the happy couple will be....!!
Edited by unthrottled on 02/09/2011 at 00:58
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Probably something boring like work hard, save sensibly and buy a Skoda.
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I know someone, a little elderly it must be said who has a ford fusion and thinks it is absolutely brilliant. That said I had forgotten the daewoo matiz 800cc. A week on holiday with one of these did highlight the peril of hiring group a cars!
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Congratulatons Avant - enjoy the wedding!
Chris79 - my mum actually owned a Daewoo Matiz. A green one, which I nicknamed 'Starbug'. An utter horror of a car.
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We've got a 1.0 Matiz. Ideal for towns and quite fun to drive as parking is a doddle...
(If you use it for long distances, I agree it's horrible).
The worst cars I have ever driven are:
all LandrRvers - antiquated poc.
Any rental car from Hertz JFK in the 1980-90s. No matter who made them, the doors did not shut properly, they rattled and performace was not anaemic: it was near death...So that's most US built cars from 1980 to 2000.
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I think the problem lies with the subscriber and not the web site.
(Edit - in response to a post answering this that I've had to hide - I think Collos is referring to the browser being used rather than ther subscriber personally. Avant)
Edited by Avant on 04/09/2011 at 23:59
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