No 20k+ oil change intervals, very long warranties so the cars have to be up to the mark.

Toyota Camry best selling car if i recall, if you buy quality over image in the first place a good chance it will last.

Edited by gordonbennet on 05/02/2012 at 08:49

It is a different service pattern over there ... for example, the cambelt interval on PD-engined VWs is 100K miles or 5 years, compared with the 4 year / 60K mile advice of UK dealers.

It is possible that they use a different, heavy-duty cambelt in the UK but highly unlikely, given the problems with part numbers, stocking etc it could cause.

No MOT.

No punitive VED.

Better consumer protection.

Much cheaper fuel.

The article in question notes the average age of a vehicle on US roads is now nearly 11 years old. Your Megane is older than that so we're not talking about 30 year old rustbuckets.

Well for 10 years we had PPG13 which ensured there were never enough parking spaces for new built accomodation. The fewer spaces you committed to - the easier it was to get council approval to build it. A prime example is an apartment block in Reading which made it into the Metro i think, over 45 apartments and only 26 parking spaces. Guess which 26 flats sold first? Yep, you guessed it.

Theres a development just down the road from me, built in 2006. 20 houses and 17 parking spaces so theres always 3 or 4 cars parked on the road, 3 inches from the corner, on yellow lines all the time. This causes issues with traffic flow, issues which could be avoided by providing enough spaces.