Small car to "Get Back in Love With"

[FTE217]

your missing the point, nah you got it right - volume buyers do not care for the "flare".
Incl my wifey.
Whereas I'm total opposite once I started to afford buying the flare long ago, high end spec is always my go to.
Wife and countless others do not care, just a means of A to B as boring as it is to us.
You can also do countless things like the wife has roll up re useable bags in her handbag haha go figure, didn't you wear tshirt everyday for years ? some do
Heaps of people don't have any dressing I'm led to believe, health nuts and so on.

Some people don't know what there missing having a nice fresh salami pannini whereas some have vegemite or pe nus butter - yuk.

Yep all does the job for the individual.

What you on about anyway, you pay cash for everything and your fleet is old

[Franco Cozzo]

Just saying, if all you've had is white bread, wait until you try white bread with butter - mind blown

I'm the old shitbox king - the captain of the nuggeteers

[FTE217]

Yep that true - nothing like trying something more expensive as long as you can afford it.
Others never care to and that’s their choice.


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[Citroënbender]

I bought fresh wholemeal Lebanese bread this morning, baked in store by a family of stalwarts. I like to eat it plain when it’s this good, a reminder of “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz” (basically to remember that our sustenance is brought up from the earth). Butter would be an insult to its simple purity and pleasure.

If a car like the Mazda 2 ticks the boxes for an owner or prospective buyer - why worry about things outside of their contemplation, especially if it can be seen almost as white-anting their satisfaction?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

I bought fresh wholemeal Lebanese bread this morning, baked in store by a family of stalwarts. I like to eat it plain when it’s this good, a reminder of “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz” (basically to remember that our sustenance is brought up from the earth). Butter would be an insult to its simple purity and pleasure.

If a car like the Mazda 2 ticks the boxes for an owner or prospective buyer - why worry about things outside of their contemplation, especially if it can be seen almost as white-anting their satisfaction?

I don't particularly have a problem with the customer, it's levelled at the OEM, as far as your Lebanese bread goes, go eat tip top and get back to me.

Go back to the 1980s and suddenly all sorts of cars had forced induction, then we went into the dark ages from mid 1990s to 2010 where nothing did,

Then suddenly manufacturers started offering forced induction in lots of their range and we had this revolution in cars again.

Now we're all back to naturally aspirated engines,

What the Mazda 2 and it's ilk offer absolutely no advancement in technology under the bonnet or in driving experience compared to the new Mazda 2 I priced up in 2009 for $16,300 drive away. Except now it's $10,000+ more and is a couple hundred kilos heavier making the same power.

There's basically no competition or technological advancement in that arena for the last 15+ years. It's particularly disappointing from Mazda, given in the 1980s they had the Mazda Familia GTX (See Ford Laser TX3 Turbo) and they also had the 'zoom zoom' era cars.

Might as well as buy a new MG3 and be done with it,

If we kept up this line of thinking we'd still be driving around cars with a Ford 385 series V8 making 149KW and doing 35L/100km with an FMX behind it.

[smoo]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

I don't particularly have a problem with the customer, it's levelled at the OEM, as far as your Lebanese bread goes, go eat tip top and get back to me.

Go back to the 1980s and suddenly all sorts of cars had forced induction, then we went into the dark ages from mid 1990s to 2010 where nothing did,

Then suddenly manufacturers started offering forced induction in lots of their range and we had this revolution in cars again.

Now we're all back to naturally aspirated engines,

What the Mazda 2 and it's ilk offer absolutely no advancement in technology under the bonnet or in driving experience compared to the new Mazda 2 I priced up in 2009 for $16,300 drive away. Except now it's $10,000+ more and is a couple hundred kilos heavier making the same power.

There's basically no competition or technological advancement in that arena for the last 15+ years. It's particularly disappointing from Mazda, given in the 1980s they had the Mazda Familia GTX (See Ford Laser TX3 Turbo) and they also had the 'zoom zoom' era cars.

Might as well as buy a new MG3 and be done with it,

If we kept up this line of thinking we'd still be driving around cars with a Ford 385 series V8 making 149KW and doing 35L/100km with an FMX behind it.

I'll play devis advocate and say the few manufacturers who still offer 10+ year old simple and reliable NA engines should be commended because these are the cars that will still be on the road in 20 years time allowing the youth and those on a low budget the ability to get around in something reliable.
You say we don't need DSG in small town/commuter cars, that can also be applied to small capacity temperamental and complex turbo engines.

My old lady bough a 2012 Corolla 8 years ago, now over 200k and haven't spend a cent on it apart from oil changes. Good luck having the same run out of a turbo Ford, Peugeot, BMW, VW etc.
She doesn't GAF about the torque curve on it. At a guess 99% of owners of these types of cars are the same. Something cheap to run and reliable is the priority.

[FTE217]

Smoo spot on as I was saying.
Nothing wrong with a no frills gutless whatever they are built to last the good known brands as mentioned and forget the mention of an MG - that won’t last that’s for sure due to the their current record.


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[.:4:.]

My dirty secret. Well before i got the mechanics courtesy car, as whilst i did electrical work for them, they'd service my work car. Anyhows working for them they picked up a toyota yaris. Story behind that was for 5 or 6 years they did the annual service on it and rego however in 5 or 6 years the car had only done 300km. So whilst the paint was absolutely ****ed, story goes the bloke bought it for his daughter to learn to drive in, but she decided she didn't want to drive.
Well, when i blew up the ranger i got the courtesy car. Paint ****ed but 54k on it. Interior immaculate. Did it work for work, no. Was it scary trying to get to freeway speeds to merge safely, yes. Creature comforts? Sorta but not really. Turning circle and just ease of most of anything 'difficult' when it comes to driving. Well thats why i found the thing great.

[kevino]

Originally Posted by smoo

I'll play devis advocate and say the few manufacturers who still offer 10+ year old simple and reliable NA engines should be commended because these are the cars that will still be on the road in 20 years time allowing the youth and those on a low budget the ability to get around in something reliable.
You say we don't need DSG in small town/commuter cars, that can also be applied to small capacity temperamental and complex turbo engines.

My old lady bough a 2012 Corolla 8 years ago, now over 200k and haven't spend a cent on it apart from oil changes. Good luck having the same run out of a turbo Ford, Peugeot, BMW, VW etc.
She doesn't GAF about the torque curve on it. At a guess 99% of owners of these types of cars are the same. Something cheap to run and reliable is the priority.

Counter point

Franco drives a Fiesta ST which is now playing up but has done almost 240000kms flogged mercilessly. Turbo 4 -yes.
Smoo- drives a turbo BMW (d) done I believe 300000kms
Myself -had a turbo Focus (d) did 278000 kms with virtually no surprises
Franco-had a turbo (d) Focus did 240000 kms mercilessly flogged still going new owner some issues but flogged mercilessly.
Ex wife has a 12 yo Corolla. Yes its reliable. But its a boring piece of crap.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by smoo

I'll play devis advocate and say the few manufacturers who still offer 10+ year old simple and reliable NA engines should be commended because these are the cars that will still be on the road in 20 years time allowing the youth and those on a low budget the ability to get around in something reliable.
You say we don't need DSG in small town/commuter cars, that can also be applied to small capacity temperamental and complex turbo engines.

My old lady bough a 2012 Corolla 8 years ago, now over 200k and haven't spend a cent on it apart from oil changes. Good luck having the same run out of a turbo Ford, Peugeot, BMW, VW etc.
She doesn't GAF about the torque curve on it. At a guess 99% of owners of these types of cars are the same. Something cheap to run and reliable is the priority.

Spot on, I still have my 2000 KN laser NA 1.6, yes underpowered compared to others but it has been bullet proof in reliability and very economical to use.

[Cav]

Italy's favourite car - Fiat 500.

Mine is 10 years old with 56,000kms

Selling soon (Just waiting for the fuel level in the tank to subside a bit - probably be months)

[kevino]

[QUOTE=Cav;6909620]Italy's favourite car - Fiat 500.

Mine is 10 years old with 56,000kms

Selling soon (Just waiting for the fuel level in the tank to subside a bit - probably be months)



Is that a manual?

[smoo]

Originally Posted by kevino

Counter point

Franco drives a Fiesta ST which is now playing up but has done almost 240000kms flogged mercilessly. Turbo 4 -yes.
Smoo- drives a turbo BMW (d) done I believe 300000kms
Myself -had a turbo Focus (d) did 278000 kms with virtually no surprises
Franco-had a turbo (d) Focus did 240000 kms mercilessly flogged still going new owner some issues but flogged mercilessly.
Ex wife has a 12 yo Corolla. Yes its reliable. But its a boring piece of crap.

Well, pretty much every car is boring these days so it’s a double edge sword.

I had in mind modern turbo petrol engines, all the diesels you mention are old and don’t have a host of emissions crap on them or design flaws effecting longevity due to cost cutting like a lot of modern ones do.

Hypothetically , bet the house on…
Running ten Mazda 3 and ten Corollas to 300,000km over 20 years.
Doing the same to ten ecoboost fords and turbo VW Golfs.
Where are you putting your money for lower running costs/reliability?

Boring is good when the rubber belt driving your oil pump disintegrates.
Or when your timing chain fails or turbo blows or high pressure fuel pump fails.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by smoo

Well, pretty much every car is boring these days so it’s a double edge sword.

I had in mind modern turbo petrol engines, all the diesels you mention are old and don’t have a host of emissions crap on them or design flaws effecting longevity due to cost cutting like a lot of modern ones do.

Hypothetically , bet the house on…
Running ten Mazda 3 and ten Corollas to 300,000km over 20 years.
Doing the same to ten ecoboost fords and turbo VW Golfs.
Where are you putting your money for lower running costs/reliability?

Boring is good when the rubber belt driving your oil pump disintegrates.
Or when your timing chain fails or turbo blows or high pressure fuel pump fails.

Ecoboost and VW is loaded though because both have known longevity issues and design flaws.

Let's look at a 1JZ-GTE, they're circa 30 years old now, or a turbo Barra, 20+ years old.

They don't have to be unreliable pieces of shit, they're just designed that way, Ecoboost is a bit of a joke with block design faults or rubber belts in oil.

[smoo]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Ecoboost and VW is loaded though because both have known longevity issues and design flaws.

Let's look at a 1JZ-GTE, they're circa 30 years old now, or a turbo Barra, 20+ years old.

They don't have to be unreliable pieces of shit, they're just designed that way, Ecoboost is a bit of a joke with block design faults or rubber belts in oil.

But they’re well proven older engines with higher fuel consumption and no chance of meeting emission regs in the 2020s so it’s not really comparable.
What does a 2jz make power and torque? A modern 3.0 turbo BMW does 375kw and 650nm. Modern Mercedes 4.0 turbo 550kw and 900nm torque.
Makes both of those 20th century engines seem a bit underwhelming.

Point is Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai (don’t know about Hyundai, I think the i30 engine is the reason why there’s class action against them) still offer ancient engine that sacrifice torque and power and negligible fuel economy losses for reliability.
Used buyer of these in 10-20 years will be grateful.

[simon varley]

my daughter has a Kio Rio. Hers is a manual, and I've driven it. It's lovely. Don't know what the equivalent auto is like, but definitely worth a look.

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

My dirty secret. Well before i got the mechanics courtesy car, as whilst i did electrical work for them, they'd service my work car. Anyhows working for them they picked up a toyota yaris. Story behind that was for 5 or 6 years they did the annual service on it and rego however in 5 or 6 years the car had only done 300km. So whilst the paint was absolutely ****ed, story goes the bloke bought it for his daughter to learn to drive in, but she decided she didn't want to drive.
Well, when i blew up the ranger i got the courtesy car. Paint ****ed but 54k on it. Interior immaculate. Did it work for work, no. Was it scary trying to get to freeway speeds to merge safely, yes. Creature comforts? Sorta but not really. Turning circle and just ease of most of anything 'difficult' when it comes to driving. Well thats why i found the thing great.

Yep our Echo was just like that. Especially the merging, people acted as if you were so small you weren't really there, nearly got squashed a few times! Must be fun these days with RAMs on the road. Car was great just as you say. It's funner to drive a slow car fast as you zip and buzz your 1.3L NA manual around the city...

Son saw one of the other contractors on the construction site blow up his Ranger a few weeks back too, smoke pouring out from under the bonnet. He didn't find out what it was.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

Yep our Echo was just like that. Especially the merging, people acted as if you were so small you weren't really there, nearly got squashed a few times! Must be fun these days with RAMs on the road. Car was great just as you say. It's funner to drive a slow car fast as you zip and buzz your 1.3L NA manual around the city...

Son saw one of the other contractors on the construction site blow up his Ranger a few weeks back too, smoke pouring out from under the bonnet. He didn't find out what it was.

The trick is to not care about what you're driving, you get a lot of bullying and attempted intimidation from Ranger drivers, it's become a 'thing' because non car people are associating Rangers with flog driving behaviours on the road.

But they seem to care a lot more about their Ranger than I do with my cars so they're heroes until there's a corner or they realise we're about to drive into each other

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

Yep our Echo was just like that. Especially the merging, people acted as if you were so small you weren't really there, nearly got squashed a few times! Must be fun these days with RAMs on the road. Car was great just as you say. It's funner to drive a slow car fast as you zip and buzz your 1.3L NA manual around the city...

Son saw one of the other contractors on the construction site blow up his Ranger a few weeks back too, smoke pouring out from under the bonnet. He didn't find out what it was.

It was a base model 1.3L auto 2 door. They bought it for $1800 but did the polite thing and did it when it was rego inspection time as to not screw the seller out of paying for rego (strange i know) but they knew the service history, as in changing clean year old oil and filter yearly. Great little car. The few times i had it made work great too, as i was extremely limited, i got all the basic jobs when i had that thing.....

[Sprintey]

Yep I was a surveyor and when I got a 40 storey building I'd put my ladder (had 4 folds in it) tools etc into the back of the Echo with the seats down and when you got underground and there was no parking, the Echo could find a little quiet corner in the basements & client was happy with this & I dodged $25 a day parking back then. And got to punt it around the CBD when done

[kevino]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

The trick is to not care about what you're driving, you get a lot of bullying and attempted intimidation from Ranger drivers, it's become a 'thing' because non car people are associating Rangers with flog driving behaviours on the road.

But they seem to care a lot more about their Ranger than I do with my cars so they're heroes until there's a corner or they realise we're about to drive into each other

Small gives way to bigger
Ie Fiesta gives way to Ranger
Ranger gives way to Transit
Transit gives way to medium rigid
Medium rigid gives way to heavy rigid
Heavy rigid gives way to semi
Semi gives way to B Double
B double gives way to Road train

[FTE217]

Originally Posted by kevino

Small gives way to bigger
Ie Fiesta gives way to Ranger
Ranger gives way to Transit
Transit gives way to medium rigid
Medium rigid gives way to heavy rigid
Heavy rigid gives way to semi
Semi gives way to B Double
B double gives way to Road train

hehe ba boom......

Lion King, cycle of Life lol......hearing the screams to the clouds and kicking from the young gens LOL......

[Cav]

[QUOTE=kevino;6909627]

Originally Posted by Cav

Italy's favourite car - Fiat 500.

Mine is 10 years old with 56,000kms

Selling soon (Just waiting for the fuel level in the tank to subside a bit - probably be months)



Is that a manual?

Yes 5 speed manual with 1.2 litre racing engine ;-)

Getting the timing belt done next week just to be safe.

[anobserver]

As cars get bigger with each iteration, space is created beneath.

So why can't we have a mini Mustang with the turbo 4 banger?

Make it smaller, lighter, and fun to drive. Create new customers that might have bought an 86. Keep the v8 in the current size Stang and it becomes aspirational. (And overpriced here, but that's another story)

Create an extended buy now, pay later system to make it happen (just swipe, and drive away...)

Why is this so hard?

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

, it's become a 'thing' because non car people are associating Rangers with flog driving behaviours on the road.

I must be a non car person. It was actually one of the reasons why I decided to get an Everest instead. I didn't want to be associated with the dual cab crowd.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by kevino

Small gives way to bigger
Ie Fiesta gives way to Ranger
Ranger gives way to Transit
Transit gives way to medium rigid
Medium rigid gives way to heavy rigid
Heavy rigid gives way to semi
Semi gives way to B Double
B double gives way to Road train

Lord help everyone when I have my MC licence by the end of this year

[prydey]

Originally Posted by kevino

Small gives way to bigger
Ie Fiesta gives way to Ranger
Ranger gives way to Transit
Transit gives way to medium rigid
Medium rigid gives way to heavy rigid
Heavy rigid gives way to semi
Semi gives way to B Double
B double gives way to Road train
Everyone gives way to Franco

Fixed

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by prydey

I must be a non car person. It was actually one of the reasons why I decided to get an Everest instead. I didn't want to be associated with the dual cab crowd.

It's certainly a thing amongst the public

Hi-vis brigade in Ford Ranger and hi-vis brigade in shitbox hatchbacks

[anobserver]

Don't know about you Franco, but im driving to work everyday again, for the first time in 20 years.



For some people, its none at all, based on their demonstrated skills.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by anobserver

Don't know about you Franco, but im driving to work everyday again, for the first time in 20 years.

image

For some people, its none at all, based on their demonstrated skills.

I'm both ends of the spectrum, Schrodinger's drivers licence - had it taken off me and had to apply to the court to get it back, and now they trust me to drive heavy vehicles

Nah I've been a good boy these days, I drive like grandma on the way to Bingo,

So 80 everywhere, including school zones and shopping centre car parks, I think I'm due for ye olde confuse brake and accelerator trick

Back to small cars to get in love with, I've got a bit of a chubby for the Suzuki Swift.