Question for Europeans

"Dan J.S." > wrote in message
...
>
> I will agree with you that for most part, American cars may not be as
> reliable as Japanese counterparts, especially Honda or Toyota. But I will
> take that Pontiac over any Audi, VW or even Mercedes when it comes to
> reliability. European cars are becoming a running jokes here in the U.S.
> that they are extremely unreliable, and J.D. power long and short term
> reliability reports (www.jdpower.com) back my statement.

Mercedes exec recently said that Americans have totally different
expectations on the reliability of a car, and substantially different
tastes, and he's not sure it's worth pushing the division to meet those
expectations or tastes.

One thing that is a big change owning a Volkswagen- most of the fluids are
more expensive, and it requires synthetic oil for the turbocharger (and
diesel rated, too). It's not the as "fun" to pay 10-20 dollars per 2
liters for coolant or steering fluid, but I think that's better than Ford,
which is clearly using lighter weight oils for no other reason than to
increase EPA fuel economy, with little or no regard what happens to the
engine in the long term (Ford Ranger says 0W-20 on the gas cap... what proof
does Ford have that weight of motor oil provides sufficient protection?).
OTOH, VW has consistantly mandated the same oils (usually 5W-40 or 5W-30),
even if they could get better fuel economy with lower weight oils. And if
you only have to change the oil every 10,000 miles, well, that sort of
offsets the increased price of the oil.

The only thing I don't really like about my VW- the automatic
transmission fluid does not have a dipstick. But I think more and more cars
are like that now days, though I cannot say it's the best trend. In order
to check the auto transmission fluid on the car, you have to use the VW
software and put the car up on blocks/jacks. And the 100,000 mile fluid
change interval has generated some controversy (apparrently some Audi folks
thing the actual interval should be 40-50K miles, and it has cured some
shifting ills).

"Brimstone" > wrote in message
...
>
> Regardless of the "warming" and "cooling" arguments, is it sensible to
> throw
> increasing amounts of various sorts of muck into the atmophere and on to
> the
> ground (to put it simply)?

Indeed not, which is why fuel efficiency is important.

"Magnulus" > wrote in message
. ..
>
> "Depresion" > wrote in message
> ...
>> The Toyota Corolla 2003 gets 4 NCAP stars and rating of Good front
> Acceptable
>> side and poor rear from IIHS in the USA.
>
> I've read the newer Corollas do very good, especially with the side
> curtain airbag option. Much better than the Corollas in the late 90's.

IIRC IIHS say they test without side air bags as standard but will retest with
them if asked to by the maker.

On Tue, 10 May 2005 12:52:18 +0100, Martin Brown , said the following in
rec.autos.driving...

> Last time I was stuffed with a Pontiac GrandMA ~3.4L allegedly a popular
> choice according to the rental guy.

A popular choice with the rental companies the guy apparently forgot to
add....

> So named because of the way it
> wheezes when going up hills. A basic manual UK Ford Mondeo 1.6 petrol
> would easily have left it standing. The automatic transmission was
> lousy, kick down wasn't properly adjusted - it had done about 3000 miles
> from new. The gas peddle altered the amount of engine noise with a 2s
> delay before anything useful was transmitted to the road wheels.

Question when you were passing/accelerating, was the transmission
selecter in (D) (overdrive) or D (overdrive locked out)?

> Overtaking was best done after switching off the aircon. It had the
> turning circle of a supertanker, terrible understeer and the wheels
> squealed going round corners. The ride was soft and flaccid more like
> being on a ship. When I returned it 2000 miles later it already needed
> an oil change. It guzzled fuel for a saloon car but that didn't matter
> because gas was so cheap and it had a huge tank.

Well, it *was* a GM product which is the car of choice for our resident
troll here in r.a.d.....

> The bigger US cars and SUVs are even worse. "Quality" is apparently
> measured by the number of cup holders fitted to the vehicle.

Or the number of TV screens for the over indulged children of our
soceity...