Safe Speed Forums

Currently a Ford Mundano.........everything works!

Prior =
Alfa Romeo 156 1.8TS .....................40000 miles of trouble-free motoring. Don't believe the bad press.
Peugeot 205 1.8 diesel............Best allrounder
Vaux Astra 1.6................
Vaux Carlton 1.8..Mk3............comfy boatride
Vaux Carlton 2.2 Mk2.............the Admiral's in port
BMW 2.5l..........................just watch the realtime fuelguage!
Vaux Cavalier Mk?...............great family car
Etc, etc

I think my interest in road safety comes from when I used to ride bikes, pedal and motor.

My main car is a Smart Roadster, but I also have access to a few others, the Smart is fun at lower speeds, feeling much faster than it is.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

How have you found build quality/reliability with the Smart? A friend had one and was very unhappy with it.

My main gripe with the smart car range is that they are so awkward to work on!

To my mind, the whole point of a small, eonomical car is lost unless ALL the routine servicing (and a good proportion of the more common repairs) are within the capability of any reasonably competant owner!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Missed that one. Thank you. Duly nuked.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I edited my post so folks didn't think samandben's post was spam!

hmmm ive kept away from this thread

currently:
saab-93
smart
bedford CF 250 !
+ 4 bikes to choose from

at work... a range of vehicles from the sublime (supercar exotica) to the ridiculous (electric/hybrid thingies)..... or should that be the other way around ?

I have done a little over 10,000 miles since I got it in August, it leaks on the door seals sometimes and once refused to recognise either key which meant I had to have it recovered to a dealer. The next morning it just worked and there were no errors recorded on the ecu.

Maintenance is easy, you just take it to the garage

I have adjusted the alternator belt myself; all you have to do is jack the car up, remove the rear offside wheel arch lining so you can get to the alternator pivot bolt, then put it back together while you buy a set of crow's foot wrenches so you can release the pivot bolt which has the belt running across it. Easy

Apparently you can also remove the bodywork from the back of the car (standard servicing method) or undo the engine mounts so the engine drops low enough to make the bolt accessible ...

To be fair the packaging on small modern front drive cars looks like it would make servicing difficult. I prefer cars up to the late '90s if I am going to work on them, the fuel injection and managed ignition systems help with reliability, but are simple enough to be still home serviceable.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I've had a few people tell me that Smarts trash the bottom end of their engines (mains, big ends and sometimes the crank itself) at about 50,000 miles. I know one guy it's actually happened to.

The door seals were my friend's main gripe, I now recall.

Mine has done just over 51K and seems to be fine, there are cars reported to have done 90K without problems so there is probably a spread as usual. The engines are not enormously expensive and most of these cars are not going to be used for astro-mileage anyway. I would never recommend one as a cheap car to run though it is not particularly expensive either, the petrol usage is good, but servicing is not cheap, £200-350. It is a lightweight, fun, mid engined & RWD, will do 45mpg when driven hard and can carry a weeks shopping without needing to use the passenger seat. The only other alternatives either have no carrying space or cost a lot more (e.g Elise/Europa), none match the mpg. The specific reason I bought the car no longer applies so I will probably sell it soon and go back to using the Imprezza.

I tend to chose cars primarily by how enjoyable they are to drive then compromise for practicality and affordability.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Forzza ...................Several Alfas!!!

Ten year old VW Polo 1.4 and I love it

When I swapped it wiith my girlfriend's Mazda 323GL last year, (to transport stuff when I was moving home), she hung onto it for weeks afterwards and did the big sad face when she eventually gave me my keys back.

It was hard to not to succumb to the big sad face - but I wanted my car back!

Oh, and three pool cars at work: Astra Diesel, Peugeot 207, (can't pull the skin off a rice pudding), Skoda Octavia, (nice engine, shame about the stupid electronic boot lock and rediculous rear noneview dangerous postage stamp vista of things behind

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Yeah, still got the last one. Mrs Mole had a 1.8TS 156 - which was great until it trashed its cam belt at 57,000 miles! I was furious with Alfa at the time. Even for a couple of years afterwards, they were still telling people that the official cam belt change interval was 72,000 miles! Pity, if it hadn't been for that, it would have ben a very reliable car indeed - none of the rust or electrical problems that they were famous for. She now has a 2.0 JTS 156 and to be honest, while it's a bit of a "skateboard" I actually quite like it. Mine, however, is from a different era and has 50% more cylinders... I can forgive it practially anything when I hear it come "on-cam" with an open throttle!

But that's the thing Mole, it's always a love affair with Alfs, and don't even get me started on the electrics....

I think there should be an award for the worst car we have had the mis-pleasure of driving and I would like to make a nomination

We also hire cars where I work...

And the prize for the most hideous modern excuse for a car ever invented wot I have driven goes to! (drum roll...)

The Kia noPride

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is possible to make a car from glueing Kit Kat foil together.

In fact I read the other day that a moth and a Pride were involved in a head-on collision. Police say the moth is doing well but the the Pride may not pull through.

A baking tin on wheels, if ever there was

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I really don't know what you mean Tone!!! (OK, I might, perhaps, have to admit that I'm currently driving round with the front foglight relay in the driver's door pocket because I can't turn the damned things off), but hey, it just aspires to being a Volvo one day!



Hmmm! I shall have to devote some thought to that!

I never drove one, but back in the 80s, there was an abomination called the Alfa "Arna". This was an unholy (and mercifully short-lived) marriage between Alfa Romeo and Nissan. Now there COULD have been so many opportunities for mutual benefit on both sides here, but due to some inspired (NOT!) corporate thinking, this little beauty had all the flair and charisma of Nissan styling combined with Alfa electrics...

Of the ones I've had the misfortune to drive, it's actually quite difficult. Most cars have some redeeming features! Even an old Allegro that I had for a short while was a brilliant bit of packaging - excellent use of space! Some of the famously awful cars (like Trabants and Ladas) need to be judged against what they were designed to do (and for how much money). Once you do that, they're actually not bad at all! For people to think a car is good, I think it's more important that it "exceeds expectations" rather than being good in the overall sense. So, for example, a Ferrari wouldn't have to be very bd to disappoint me because I'd be expecting excellence! Perhaps, my award would go to the Ligier Ambra - a vile little "quadricycle". If your Kia was a baking tray on wheels, this was the "Tupperware" alternative. A truly awful plastic pig with a nasty, harsh diesel cement mixer engine. It made even the roughest 3-legged Reliants look positively well-built and refined!

If not the Ligier, then maybe the Morris Ital. A pretentious Marina with just about no mechanical improvement over the original whatsoever - a real triumph of style over substance!

Oh yes I remember the old allegros with their square steering wheels and the Morris Marina/Ital. Do you remember the advertising clip for the Marina/Ital that they used to show at the cinema? It was a Marina/Ital taking off for a rally yump....they never did show you it hitting the ground.....I wonder why?....

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

i can update my list now. my latest addition is a 2000 V reg galant 2.4 GDi (Gas Direct Injection) which has a bigger engine than my old one so it is faster but when driven normally, it is much cheaper on fuel thanks to the GDi technology. i dont know what that is but it seems to be doing a grand job of keeping fuel in the tank. my record with the 2.0 i did have was 40 MPG and i will get round to attempting to beat that with the 2.4 after its had a tune up. its running a little rough just now but its getting me to work and i need some pay before i can get her tuned. considering i drive big spec trucks and this luxury galant, the citroen C3 i was given yesterday to go and get my truck was bloody awful. i just kept shouting WHAT IS THIS THING THEY HAVE GIVEN ME?
i love this car more than my old one

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

Obviously I cannot say exactly what is wrong but Expect to have the injectors removed and overhauled.

Also, the throttle bodies fail on these with monotonous regularity. (If you have to take it appart, it might also be a good idea to get the inlet manifold cleaned out aswell to remove all the black goo that has been introduced by the EGR system)



Trouble is you end up spending all that you have saved on injectors and throttle bodies! (maybe even more!)

Thats the bind with modern cars all over!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

I agree. The "Direct" injection means that it squirts the fuel directly into the combustion chamber rather than on to the back of the inlet valve like an ordinary fuel injected petrol engine. It was pretty smart-arsed in its day and, as you have seen, gives definite benefits in terms of fuel efficiency. The downside is that the tips of the injectors get a really hard time, being, as they are, in the combustion chamber itself!