Cars!

Sounds good to me.

Most people say that drivers of my car are boring. They obviously haven't seen me driving!

 

I agree.

My existing car has air-conditioned seats but my new one won't . I won't pay the price they want as it comes with lots of things I'm not interested in.

 

It's very comfortable for my poor old back , has good acceleration, good roadholding ability (seems better than the GT40 I drove in 1964 - but I was fairly new to driving in those days ), very quiet and probably has a lot of things I haven't the faintest idea about.

Why does it need its 8 speed auto transmission?
What's speed sensitive steering, Pilot Assist (I can't fly a plane), Adaptive cruise control, dynamic chassis (at least one of us is dynamic ), adjustable steering force, adaptive brake lights (what are they adapting to), City Safety (don't drive in the city), Oncoming lane mitigation, run off road mitigation, driver alert with lane keeping aid, Road sign information display (does it think I can't read), Active bonnet (I just want it to stay where it is), mechanical child locks (I don't have any mechanical children), heated washer nozzles (what about the water freezing in the washer bottle or on the screen), and loads of others?

 

Currently, it seems to be those in the American and Australian markets that seem to be the biggest problem, with one of the worst being the Kuga (not restricted to this though); it has been reported through various media that they're attitude to customers suffering this has left a lot to be desired, but with massive global companies like this, that is not really a surprise. The thing they forget is that eventually, that sort of thing gets out, and then people stop buying their product.... then come the meetings as to why their sales are down, and what they are going to close/chop.

Fiat/Chrysler are a prime example of this - their attitude to customers has never been better than disdain, however in this modern age of YouTube and Facebook, word gets out really fast and they have been well and truly 'owned' a few times. I believe their UK sales are down by about 26% for last year, and in the Australian market they have dropped over 80%.

Go on to YouTube, and watch some of John Cadogan's videos - he is brash, gobby, but for the most part talks sense.

 

They are now doing a recall @Freddy, so if yours is affected, it will either be called in or rectified at service time. I believe it is the 1.6 EcoBoost engine that is the main culprit, and mostly in the Americas/South Africa/Australia/New Zealand

 

Diesels were not long ago, in the eyes of the "experts and Government, the Hero between it and the Petrol engine. Now with changing fads it is being demonised and the Petrol Engine is now the Hero. You can bet "your cotton socks" that in the near future the Petrol Engine will be demonised to promote the use of Electric Cars.

 

Diesel has been done a MASSIVE dis-service recently, not least by those idiots who we pay to run the country! OLD diesels were smoky, smelly and not particularly suitable for cars; technology started to move on, then those in the positions of power started to listen to anyone and everyone spouting off about how bad diesel vehicles were, so mandated changes - only, rather than allow technology to develop naturally, they wanted the changes pretty much immediately which forced manufacturers to bodge and lash-up existing designs. The net result of that was engines that were strung out, and chucked out shedloads of NOX (but hey, it is all good because the CO2 emissions are a lot less, right?)..... then, the realisation was arrived at that these high NOX emissions were dangerous to health - fair enough, something that we didn't necessarily know at the time when they were made.

In the intervening period, technology caught up on itself, and we have new ultra-efficient diesels that also have the benefit of filtration technology that removes at least 99% of the particulates and NOX - - these are now CLEANER than equivalent petrol engines (FACT - listen to a podcast of Jeremy Vine's show for Thursday or Friday for more info), whilst still putting out significantly less CO2.

But, our elected eejits did it again - they listened to all the shouting about diesel being bad for health (not untrue, to be fair, but insufficient clarification!), and decided to start demonising diesel. I am not for one second saying that there are not some diesels deserving of this treatment, but it was applied in a blunt way (as usual) that threw the car market into chaos.

Now, we have seen diesel sales drop significantly, petrol sales rise a wee bit, and CO2 has jumped as a result! Worse still, car owners are now hanging on to the cars they have because the new, cleaners ones will see them hit with a tax that they do not have to pay with their current vehicle - - I have a 1.5 Euro 6 diesel, with 25,000 miles on the clock and I pay NO VED - - why would I swap that for a petrol, hybrid or electric where I am paying a minimum of £140 in tax?

The final insult is the backing given to electric vehicles - absolutely ZERO thought has been given to the environmental costs of building the infrastructure (charging points etc), or that of the vehicles themselves - lithium batteries are manufactured from rare earth metals that have to be mined, much of which is done in less developed/affluent countries where environmental regulation is poor at best..... how much damage is being done to the planet there? And to the miners? And what about the electricity to charge these cars - where is that coming from? The bulk of our power here in the UK is still derived from fossil fuels, so all we have done is moved the problem from small doses in our street to great massive doses by our power stations! NIMBY-ism at its absolute finest.

No thought has been given as to what happens when these massive batteries fail (and they do) - firstly, how are they recycled? (Generally, they are put on boats and sent to poorer countries to 'dispose' of, which means they will sit and rot and fester as kids play around them...), and then there is the premature death of otherwise serviceable vehicles - a set of batteries for a Toyota Prius costs approximately £4500 - - not exactly the sort of money you would sink into a car that is 8-10 years old if it needed them....

And what happens when these vehicles are involved in an accident? Sure, petrol and diesel cars will catch fire, but battery powered ones are much, much worse - burning for over 24-hours and requiring to be quarantined after an accident for up to a week in case they self re-ignite! How in the name of all that is holy is that good for the earth?

A lot of people are making a lot of money off the back of being good to the environment, but from where I am sitting, they are destroying it.