ot car special editions

You'd think, but we had a hell of a load of trouble
selling our Saxo VTS. The boy racers want them but
can't afford to insure them, so they end up with the
gay VTR versions instead. You'll not get a premium
on the VTS over the s/h price of a VTR because the
people that can afford them don't want that model.

Plus they rattle, squeak and generally feel like they
are made out of plastic... which most of our VTS was.

Pretty fast for the size, but I really, really would
not have another.

 

Ah I thought all of them had the odd lever in the mid cockpit.

 

Could be. You could live with some faults of course, no car is without
them, how they are dealt with matters a lot though.

Indeed, you have to look at these as statistics though, and even for the
worst cars on the road, a very large proportion don't have any trouble
at all.

No problem, it only took a few minutes to work out. I think they may
have changed a bit though, AFAIK Ford have improved quite a bit since I
last worked with them, the other figures are all less than two years
old.

Or more to the point, what I *won't* be buying

 

Xantia, XM, BX, CX, GS(A), DS - and some of the late Light 15s had HP rear
suspension.

 

Begins with a W? Or is it an M nowadays?

 

Humph. My 1997 V6 Mondeo just munched its water pump impeller, and
I've heard of another at similar (70K-ish) mileage. This could be one
of Ford's weak areas. Thank the deity I spotted what was happening and
managed not to blow gaskets and warp heads.

 

Well known issue on those, is that.

 

Yeah, right.

 

Tuddyvision.

 

Tellytuddies?
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..73063../..16589.../..3180./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4
'^'

 

*Love it*

(I'm just waiting for the Doctor to scrape the side of the Silver Tuddy
because she was too busy watching the reversing TV screen....)

 

It's becoming an increasingly common problem on many cars now.

 

Quite a lot of the smaller components are manufactured by other
companies though. Alfa Romeos are well known for this in recent times
too.

 

Until they go bust!

The Froggie manufacturers are heavily subsidised by the state though.

More figures for you. I would guess that there are roughly the same
number of Fiat/Alfa and Honda dealers (I only use these because I can
give very accurate figures), say 200 a piece. Most have roughly the same
number of staff.

In my 5 years working at Fiat/Alfa main dealer, I worked out our
warranty turnover at its peak, and multiplied it across the country and
it works out at32 million pounds spent on warranty claims in one year,
in just one country. The UK is a small market in the worlwide scheme of
things as well.

Just the cost of the warranty claims in the UK alone would almost
develop a brand new engine (yes it does cost that much).

Fiat as a company are in dire trouble, indeed looking at reports from a
year ago, they will be very lucky to be around in the next couple of
years.

Now look at Honda, or Toyota come to that, the total UK warranty cost is
only 8 million. Honda have just saved a very large chunk of developing
the next new model.

Honda and Toyota are both the two top most profitable car manufacturers
in the world.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that by building the cars
properly in the first place actually increases profits.

Although not as good as it was in the mid to late 80's.

Could be the case. The Escort was a terrible car after 1992, probably
the worst car I ever dealt with - even more so than the Fiats. I haven't
worked with the Focus myself, but it does seem to have been a big turn
around.

Yeah, those would be fairly near the top of my list too

Yup. Although Mazda are now mostly owned by Ford, and Nissan are mostly
owned by Renault.

 

The older style Saxo was very 106 - being the same
car it wasn't difficult - but the phase II model
with the better looking front was the reason we
bought ours.

We got one of the very first VTS cars into the UK -
April 2000 - and as such it was the 130bhp model rather
than the 120bhp that they should have come with.

We sold ours for 5 grand in April - 4 years old,
full Citroen service history, 36K miles on the clock,
not a mark on her. It was advertised for months without
even a whiff, and we finally sold it to a FOAF who
knew the car and had always liked it. We lost about
9 grand on it over the 4 years we had owned it, excluding
servicing, insurance, tyres, etc!

 

I've been preaching that mantra to the Brits coming out here. They're
coming out here for a fixed duration and they spend a fortune on cars,
only to be mightily miffed when some wideboy offers them buttons in the
full knowledge that the Brits *must* sell. Happens every time, hence
why I bought a shite old MPV.

 

To be fair, that's a fair bit of cash for a 4 year old (French) shopping
trolley.

 

More. Much more. Assuming we are talking a from-the-ground-up new
engine.

 

"whatever". Doesn't change the fact they're basically cunts.

all those short journeys will **** it up. Get a bicycle, you lazy git.

World,
^^^^ ^^^^
You'd be based in the 6-story building on the A4? That's sucky, as it's
15 minutes walk from the main campus - and more importantly - the
highly-subsidised cafeteria. The only plus is the pub between that
building and PC World is fairly cheap, and has a 1/2 decent pool table.

Could be worse though - they also have a couple of floors in the
Samsung building further down the A4, which *really* blows.

well, if you're desperate, there's a Tesco at Gillette's Corner.

 

well, it's for the "practical reason" that I want something that will
fit in my garage. And for the "pratical reason" that because of the
disproportionate trade-in offer on the Jeep, compared to what I'd get
for it selling it privately, it's actually cheaper to buy a new C2
than, say, a 1-2 year old A2, which was my original plan. Don't worry,
you're doing a fairly good job of putting me off, though.

err, that's simple common sense, surely. And everything I've read backs
up the opinion that Citroen are miles better than they used to be, both
in terms of build quality and customer care.