Your Personal Micro Blog(s)

Certain Jaguars are an absolute bargain. 4wd and based on the Mondeo platform with full Leather interiors and stuff like heated seats etc for less than £1000. But of course they don't have a reputation for reliability.

For a sporty(ish) somewhat low-usage winter car, they could be ok idea if you don't mind a bit of upkeep. That said, its kinda the opposite of a Skoda

 

Indeed i completly forgot about the jags! But getting parts and so on isnt that easy here sadly. All in all you really have nice cars over there i was thinking of later going over there if that works out nicely to get a subaru legacy because you can actually find them in the uk for a good price (the last good legacy 3.0r i found was like over 10 grand wich is far too much)

 

saw a 2.5L X-Type (V6) 5 speed auto, go for £400 at auction, don't know what was wrong with it, can't imagine much wrong with it given it's a ford mondeo in fancy dress.. 3L X-type V6 5 speed manual at £1000 auction..

Also Saab 9-3 again post GM saab, they are a bit of a nightmare reliability wise, the build quality is just terrible, no other words about it, it feels like it's put together by fisherprice, but damn put your foot down and it goes... 2.8 V6 turbo with 6 speed manual is sensational, super rare, ive been in 5 speed auto 2L Turbo (210hp) and manual, manual better obviously (33mpg vs 25mpg!!! with my mum's rather leisurely driving) the 6 speed manual goes like 1800rpm at 70 in 6th, but there is boat loads of torque so even at that RPM it will go! Better to get the XWD as 250hp through the front wheels of a vauxhall vectra in fancy dress isn't the best thing to do in the wet :0

 

Its much faster than a SsangYong Rodius that is for sure

 

haha yeah!

I remember i never liked it when i didn't care so much about cars, the engine was so-so noise wise, but the ride and interior quality was terrible... hated the autobox on the 9-3 just so much, it was such an american slushbox it was unreal, there was even a tiptronic thing with it, but it was laughably unresponsive, and it hardly ever locked the torque converter, i wouldn't mind so much if the exhaust didn't like resonate at the rpm the gearbox loved , the espace 3.0v6 diesel we had as the other car at the time, that was just amazing.. so sublime, torque converter slipping sure like the slushbox, but when you wanted to, it would wake up and was quite a racey box, tiptronic responsive! gearbox on that car was so much better than the 9-3.. (6 speed autos on 9-3s are good though, thank god)

The manual however was much better, it wasn't limited by the gearbox at all, and the engine is quite sporty with minimal turbolag, quite a nice little unit really... efficient if you keep off boost.. (something the autobox loved to do, keep the turbo halfway up there whilst it is torque convertering it's way up to speed!)

The tiptronic on the Rodius is flat out a joke, you can't shift under throttle, the buttons don't do anything and when you put it back in drive the lights go from 1-2-3-4-5 and back to D like some sort of computer glitch, quite funny! It's also quite set in it's ways, like 1st gear upshifts at 1800rpm, it just does, tiniest bit of throttle, all the way to 1800rpm (say you rev to 1600rpm in a carpark then let off gas cos of speedbump, the car is dragged down by the engine braking, so really the transmission should be in 2nd gear to not do this, normally i stick it in winter mode to stop this as it is annoying, to keep it in 2nd gear whilst the vehicle is moving when no throttle demand is really required) somewhere i think i knew of the espace pulling away in 2nd all the time, unless you had your foot on the kickdown switch, it did just that.. odd!

 

Math can be resource intensive.....
www.desmos.com/calculator/du9mjdezv4

 

The newer Rodius' are quite attractive visually, but mechanically- I don't know. Never driven one.

 

2.2 4cyl at 180hp, sounds alright on paper, and a 7 speed mercedes automatic should make it alright, but 180ps has it's limits in a 2 tonne car, and considering it's more of an SUV than a people carrier, it's a little underpowered.. a V6 diesel would be amazing, but that is only a dream

 

7speed for a 2.2 I4? That sounds a bit odd to me.

 

yeah i know
Mercedes 7G Tronic, i think it shares some things with the 5G Tronic, and the previous rodius had that transmission..

I think there is now a 9G Tronic, but i think that is overkill for a Rodius (not installed in the new rodius, it's just a new merc transmission option)

 

Mercedes E class from 2.0 and on (maybe even smaller engines idk that) has automatic 7 gears for years and the last 2-3years
even 9, including sport mode, extreme sport mode etc.. I drove them both professionally.

 

was at several car dealerships today to look at cars here are some things noticed:
Toyota: super friendly started to talk to me about cars and answered all questions and offered a test drive
VW: Noone was interested wouldnt even say hello or anything generally unfriendly
Porsche: super friendly again even though they knew i couldnt afford one. all cars were unlocked and available to sit in unlike audi dealerships.
Mercedes: willing to answer questions after asking them and they offered a 2 day test drive for a C43 AMG.
All in all normally theyre friendly unless theyre audi or vw. Funny story my dad had with audi: We usually have lots of customers from all over the world and they usually get a tour of the city when they pick up theyr machine and all. So at that day noone had time so my dad had to drive them around and show them around first sightseeing and then they wanted to go shopping after a while they wanted to look at luxury cars so he went to audi with them as soon as he got into the dealership and asked him what he wanted to do and tried to get him out of the dealership (no idea why maybe because of the group of business men?) So after getting asked to leave in english one of them went forward and said: I would have bought 2 A6´s but because your so unfriendly ill buy BMW´s instead! So they went to bmw and the boss of the company bought 2 brand new BMW`s

 

I got a free honda izy motor that runs, but the frame collapsed, so i'm swapping the engine into my spare hra125 frame that has a seized engine

 

I've uploaded 2 videos of the mower in action
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrhOXOB2duEOwmHuYN6EoVw
You'll find them here

 

Last time I went to our local Toyota dealership I was with my dad, we couldn't find a member of staff, never mind talk to one of them. The place was literally deserted, we were the only 2 in there. Regardless, I got a good laugh at how flimsy the centre consoles in their cars were, they could be wobbled around with minimal effort. The C-HR was pretty hilarious too, since its windows are so small its incredibly dark inside, sitting in the back I could barely see out. I'm sure there are many benefits to owning one of their cars, but they certainly aren't equipment, ,interior build quality, or practicality.

That said, most of the other dealerships seemed to have nice enough staff, even if many of them seemed to have a propensity for bs. In Europe we have just switched from NEDC to WLTP fuel econonmy measurements. Not one dealership was able to explain what the new fuel economy numbers actually mean.

 

This certainly isn’t true for all Toyotas. I think the C-HR is really just a knockoff of the HR-V, I don’t like it that much, and maybe their build quality has gone down in recent years. However, I’ve always thought that Toyota has made nice-looking, relatively affordable cars. Practicality and equipment as well as build quality are all pretty big things for cars, and every Toyota I’ve been in has checked all the boxes.

 

the worse thing is that not even the KBA wich made those measurements can explain it because we tried to ask them how it works. Also many tuning companys have trouble with it because noone can say whats legal now and what not at least here in germany

 

whoops wrong thread

 

I went to the store today, and when I was checking out, a woman came into the line with A SINGLE ONION.