Diesels

Other end of the desirability scale?

Dunno, but many expect a modern petrol engine to last at least 200,000 miles, plus or minus depending on TLC. Modern oils and better metallurgy have extended engine life. My 1993 Saab has done 125,000 miles and still doesn't use engine oil between changes, still smooth an quiet. The low pressure turbo helps keeping engine revs down.

Middle of the road (for Audi): Audi A4 3.0 TDI 233hp. 0-60 mph 6.8s top speed 153mph. Boring???

High end (for Audi): Audi S8 5.2 Petrol V10 450hp. 0-60 mph 5s top speed 155 (limited). I've never been in a 5s 0-60 car that was boring.

Only a biker would consider these boring..surely!

I took the six year old 316i for a jet wash today.

It made itself do a nice donut just off the forecourt of the filling station. F*ck me if I wasn't glad it did it discreetly!!

-- Billy H

Zathras ( snipped-for-privacy@nospamthanks.hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

... but if such a beast exists, you can guarantee it'd be German or Japanese.

Are you retarded Marvin? Do you often overtake cars from a stand-still? The reason the times appear long is because it's from zero to sixty.

Try 30 to 60, see how fast you can do it. Much much quicker obviously. Christ, some people...

That'll just be you and your wee c*ck that want that quick time though.

Because they like VW group cars? That's why I do.

No, stupidity is buying something you don't like, or buying a car solely on What Car advice. I know people that love italian cars. (Ping SteveH?). I hate them. That is my choice.

I don't think the herd buy VWs. Seems to be Fords/Peugots a lot of the time. I haven't driven a recent ford (the last one being a vile base-model 2001 fiesta with some godawful pushrod engine from about

IME they are reliable. Maybe not that much *more* reliable than a Ford, but I've never had any serious problems, having had almost exclusively VAG cars since the late 80s. In fact, the non-VAG cars i've had were worse. I realise that isn't a representative sample......

Let's face it, if you really want reliable, you buy Toyota/Honda if you want an ordinary car, Lexus if you have £££££. They consistently come high up in the reliabilty scores (the ones like JD Power where users rate them).

But that isn't representative either.

I'll stick up for them too. Admission: I'm a VW (or rather VW Group) fanboy. We had a Polo TDI that handled quite well ( a damn sight better than the fiesta courtesy car I had at the same time), and went pretty well too (again, better than the fester).

It *was* expensive though (it had leather, aircon, etc), but we weren't paying.

I've had the misfortune of driving one in a Mk1 Astra van. A very flat tourque cure, that one. F*ck all from tickover up to the governor.

The message from Chris Bartram contains these words:

That was it. I had one for some time as a Rediffusion techie.

:)

Well I'd gone for the 1.6, but heh, what the heck.

I don't think it's much more relevant with the engine output figures. I could have excluded any one of the data points really...

Essentially what I was saying was that, model for model, newer stuff isn't necessarily slower.

On the other hand, the 2004 Polo 1.4 I had as a courtesy car was appalling in several respects.

Firstly,

I have only tried that donk in a Cavalier...

Yes, I've driven a few 206s with that particular donk.

Economical (36 / 63 / 50), relatively smooth and quiet and has that lovely... hmm... XUD feeling about it. Hard to describe. Just a decent compromise. The only weakness of the 206* with the 1.9 XUD is that it's a heavy donk, it needs turbocharging and almost all sold are poverty specification machines.

XUD, DW, I'll always call it the XUD! :)

On ordinary roads, many are pretty boring. Quick, yes, but boring.

No. Because being able to accelerate quickly in a straight line starts to feel immature and boring after a while. There's no skill involved, just, get and go.

I'm glad it's not just me who can see through the media hype surrounding the fact that Ford now produce cars that don't handle like a canal barge..... they're much improved, but they're not the class leading designs the media would have us believe.

Seems to work OK in our 100BHP 1.4i-16 Lupo. Only criticism is it's a bit all or nothing in the first bit of travel, so as you pull away it takes practice to not give it a bootful of revs. The 100BHP version isn't very torquey low down, but really starts to fly at 5000. Presumably the 75BHP version is crippled (anyone want to bet it's just marketing and software?). Mind, I don't like small petrol engines and just about forgive the 1.4 100BHP because it picks up so well at revs.

The Polo we had was a 1.4TDI, and a cracker. But then, I'm a *diesel* VAG fanboy :-P

The Lupo would do OK were it not for s*it tyres. My Fabia vRS does very well with 130BHP and [can't remember but a fair bit] lb/ft on the Polo chassis. Probably better damping and tyres than the poverty spec Polo though.

Have to disagree. My Fabia has it and it works. It isn't as good as proper climate control, but it's not bad. It actually does turn the heater down as the cabin warms up.

That is mean.

No way is just about everything better. I had the misfortune of 206 recently, and it was foul.

Christ. I'm surprised it moved.