Thread: The trials of buying that new car

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Never heard of that before. Got any links. That would create havoc in a lot of Thai car parks if you ca'nt push the car out of the way.

This is straight out of an Owners Manual for Jaguar XF:

ROTARY GEAR SELECTOR

The JaguarDrive selector elevates out of the
centre console when the engine is started, in
readiness for gear selection

P

should be selected before switching off the

engine. However, it is possible to switch the
engine off with

R, D or S selected - the selector

will automatically select

P, while retracting into

the centre console.

Note:

If the engine is switched off with N

selected, the system will wait for 10 minutes
before selecting

P. This procedure is to allow

the vehicle to be conveyed through a car wash
only and should not be used for vehicle
recovery purposes.

In the event of a vehicle breakdown, the
transmission will automatically select

P. This

prevents the vehicle from being towed on all
four wheels. Therefore, vehicle recovery
should only be undertaken by suitably qualified

personnel.

However, it applies to some newer models of Merc, BMW, Volvo, Landrover and Audi that I am aware of and possible many more that I am unaware of....

Here is a link to getting the car into Neutral for emergency recovery rather than parking in your local Tesco-Lotus:

Emergency Park Release | Ovalnews.com - Land Rover & Range Rover News, Pictures & Commentary

I think you meant the rear wheels (with a few exceptions)

Yes, depends on the handbrake mechanism and this may not include all wheels. I also failed to mention that the wheels may be able to turn with the transmission locked due to the differential but....

Originally Posted by Trotsky

Originally Posted by hazz

Care to expand on your witty contribution

The price list you mentioned

Are, that's real world paper from the car show. I will scan and post it on the thread if you like.

Originally Posted by Troy

If the engine is switched off with N
selected, the system will wait for 10 minutes
before selecting P.

Thanks for the links.
Learn something new every day.

That will be fun in Thai car parks

^ Not a problem, just drive up a level which you will find, despite all the double parking of the previous floor, is absolutely deserted.

I think it's more what happens when some chicken head who doesn't realise their car cannot be moved after 10 minutes, decides to park parralle in front of you.

Just been tithe car show, yet again, she's still keen on the sporto or whatever it's called prios. Personally I find the idea of havinfpg a car with seats fitted with explosives quite appealing... But I'm a little twisted that way


Appently she's also impressed that she noticed the prity promo girls less than she did. Talking of which the one that caught my eye at this how was defiantly the suberu brz, well in the under 3 million bracket.

Originally Posted by spore

Going not that far from here it almost hit 14km/L

nothing special there

Originally Posted by rchapstick

It does, in real world driving, get 50 mpg, or about 22KPL

much better

Originally Posted by rchapstick

The Prius is very functional and utilitarian

I was in one yesterday and it seemed well built and nice to drive, but it would be interesting to get out of town with it and see how it really drives

[QUOTE=Thetyim;2288004]

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

I have first hand knowledge of a gearbox that was damaged in this manor.

As opposed to damage having occurred in the palace, or the mansion, I presume....

I deliberately used the word trials, on the basis that there is no way that you buy a new car without someone somewhere along the way dicking you about. I have to say I am a little bit supprised at how soon it starts.

We were supposed to test drive the car last weekend, but the guy called to say that thier car had not been delivered and could we do on monday. Fair enough, so we agreed Wednesday, as in today. So we called and everything's ready and we spend 40 minutes and numerous tolls getting to the shop and oops sorry it's not here its out having the film fitted to the windows. A nice waste of 2 hrs of my life and 600bhat.

I guess I should be grateful that let us find out what they are like before we paid them a deposit or even worse the full fee

did quite a long test drive with the prius yesterday, better half did most of the driveing and liked it a lot.... so she's put the deposit down to buy one. apparently its a minimum wait of 4 working days which fits in with her desire to buy on the 22nd.

Its rather unfortunate that Thailand seems to have lost its respect for cash as badly as the west. the dealerships are very keen to get you to sign up for a loan and seem positively disappointing at the prospect of selling a car for cash. I suspect they make more on selling the loan than they do selling the car.

As for my experiences of driving the thing.

I must say that if you put the car in to eco mode and then turn right. the car does behave in a rather erratic way as troy described to me, as you push down on the accelerator to get some power as you pull out on that right hand turn you get a very weak increase in power, until you come close to flooring the accelerator at which point the car bursts into life, just as you straigthen out on to the road. rather reminded me of turbo charged saabs.

saying that if you let the car be itself, the effect is far less noticeable and if you put it in to pwr mode you not feel this at all. as for expressway driving it behaves like a car with a 1.8 engine in it and I would hazard a guess that it has the fuel economy of an altis 1.8 under these circumstances.

I have to say that I find it an acceptable car, but then Ive driven lots of different cars and only really found two that I would seriously not want to own. a citran xanita.... the most unpleasant and dangerious car I have ever driven and alpha ramao's which are lovely to drive (and rent) but fall apart within 7000 miles.

Ive imaged that toyota flyer that Trotsky asked for, but its too large to load in to the gallery and given that trosky's flounced I don't see the point of putting the effort to resize the images unless someone else wants to see it

Originally Posted by hazz

a citran xanita... the most unpleasant and dangerious car I have ever driven and alpha ramao's which are lovely to drive (and rent) but fall apart within 7000 miles.

Do you mean Citröen Xantia and Alfa Romeo?

Jesus Christ.

those are the ones.


I rented a couple of romeo's from hertz many years agp, the manager discribed them as cars you would want to rent and not buy. He came to this conslusion that over the years his shop had 40 of these cars and none of them had survived the 11,000 miles to the end of hertz's lease period before developing a fault that necessitated their replacement.

the xantia has terrible breaks, I only ever drive one traveled 300 miles to a customer site, on returning I got into the car not expecting to get back home without having an accident. no other car has given me this feeling

^
The car dealers in London called the Alfa Romeo Selespeed the Alfa Romeo Sellafield because nobody would go near it.

Always had fun getting into a Citröen hire car and working out where the controls were and how they functioned. Some were surprisingly nice to drive, others a disaster. The DS is still one of my favourite cars of all time.

Strangely, another real favourite of mine was the Alfa. You could trust them about as much as a Thai whore, but the GT was a fantastic car to drive. So was the 1960's version of the Giulietta Spider.

The xantia was the only car i have ever got in where it was possible to miss the break peddle! on two occasions on the first drive, i missed break peddle and only avoided hitting the car in front by doing a handbreak stop. even when you did find the breaks, the wheels would lock at the slightest provocation.

unfortunately it was not a proper rental car but a company pool car, so I could not just leave it there and catch the train home.... i had to drive it home. I have never before or since got into a car expecting to have an accident before i got home.

As for my alfa experiences, i have no idea what model it was. I would guess one of the cheaper models from the early 2000's. it was obviously fragile, gave the impression of being made from tin can steel, sounded real sweet and was a very nice drive.... a shit load better than the mondao I actually paid for.

as for the prius its interested what got better half to by the sporivo model. She wanted the hybrid real/fake leather seats, she did not want the fragile, fake leather that came with the doors on the top and top option models. leaving her with one choice.... that just happened to come with nice alloy's

now I have to plan operation keep the sodding cats from scratching the new car so better half does not do something seriously medieval to them.... she's already had their balls ripped off, so one can hardly imagine the next level of escalation

whilst better half implements operation sell the 17 year old corolla with 180k on the clock and two rear end crashes.

Did you break the brake or was it already broken?

No, but he peddled the pedal

No I would simply take my foot off the accelerator and occasionally my foot would then not find the break peddle. not a very nice experience when it happens and as I said not a problem I have had with any of the many of other cars I have driven.

I guess it could have been a particularly broken xainta given that this was the first and last one I will ever drive. but to be honest I did not see anything about the car that would make me give it a second chance.

Originally Posted by hazz

on two occasions on the first drive, i missed break peddle

And you think it's the car's fault ?

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Originally Posted by hazz

on two occasions on the first drive, i missed break peddle

And you think it's the car's fault ?

Well if i made a habit of missing the break peddle when i drove car's then I would put the blame fairly and squarly on myself.

but given I have driven many many different cars and this only happened on the xanita i'm happy enough to say yes its the car

^Ant, if you ever spend time living around the UK you will discover that there is something in the water that makes people increasingly miserable bustards the further south you go. with Londoner's being particularly miserable. So I would guess that marmit's a southern ponce and just being his natural self.

As for the battery pack, its about two thirds the size of pack of 48 coke cans and probably weighs less than 50 kg. on the engine you will have the wright of two electric motors, but you loose the starter and its gear train, you loose the alternator, the engine transmission is much smaller, simpler and lighter than than a normal automatic, the pumps are all electric and noticeably smaller than those in a normal car. With all that give and take I would guess its heavier, but not that much.

Its not eco car, until last week I have never seen such a car, its simply a car optimised for urban driving the battery is simply there to allow you to recycle the kinetic energy in the car when you break, and to allow you to not use the petrol engine when its most inefficient, ie when idling in a traffic jam or providing acceleration at low speeds. In this respect the prius appears to be a well thought out and designed car.

If you do lots of expressway driving at speed, well, I think you would want something else a subru, tata or merc

As for echo cars. I was looking rounds a few weeks ago for someone to fill a co2 take with something thats good enough to drink. not that easy in thailand as unlike europe all of the co2 in thailand is derived from scrubbing Thailand's natural gas of its unusually high co2 content. so when you are buying that 98%, 99%, 99.1% co2 it might be wise to ask the question whats the 2, 1, 0.1%

anyhow one of the companies I was looking at is called polysource and they produce is a compressor and gas processing unit for creating car grade CNG from biogas. So if you have enough shit in your life, by capturing and burning all that methane you really are driving a eco car on the basis that by burning that methane rather than venting it you are into negative carbon emissions; 1Kg of methane has the global warming impact of 20 kg of co2.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Anyways what I'm curious about is how these hybrids handle. They'd be a lot heavier than your usual car, however I'd imagine that they probably have better weight distribution too. I've never driven one but I'd be keen to just to check that aspect out more than anything else.

I've honestly never thought about the weight affecting the handling of my Prius. The batteries under the rear seats, so weight distribution is really not a factor. I do not think the battery packs are particularly heavy either ... maybe 50kg or so?

Frankly, when you drive it, you are really not aware of it being a hybrid unless you are paying close attention. The transitions from petrol power to electric power are almost undetectable. The car basically handles like any other mid-sized car. If it is in "eco" mode, then it does feel underpowered, but regular mode feels .... well ... regular.

Interesting, I hadn't realized the battery packs were so small and relatively light. I guess I was thinking something more like a scaled-up remote-control car or something.

I was surprised too at just how small the battery is. they are also nickel metal hydride, not lithium as i thought

but then the prius is not an electric car, i suspect that if you force it to run on the battery only it would do less than 2km before loosing the battery charge.

now saying that, apparently, they do sell a prius with a lithium batery pack, a plug so you can charge it from the mains and this will do 24km in EV mode, adding 50% to the cost of the car. I don't see the economics in this and if zero emissions was my interest.... i think i would go bio gas CNG

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Did you break the brake or was it already broken?

no, he peddled the pedal to a broker

Originally Posted by Necron99

Mine wont let you take the keys out unless you are in park and then wont let you move the gearstick until the keys are back in it.
There is a little cover near the gearstick, which if pried open has a button or switch that will let you leave the car in neutral.This should disable all the various interlocks.

On a side note, they go to an awful amount of trouble with Autos to make sure you are in park. But on any manual it's a free for all. Does anyone know why they do this?

the real reason for this is that if you are so stupid that you can not work out how to drive a manual gear box, there is no way they are going to release the responsibility to you for making sure the car does not wonder away when you get out.