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Possible Rerun Of ... Taller Than That, Greener, More Doors-Mobile


RichardB

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Well my current wheels kippered it yesterday. Which leaves us with the possible return of a taller than that, greener, more doors car (which is cheap) or maybe something else (that would require going back into bank loan territory). Decisions, decisions ...

I know nothing about cars, can just about identify the front end from the back - with assistance from the seating arrangement which is not great if facing the wrong way ...

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Vox should be the man for the job, having walked past the vehicle.

I don't think we ever did establish what make and model of car the "taller, greener, more doors mobile" was.

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Grand Vitara ...

I don't think we ever did establish what make and model of car the "taller, greener, more doors mobile" was.

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Good luck with the new wheels.

For the last 27 years I've owned nothing but the butt of comedians jokes, Skodas, bought new, with one exception.

The exception was a brand new Toyota a couple of years ago. Big mistake !!! If that's the best that the Japanese can do then I fail to see how they sell so many. The road-holding was about as good as a Morris Marina that I once drove donkey's years ago, and every tiny dimple in the road went right through to my fillings.

It cost me a shedload of money to ditch it after 4 months but according to the wife, it went, or I did.

I've owned Skodas right from the rear engined days and I've never broke down once (touch wood) and I never managed to flip the rear engined Estelles around back to front on the road, which is a trick I managed three times with an old VW Beetle I used to drive. Suddenly finding yourself facing backwards at sixty miles per hour on a single carriageway with oncoming traffic behind your head is a thrill I can do without. I wouldn't have minded but it was a dry straight road I was driving down.

I've now got a top spec Octavia with the 7 speed VW/Audi DSG semi-auto gearbox and it drives like a limo. You can drive it manually with stick-shift or paddles but I just let it do it's own thing in Drive and watch the display counting up the gears while I try to listen for gear changes.

Anybody out there thinking about a Skoda, don't let the fancy badge merchants put you off.

HD

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Thank you; never owned "new" wheels, always old bangers that I drive into the ground. Each to his/her own lol

Good luck with the new wheels.

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Grand Vitara ...

So it's a Japanese car made by a company better known for its production of motorcycles.

...and very good motorcycles they are too!

If their cars are half as good as their bikes,,,,then their bikes are twice as good as their cars! lol

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Good luck with the new wheels.

For the last 27 years I've owned nothing but the butt of comedians jokes, Skodas, bought new, with one exception.

The exception was a brand new Toyota a couple of years ago. Big mistake !!! If that's the best that the Japanese can do then I fail to see how they sell so many. The road-holding was about as good as a Morris Marina that I once drove donkey's years ago, and every tiny dimple in the road went right through to my fillings.

It cost me a shedload of money to ditch it after 4 months but according to the wife, it went, or I did.

I've owned Skodas right from the rear engined days and I've never broke down once (touch wood) and I never managed to flip the rear engined Estelles around back to front on the road, which is a trick I managed three times with an old VW Beetle I used to drive. Suddenly finding yourself facing backwards at sixty miles per hour on a single carriageway with oncoming traffic behind your head is a thrill I can do without. I wouldn't have minded but it was a dry straight road I was driving down.

I've now got a top spec Octavia with the 7 speed VW/Audi DSG semi-auto gearbox and it drives like a limo. You can drive it manually with stick-shift or paddles but I just let it do it's own thing in Drive and watch the display counting up the gears while I try to listen for gear changes.

Anybody out there thinking about a Skoda, don't let the fancy badge merchants put you off.

HD

Skoda have definately gone very much up market since the fall of the iron curtain in 1989 when Czechoslovakia (now the Czech republic and Slovakia) gained it freedom to join the west and its collaboration / takeover by the quality German manufacturer, Volkswagon. In fact the cars made in the last 20 years are really Volkswagons rebadged as Skodas so the "jokers" no longer have anything to joke about.

The old Skodas were not actually that bad considering they were built for an eastern market where people were poor but wanted an "affordable" no gimics car for transport. To sell competitively in the west, a basic car had to have a basic price, - so it was cheap and basic (that does not mean unreliable) and this lead to the jokes, - a bit like you get jokes about Reliant 3 wheel vehicles.

One of my first motorbikes was a CZ 250, a Czech made bike very much like a Skoda, - cheap and basic, but it did what I expected of it, - it got me to work and back every day.

Strangely, when I visited the Czech Republic last year (Prague and Brno) the Czech people also have jokes about Skodas very similar to our own. We met an English speaking Czech who acted as our guide. His name was Wrocklav, - "or as you would call me in English" he said "Wencleslas". He had a brilliant sense of humour and came out with a long stream of Skoda jokes.

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Thank you; never owned "new" wheels, always old bangers that I drive into the ground. Each to his/her own lol

I use to run "old bangers" years ago, but increasing mobility problems for myself and my wife meant that reliability was paramount in the choice of a vehicle.

Having said that my first brand new motor, a British Leyland Mini 1000 Auto, was a disaster from start to finish.

It lost all it's lighting on a very dark country lane on the first evening out of the showroom and went downhill from then on.

One of the (many) faults was evident from new, I noticed that when you revved the engine, the little binnacle with the speedo and gauges moved back about an inch taking the parcel shelf with it with a loud creak. Looking under the bonnet I realised that the speedo cable was stretched like a violin string from the front of the engine to the back of the speedo. As the engine tipped forward on it's mounts it pulled the speedo forward.

It took about three trips to the dealer before they admitted that the factory had fitted the component for the geared Mini instead of the longer one for the auto. They couldn't replace it for some weeks because the factory had no stock.

I used to break down about four times a year and met a lot of AA men over the six years I kept it.

For some reason it had Police/AA enanced electrics and I had to ask for a fanbelt for a Austin FX4 taxi.

It finally expired in a cloud of smoke when a core plug fell out in the middle of summer and let all the water out. The water temperature gauge remained resolutely in the middle of it's range throughout the entire performance. There was no steam only black smoke as all the paint burnt off the engine. The auto gearbox bod I took it to told me that all the Ferodo clutch linings were carbonised and all the gears and shafts had turned blue with the heat.

The good news was that I replaced it with a Skoda. :)

HD

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Most amusing, well written that man lol

I use to run "old bangers" years ago, but increasing mobility problems for myself and my wife meant that reliability was paramount in the choice of a vehicle.

Having said that my first brand new motor, a British Leyland Mini 1000 Auto, was a disaster from start to finish.

It lost all it's lighting on a very dark country lane on the first evening out of the showroom and went downhill from then on.

One of the (many) faults was evident from new, I noticed that when you revved the engine, the little binnacle with the speedo and gauges moved back about an inch taking the parcel shelf with it with a loud creak. Looking under the bonnet I realised that the speedo cable was stretched like a violin string from the front of the engine to the back of the speedo. As the engine tipped forward on it's mounts it pulled the speedo forward.

It took about three trips to the dealer before they admitted that the factory had fitted the component for the geared Mini instead of the longer one for the auto. They couldn't replace it for some weeks because the factory had no stock.

I used to break down about four times a year and met a lot of AA men over the six years I kept it.

For some reason it had Police/AA enanced electrics and I had to ask for a fanbelt for a Austin FX4 taxi.

It finally expired in a cloud of smoke when a core plug fell out in the middle of summer and let all the water out. The water temperature gauge remained resolutely in the middle of it's range throughout the entire performance. There was no steam only black smoke as all the paint burnt off the engine. The auto gearbox bod I took it to told me that all the Ferodo clutch linings were carbonised and all the gears and shafts had turned blue with the heat.

The good news was that I replaced it with a Skoda. :)

HD

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Most amusing, well written that man lol

Not that amusing if you own the car and have to put up with all these breakdowns and lack of reliability.

If it played up from day one I am suprised that hilldweller kept it for 6 years before changing it for something better (a Skoda).

My own experience of the mini, which my wife owned, is not good, but I had put that down to the fact that hers was an old banger and not a new car.

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Not that amusing if you own the car and have to put up with all these breakdowns and lack of reliability.

If it played up from day one I am suprised that hilldweller kept it for 6 years before changing it for something better (a Skoda).

Hilldweller is ever the optimist and every time something was replaced I reasoned that it couldn't possibly go wrong again.

To a degree it followed the classic "bathtub curve" failure mechanism in that after all the manufacturing faults had been put right in the first couple of years it behaved itself to a degree until at about five years old when everything started to go wrong again.

Mind you on one occasion I was very grateful, I was returning home early in the morning from a call-out and thraiping it a bit along Low Road at Oughtibridge when the engine cut out just before I breasted the top of the hill and I came to a halt in front of a traffic policeman who had his radar gun trained on me. He looked a very unhappy copper as I got out and lifted the bonnet. I couldn't see anything obvious and when I tried again the engine burst into life. The policeman glared at me as I drove slowly away.

I think the Mini must have been fitted with some obscure optional extra, the "Radar Gun Auto Immobilisation Pack" perhaps. :)

HD

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Hilldweller is ever the optimist and every time something was replaced I reasoned that it couldn't possibly go wrong again.

To a degree it followed the classic "bathtub curve" failure mechanism in that after all the manufacturing faults had been put right in the first couple of years it behaved itself to a degree until at about five years old when everything started to go wrong again.

Mind you on one occasion I was very grateful, I was returning home early in the morning from a call-out and thraiping it a bit along Low Road at Oughtibridge when the engine cut out just before I breasted the top of the hill and I came to a halt in front of a traffic policeman who had his radar gun trained on me. He looked a very unhappy copper as I got out and lifted the bonnet. I couldn't see anything obvious and when I tried again the engine burst into life. The policeman glared at me as I drove slowly away.

I think the Mini must have been fitted with some obscure optional extra, the "Radar Gun Auto Immobilisation Pack" perhaps. :)

HD

Are the modern "minis" any better?

They are not so mini now, - the mini countryman is bigger than my car, - and a lot uglier as well.

They are supposed to be a lot more reliable now as they are not made by strike ridden, couldn't care less British workers in the west midlands but by that well known German company BMW renowned for its "reliability"

Suprising then that "Which?" has recently criticised BMW cars, - including its reveered 3-series, for being amongst the least reliable of cars.

Are BMW that good?

Some of us can remember their Isetta 3 wheel bubble car with a front opening door and no reverse gear similar to the Heinkel bubble car. This design is noted for trapping the driver in the car if you drove it up to wall or garage back.

Some of us also remember many British police forces getting rid of their Norton Commando motorcycles (a move which hastened the demise of Norton-Villiers-Triumph and the British motorcycle industry) to replace them with "more reliable BMW motorcycles" and cut down on "off road garage maintainence time". Within a few years most of them were wishing they still had their Nortons as BMW bikes had serious gearbox problems.

So with cars, - what people percive as "rubbish" (Skoda and Reliant for example) can turn out to be good reliable vehicles, while the cars people think are "good" can often turn out to be quite the opposite.

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Picked up my latest car yesterday at 5.15, did 10 miles, came home.

This morning managed 13 miles before the engine blew-up, most amusing ... he he

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Picked up my latest car yesterday at 5.15, did 10 miles, came home.

This morning managed 13 miles before the engine blew-up, most amusing ... he he

Oh dear,

What make / model is / was the new, very short lived car?

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Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin, 1826 drawn by four-horses, baby 4-wheel drive thing, covered by dealers insurance - you should see what they loaned me - I look like a poor, teenage Columbian drug-baron !

Oh dear,

What make / model is / was the new, very short lived car?

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Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin, 1826 drawn by four-horses, baby 4-wheel drive thing, covered by dealers insurance - you should see what they loaned me - I look like a poor, teenage Columbian drug-baron !

Pray do tell !

I'm sure that a number of forummers would pay out a small fortune if they could buy a vehicle that would make them look like a teenager again.

I certainly would. :rolleyes:

HD

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Exterior

Will try for an interior shot tomorrow ...

Pray do tell !

I'm sure that a number of forummers would pay out a small fortune if they could buy a vehicle that would make them look like a teenager again.

I certainly would. :rolleyes:

HD

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Respect !

All it wants are a 4 inch diameter chrome plated bull-bar and anti-roll cage and you're laughing.

A very useful vehicle if you only get on with one of your passengers.

HD

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I think I'll be driving around Sheffield in it this coming weekend, keep an eye out for me. Guns, shades, loud music, bling, hat on backwards and semi-clad young ladies draped all over the vehicle are all options in my overactive imagination.

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