duro

Don't know if there's a corresponding saying in English but, translating literally from Italian: "Idiots' mother is always pregnant".

Ehm... That's not a 127 (see here e.g.: ) That's a Fiat 128 Panorama (sort of estate version of the 128 saloon). Re. the last one mentioned, I assume you mean Cinquecento. My list is: 1. 1978 Citroen Dyane (bought new and sold in 1990 to a friend) 2. 1990 Peugeot 205 CTI 1.6 (bought new and crashed into a parked bus on Xmas night by wife :( ) 3. 1999 Renault Kangoo 1.9 D (bought new and crashed into a roundabout by wife :( ) 4. 2001 Renault Kangoo 1.9 DTi (bought new and given away to a friend one month ago as too old to stand next winter traffic regulation) 5. 2012 Skoda Octavia Estate 1.6CRD (bought 2ndhand) Also, as 2nd family cars: 2004 Toyota Yaris 1.3 auto (sold to a friend in 2010 as wife wanted "a new car") 2007 Toyota Yaris 1.0, current wife's car (but also sonny's) These were the everyday, "regular" cars. Meanwhile I also drove often: 1971 Fiat 500 (the real, original one), mum's car 1975 Innocenti Mini 1000 (Bertone's redesign), dad's car 1982 Innocenti Mini 3cilindri (same as above but with modern Daihatsu engine), dad's car 1985 Alfa Romeo 33 1.5 Quadrifoglio Oro, dad's car 1992 Ford Mondeo 2.0 Estate Ghia (scrapped 2yrs ago after dad passed away and nobody wanted such a car even for free), dad's car And, being a fan of old cars: 1963 Alfa Romeo Giulietta TI (the real, original one) 1974 Land Rover 88 s.III SW 1970 Mercedes 280SE (W108) 1974 Citroen Ami8 Break All these have gone to other homes.

Searching through the offer of a mailorder shop (in Italy but I suspect it's foreign, maybe French) I made a shortlist (see below). Beside each tyre I put the estimated fitted cost and the "Economy" rating, the "Rain" rating and the noise level (in db), all of them the lower the better. All these are "summer" tyres. Hankook Ventus Prime 2 K115 (340€) B B 69 Goodyear Efficient Grip Performance (372€) B A 68 Dunlop Sport BluResponse (380€) B A 68 Michelin Energy Saver + (406€) B A 70 Continental PremiumContact 5 (380€) C A 71 Yokohama BlueEarth-1 (354€) C B 69 Any comments? Experience?

Nothing to worry about. It's a built-in safety feature. It warns you about approaching/reaching/just passing the highway speed limit (depending on country). It gives you the choice of staying below limit or just ignore it and go positively above. After all, the 75-90Mph range could be considered the "useless speed range", as it's too low to be really, usefully fast but high enough to risk a ticket.

I subscribe silver1011 advice for a trolley jack and couple axle stands. They make the difference when DIY. Re. the spare wheel, why not going 2nd hand? In these spring days, when almost everybody is exchanging winter tyres with summer ones, there are lots of them on the market. Knowing how it will be messy and crowded to buy winter wheel next october/november, I planned in advance. I found 4 Audi steel wheels with good (say at least 70/80%) winter tyres for a total of 130€ (less than the cost of just one wheel+tyre).

First: I think that trusting the maxidot "range" figure is foolish, given the maxidot inaccuracy about consumption AND the fact that it just calculates the remaining range on the basis on previous average consumption. You know that old joke about the guy stopped by police for speeding and justifying himself by saying he was trying to arrive before running out of fuel? Second: I suspect that all tanks are far larger than advertised. Or it's the indicator... Yesterday I filled up just after the reserve light came on. Exactly 50 litres went in. The handbook says I have a 55 l tank and the reserve is 9 l. There's a 4 l mistake somewere. Same happens with my Suzuki V-Strom. Tank indicator is always very pessimistic. I think that when it says the tank's empty, there are still 3-4 l left. And that even in a comparatively smaller bike tank (mine is 22).

DSG7 has no creep? Really? Mine has. Anyway, I didn't even know about the possibility of HH when I chose my car. Expecially for one of the advantages of auto shift is that you can use left foot on the brake while preparing to accelerate (why should this be "bad practice"?) Besides, there's the handbrake. It's not useless in uphill starts. If you've to start gently (not gunning away) on a steep ramp, because of space limitation or slippery surface. Handbrake saved my life at least once (starting uphill on a muddy country road with roadside melting away under my wheels and a 300mt slope under me.) That's one reason why I hate the new fashion for electric handbrakes which can only be ON or OFF.

Anyway, re. maxidot accuracy, my last fill-to-fill (almost only town driving) was: 15.9 km/l on maxidot vs 13.7 km/l "real". That's over 15% "optimism"!

They will surely explain that in their first quotation they forgot to mention the out-of-standard caviar grease and platinum-plated gloves they'd use as a special, super-pro service. Two years ago I went to MOT my brother's Toyota at the closest MOT-authorized shop. It passed with no problems but afterwards the mech told me the tyres were pretty gone and it'd been better to change them. Knowing the car was going to be sold soon, I said "Thanks. I'll think about it." After a couple of days I popped in my usual, small and accurate tyre fitter for advice. He said the tyre would have gone thousands of kms more. BTW, the MOT shop happens to be also a big tyre fitter. Moral: Always take a second (or even third) advice, at least until you find a 100% trustable shop.

Manufacturers DO make compromises as anybody else (apart maybe F1 teams). "Compromises" does not mean bad quality. It means making a deliberate choice between quality and cost. Do you think your VRS brakes are identical to those of F1 cars? Obviously not. Why? 'Cause the cost would be unbearable for a "marketable" car and the extra performance would be unjustified. And please note that I was not talking about "some other products of unknown origin". I was talking about branded, quality products. Porsche (a VAG make, BTW) proudly sports Brembo brakes. Would you mean that a brand good enough for Porsche is not good enough for Skoda? I've been in the spare parts trade for over a dozen years and I know what I mean. I know (and it should be quite evident) that the vast majority of components of a car are sourced outside (say, all the electric parts, wheels&tyres, shocks, glass, plastics, rubber, etc.) When the car maker strike a deal with, say, Ferodo for the brakes they do not ask for the absolute best. They ask for a precisely defined given "quality" (i.e. performance, reliability, ease of fitting, etc.) at a given price. When we look in particular to options, pls note that the price we pay to the car maker to have them installed is far higher than what they paid. On options, car makers and delers make margins they cannot make over the "basic" car. That's one of the reasons why they tend to sell you "packages", in order to sell options other than those you strictly desired (the other reason being simpler production planning, which means lower costs). Years ago I was told by boss of Pioneer that the car stereos they sold at 100€ in supermarkets were twice as better than the 300/400€ stereo you could have as a factory-installed optional (and which were paid a few bucks by the car maker). To make an example with a perfectly comparable item, take the sunroof. It's not made by VAG. VAG buys it outside (very likely by Webasto) and installs it on Skoda, VW, Audi, etc. and, on comparable size cars, it's always the very same item. But, if you buy it for an Octavia you pay 960€, on a Golf 1024€, on a Passat 1037€, on an A3 1110€, on an A4 1140€. Why? 'Cause VAG knows very well that the average purchaser of an A3 is likely to be willing to spend 150€ more than the average purchaser of an Octavia. As far as "OEM" is concerned, I'll give you another example. I traded in spares for classic Mercedes cars. When clients asked us for shock absorbers, we offered them a well-explained option: OEM M-B or Bilstein? Some clients (the picky or the rich ones) chose OEM. Others went for the Bilstein. Well, the OEM M-B shocks simply were Bilstein ones with a "M-B star" stamped on them, a M-B branded box and a +100% price tag. Absolutely no other difference whatsoever. Clients who insisted for the OEM items used to say "I feel safer with OEM parts". Actually, they should have said "I'm not trusting you as an honest seller and I suspect you want to sell me cheap things on which you earn more money". So, it's not a matter of trusting OEM, it's about trusting the seller. We never tried to insist with those guys. After all, the higher the price tag, the higher the profit. To sum it up: 1. OEM components (apart a few big things like chassis or engine big parts) are just "third party" products on which the car maker put an extra profit. 2. OEM components are usually fairly good but sometimes they're fairly poor. E.g. the plastic wheel of the water pump of many BMW TD engines of some time ago (on BMW and LandRover cars), often broken with devastating effects on engines: a few pence profit for BMW and a potential 1000's£ damage for clients. 3. There is always something better out there. Just look for it. You can have better quality at the same price or same quality at a lower price or even better quality and price. The question is not "Are Brembo brakes better than OEM". The question is "IF Brembo brakes are much dearer than OEM, am I willing to pay the extra?" BTW, this same consideration can be made over servicing and repair. Official dealers are not necessarily better than independent ones (I've had my fair share of angry clients coming to us to have a proper mechanic or body works advice after being ripped off by official dealers or even country reps of car makers which had made disasters on their cars.) On a final note: How can you relate the type of car to how hard one drives? I have a 1.6CRD for I cannot afford costs of a VRS. If cost wasn't an option, everybody's garage was full of RR's and Bugatti.

Only... Original stuff is almost always stuff made by somebody else and rebranded (and with a little extra £). So the secret is to discover who really makes the "original stuff" and thus save £. Besides, it's not always true that "Can't go wrong with the original equipment stuff" for car makers do make compromises (as everybody) and there's always room for improvement.

I don't "feel the 'need' to justify the mpg claims of the Diesel engine" as I have to report to nobody. I live in the province of Milano. Going around my "countryside" (which is pretty trafficked too) I regularly achieve 55MPG on my Octavia 1.6TDI (on my wife's petrol Yaris 1.0 I get 60MPG.) Today I've been to other other side of the city (3 up), so driving almost all of the trip in heavy traffic. Back to home I checked: 45MPG. Please note that I – as most Italian drivers – virtually never care of speed limits (unless a speed camera is likely to be out there). With my Suzuki V-Strom 650 I achieve (on mixed ways) 62-70MPG. Maybe the "secret" is I use high gears a lot – unless the very moment of overtaking et similia –. My wife, who "pulls" gears more than me (without being a bad driver either) achieves about 10MPG less on same road/car. Staying below 45MPG with a modern diesel car means driving ALWAYS in heavy traffic or driving ALWAYS fast or driving, well, quite badly (eco-wise).

Hmmm... 104£ roughly equal 140€. For approx that money I found on ebay Brembo discs and pads (delivered in Italy, from different sources.) Don't know how the Pagid parts fare performancewise... but to get Brembo brakes one could even be ready to spend a few € more.

What's this issue about supermarket fuel? I don't use it simply for it's not available here (virtually all pumps are branded, even those in supermkts) but as far as I know (and I was told by a former client, being it a major fuel brand), pumps are delivered with the closest available fuel (i.e. from the closest refinery or deposit) because of the huge incidence of transportation cost over the fuel total cost. The very same fuel brands do this (they deliver with their branded tankers but buying it from the closest deposit, even a competitor's or an independent one), not counting the pump owners who should be obliged by contract to buy from the "parent" brand but "sometimes" buy from cheaper providers. In fact, a recent test made by car magazine Quattroruote over fuel coming from all different brands AND from "independent" pumps found virtually irrelevant differences in all parametres (i.e. sulfur content, etc.)

Hmmm... I was looking not for dragster performances but just for a bit of extra torque low down and another 10-15HP. The Octavia, with all her gimmicks etc. is quite heavy. Actually, I find it more ponderous than my old 80HP Kangoo (prob. just a sensation for the kg/HP ratio is – slightly – better).

I've just given away my Renault Kangoo as a present to a friend for it's an Euro3 diesel and law won't allow me to drive it a lot next winter. It has 170,000km and still going strong (ok, it's a Renault, so a few minor faults from new). I've old Fiat taxis with 250,000 km on the clock. And they were TAXIS! The worst possible usage for a car. VAG group cars are built better than French and Fiat cars but obviously you can incur in the unfortunate single car. Re. the Touran, it was one of the cars in the shortlist when I decided to buy, mainly because of reliability and space (after owning a Kangoo, everything else seems small inside and big outside). I finally discarded it because I read many opinions about it being way too clumsy (remember it's much heavier than a comparable engine Octavia).

Has any of you tried this: http://www.ebay.it/itm/CAR-DASHBOARD-PHONE-HOLDER-MOUNT-FOR-APPLE-IPHONE-4-4S-3G-3GS-5-MOUNT-CRADLE-GPS-/370757038879?_trksid=m8&_trkparms=algo%3DMW%26its%3DC%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D3%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D8283730007467236657&_qi=RTM1421214 I understand it relies on "stickiness" to hold both to the dashboard and to the phone.

My '12 1.6CRD has a 61Ah battery (don't know the alternator).

According to here: http://www.wheelfitm...avia (2013 - )/ they're the same.

Hmmm... 556,000 km... At my currrent yearly driving pace, it'll take me about 61 years. At that time I'll be 115 and probably close to have my license not renewed because of age. So, why worry?

Well, I gave my 170.000km 1.9dTi away to a friend just because it's an Euro3 diesel and it'd be pretty unusable next winter (traffic laws here) and so not worth of spending money on tax, insurance, brakes and tyres. And it still went as new.

Yes, today it's the 1.6 having 130HP while the 1.5 goes from 75 to 110HP (which still is a 1.47/1 ratio). I remembered the 1.5 going up to 130 but I could be wrong. By the way, the old 1.9 started its life as an aspirated diesel and I had it in my first Kangoo with only 65HP (sluggish but reliable, pity that I had to write off it after my wife tried to take a roundabout in a straight line...) In turboed version it went from 80 to 130HP, so quite a difference.

Don't know the issue but I guess it be a faulty sensor. I had a Kangoo for 12 years and almost since new the "faulty airbag" light went on and off, usually depending on bumps on the road. The culprit was a sensor in the passenger seat, so I simply ignored it. If yours is coming on and off, it could well be a badly connected wire/sensor.

Update: I checked my oil today for the first time (remember I've just bought my car serviced) and... surprise! She has a wonderful, plastic dipstick with a patterned checking area like that of my wife's Yaris or even better. I found it really easily readable (and if I find it readable...) Probably each engine has a different dipstick size but if some of you have a "plain" one and want to shift to a very readable one, you can check its size. Mine (remember it's from a 1.6TDI) is 525mm long (from collar to tip) and the patterned "checking area" is starting 10mm up from the tip up to 30mm (i.e. it's 20mm long).

Everybody need high HP values to sell cars. For one, I was long time uncertain if the 105HP 1.6 was enough (as there were several reviews saying it's a bit gutless) or if it was better to go for the 2.0. In the end I went for the 1.6 but if Skoda had advertised it as a 125HP 1.6, I'd have had no doubts at all. Anyway, as far as reliability is concerned, it came to my mind one – maybe – significant paragon: the Renault 1.5TD, an engine whose HP record I know for it's used in several cars I considered as alternative to the Octavia. This engine is used virtually throughout the Renault range, beside also Dacia and the new Mercedes A. Its power delivery goes from 70HP of the lowliest versions of the Kangoo van to 130HP of the Mégane. That's a 1.85/1 variation! Obviously, I don't think the 130HP to be as sober as the 70HP but at least reliability should be virtually the same, as we're not talking about race-tuned engines. Andrew, it's just me being unable to find it or a "real" box for my 1.6TD CR 105HP is not available from you?