Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

For about 5 minutes. It was on the edge of its design capability dragging that Bentley around. That's why VW dusted off the venerable 6.75 Rolls Royce V8 and sent that to Cosworth instead.

Which is why you have a sensible vehicle and The Project.

My project is the Vespa. By a combination of working on it and spending far more than it will ever be worth I made it have 18 horsepower instead of 5½. This is fun but disastrous at the same time. The brakes are still small 1960s drums, and there is no upgrade that will persuade the crank oil seals to stay where they are supposed to. They were marginal at 5½ BHP to be honest.

The project now is persuading it to ever fucking start.

At least in the SoF you won't have to worry about it rusting away.

I find it interesting that the current crop of hot hatches haven't been mentioned in the practical but fun to drive category.. There is barely a duffer at the moment. From the A45s through the golf r/GTi to the focus, then the smaller ones like the Yaris and Hyundai. All hatchbacks with estate versions available. The CLA45s makes a fool of many of the fast wanker barges.

Bugeye Impreza WRX estate (it's really a hatch) is a good car. UK car with PPP will be a hoot to drive and decent on the motorway. Problem is it'll probably be about 50% as economical as the 320d and it'll cost £5-7k.

Over winter, or sometimes after driving in heavy rain, the front suspension on our car (Seat Ibiza) gets really 'crunchy', for want of a better term, over bumps.

I've asked the garage to look at the suspension when servicing it before but they've always said it's fine. It annoys me though, is there some sort of obvious fix? Dampers on the way out? Something drying out from the salt on the road? Should I just spray WD40 everywhere?

Electric power steering≠Involving to drive. For me, anyway - either hydraulic or no PAS for the interesting car.

Thank you for being the automotive voice of reason. The scooby has lots of appeal - the economics less so!

The front suspension on my Civic is clunky at low speed on bumpy surfaces. It's really annoying, but I can't get the specialist garage to settle on a diagnosis. After a few different attempts to have it diagnosed, with a different idea each time from them, they effectively told me (again) that it's not a problem and I should ignore it. It doesn't yield any play when the car is on a lift, and nothing's visually damaged.

The car subsequently failed its MOT due to worn rear suspension bushes - something that neither I, or partner, or garage had noticed! No mention of the front suspension, not even an advisory.

I've heard similar from other people too, so if the car is deemed safe by the experts then it's perhaps best to ignore the noise?

I reckon mine might actually be the anti roll bar bushes, which brings me to a (wild and uninformed) guess about your issue: if its correlated with cold conditions, could it be a knackered bush that gets less compliant when its cold? Perhaps approaching its glass transition temperature?

I had a Troy Queef/bad driving experience on Saturday which I could blame on a lack of steering feel resulting in an inability to add a bit of oppo (Troy), or just entering a narrow corner too fast where the road surface was awful (bad driving). Giulia has very quick turn in but electric steering. Front end slipped away then some lift off oversteer, all the while a police van coming in the other direction!

I find that electric setups are very numb, put the C55 side by side with the E63 and whilst one is much faster, the other is the one you'd most enjoy driving (on anything other than a drag strip).

Yes, as long as they're not outside of their 'working life' or if you're getting into 'fun' cars

Corners are clipped with laser-like precision while the steely-eyed steering makes turning telepathic. On one particularly flirty foldback I slammed shut the gas hammer just at the peak of Gs and felt the square set tail step wide. I simply caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

Sorry didn’t spot this- it’s not quite true, from my understanding. The ZF box couldn’t handle any more torque so what the engine could produce was moot, they switched back to the six and three quarter with a Neolithic but hugely strong 4l80e and immediately set a record for torque production in a passenger car.

Manwithknobinexhaustpipe.jpg

Interesting, thanks for sharing. It does annoy me but I'm not quite dammit, so sounds like I might have to put up with it!

168bhp van more expensive to insure than 568bhp estate.

Snow socks.

Good to know they looked the car over.

Dab of oppo

6/10 sniff score.

Nice car. I had an 03 plate SL version (leather interior, natch) in rallyboywannabe blue.

The fuel consumption isn't great - usually about 23mpg for me - the interior is a bit plasticky, and they chew ARB bushes for fun. As a means of getting from A to B quickly and safely they're pretty awesome, although I never found it was actually that fun to drive. The trouble is that it's so competent it never gets interesting until you're driving at speeds which are potentially both licence and life-threatening.

That's expensive too no? Prices are high in UK now.

Yeah exactly, it's good to have been failed because it suggests everything else is decent enough and has been inspected by someone who isn't crooked!

As in the consumption? Yes, 20mpg is an unrealistic amount of expenditure for me!
As in the price for the car itself? Also yes.

Another vote for staying with the sensible 320d.

Got a pair of wintracs on order for the winter wheels. Not going to be impressed if a big discount code comes through between now and when I get them fitted.