Ha Ha. I accept. Shall we say next years SDMB subscription?
Either that, or one of the characters in The Producers!
(Actually, that one was spelled “Carmen Giya!”)
Or, as the case may be, a writer of gay Star Trek smut.
I’m telling you, the world was a lot more understandable before search engines were invented.
Well, I must have gotten the lemon of VW’s Jetta batch. I maintained mine very, very well, taking it in right on time for every check-up and oil change, and replacing things as needed. Sometimes you just get shafted.
Now, I would really love to send my Jetta back to VW in a tiny box with a bow on it, but unfortunately if I did that, it wouldn’t be worth much for trade-in. 
Dude, relax!
I never claimed to be a car expert, but yeah, I pretty much figured out the adding/changing oil thing when I did it regularly for my first Volkswagen. Which was a '69 p.o.s. Bug that had just about everything possible go wrong with it. But my oil was fine, and – here’s the key point, so pay attention – I didn’t have to mess with the oil this often.
No, I don’t check my oil level every time I get a new tank of gas. I should be able to check it only once every couple of months or so. And I shouldn’t have the low-oil light come on less than 800 or so miles after an oil change. Maybe I’m mistaken.
Thanks for talking to me like I’m an idiot, though.
Geez, I can see why they haven’t bothered to introduce that model over here.
I know the markets are different in Europe, but do Toyota and Honda have any decent market share? Practically every compact car in the U.S. is either a Corolla or a Civic. The Civic Coupe starts at the same price as your Lupo, and has a 115-hp engine, AC and CD player, and gets about 35 mpg on the highway. What does that run in Europe?
(And by the way, while I’m very happy with my Accord, I wish they would introduce the European Wagon version here. I could use the extra space and besides, the back end of the European Accord looks much better anyway.)
Firstly Coldfire, I wasn’t really impressed with oil changes, rather I was just stating that diesels aren’t cars that you have to change the oil on every 2000 miles. Also, I would probably not have gotten a VW if it weren’t the only diesel in the US. I like a lot of the European diesels better, but since we have idotic laws for emissions, we won’t really be seeing much diesel here for a long time.
Secondly, I don’t really vouch of a lot of stuff for Volkswagen, but I love mine, and it has given me no trouble, probably because I have maintained it myself. I hear that many VW dealers are pretty retarded when it comes to maintenance. My 2001 Jetta runs great, and shows no sign of stopping. I don’t have any experience in other cars though. Maybe you got a lemon? Maybe all 1999 Jettas are that bad? I can’t really say.
Yes, even Consumers reports has noted the significant decline in reliability.
Used to be VW’s were A, now they are D or worse.
Oh, and overlyverbose - a Toyota is a great car- but whatever you do-do not ever, ever buy anything from a Toyota DEALER . Cars are great, dealers are the worst crooks in the business. (Again, backed up by Consumers reports, which show extremely poor satisfaction wuth the deal.).
I have always had good luck with Saturns, but I also noticed that my 2001 saturn -altho nicer than my earlier Saturn- actually had to have (GASP!) warranty work done!! (My '92 Saturn never had anything that needed 'repairs". Of course, it needed maintenence…)
Toyota is a pretty well selling brand here. Honda is small.
Dutch sales figures for 2003
Scroll down to “merken top 30”. Toyota is the seventh brand, and Honda is 25th.
I’d say over here, 90% of the compact market is covered by Peugeot, Volkswagen, Opel, Renault, and Ford.
A Civic Coupé with the 1.7 liter 120 BHP engine starts at €22,500 over here, or some $27,000. Yes, cars are expensive here! I agree that the Euro version of the Accord is better looking than the American one. Don’t care much for the station version though - it looks too “long” to me. The sedan is a stunning car, though.
Merkwurdigliebe, too bad you can’t get a Citroën in America. Not only do they have smoother diesel engines, they’ve also been equiped with diesel soot filters since 1999 (Peugeot and Citroën were the innovators in this regard), making the car extremely environmentally friendly - I’ve read that mine’s about 4 times “cleaner” than the comparable petrol version. The German brands are only now catching on tot he soot filters - currently, only Mercedes and BMW offer them as standard. Vorsprung durch Technik, mein Arsch. 
Coldfire, this will amuse you. A few months ago I took a long vacation to Spain. Barcelona, train to Granada, then rented a car in Granada to go to the Costa Del Sol. Originally the car they set us up with was a new VW Lupo. We went to the parking lot, threw our luggage in, got inside…and it wouldn’t start! I checked the gas, made sure I didn’t violate any sort of “glow-plug warning light” - no dice. Went back inside, they had a guy go out there with me and it wouldn’t start for him either.
So they replaced it with…an Xsara, identical to the one in your picture (except it was a four-door sedan) - same color, same year. That thing drove like an absolute CHAMP, A/C full blast, fifth gear diesel chugging up and down hills. We took it up to Ronda in the mountains and I barely had to downshift into fourth gear to pass people on a steep upgrade. I turned it in in Sevilla, seriously comtemplating paying to ship a C3 to me in San Francisco. My brother has a Golf TDI which I’ve driven many times, and the engine on that Xsara kicked the holy shit out of it.
Yes, my brother drove one of these horrible cars. In the six months he owned it, it had two blown head gaskets, three fried alternators, and went through several batteries. I guess this shows all automakers have their problem cars.
As far as diesel cars in the U.S. go, they can’t meet Californias stricter emissions standards, so they’re pretty much a dead issue here. Part of the problem is that diesel fuel here has way more sulfur than European diesel does because of the aged refineries in this country. As a matter of fact, when Ford brought several Euro Ford Focuses(Foci?) here to be evaluated by the media they had to import fuel from Europe because the car couldn’t tolerate the fuel in this country.
No, that is indeed what mechanics call it. Don’t believe me? Ask any mechanic.
Didn’t say you do. I was trying to explain that if the oil pressure light comes on, it’s serious. It doesn’t just mean “time to change the oil”. You don’t have to be a mechanic to know that when warning lights come on, you need to talk to your mechanic, not just drive over to Jiffy Lube.
Actually, new cars lose more oil before they’re broken in. It’s prudent to pull out the dipstick once in awhile and make sure the level’s o.k. It isn’t rocket science; reading a dipstick couldn’t be simpler.
I did not say it was SolGrundy’s fault that the car burns oil. I said that having a low oil level means one should add oil, not change the oil. You change the oil at regular intervals, (every 5,000 miles for my car, for example), not when it gets low.
Obviously you didn’t, because what you wrote demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of it.
I’m not disputing that; I was correcting your misunderstanding of the purpose of the oil light, and at what intervals oil should be changed.
I never disputed that. What you said was that the “change oil” light comes on “every time you turn a corner”, and you made a reference to having to “change the oil” at 2000 miles, so it appeared that you were saying this happens at 2000 miles. You never said anything about 800 miles.
I’m sorry that I came off as snippy about it, but it’s NOT a “change oil” light. And I reiterate that the first time the oil light came on, the engine was probably already getting damaged. Engines don’t like to run without oil, and by the time the light comes on, it’s already too late.
Again, sorry for being snippy, but I didn’t call you an idiot. I said it’s called an “idiot light” which is true, but that wasn’t intended to be any reflection on you. I just think you’re ignorant as to this particular point, but I don’t think you’re an idiot in any way. I think it’s a very important thing to know, and while I know I didn’t say it in the nicest way possible, I never implied that you were stupid. I just stated facts about engines as I know them, and any mechanic would agree with what I said.
Dooku, your story made my morning. Glad you liked the Xsara HDI. Sure, it’s a little bland in the looks department, but it’s comfortable (good seats!), corners excellently (courtesy of the Peugeot 306 floor pan, considered the best of the hatchback market until the Ford Focus came out), and yes, the engine’s great.
mike1dog said:
I was all ready to start screaming that my car DID meet the Cali emission standards, even the future ones, and then I read your comment about “American” diesel. Interesting! I wasn’t aware of that. Does that mean that Volkswagen alters their TDI’s for the US market as well, then? Good thing Dooku didn’t import a Citroën diesel to the US, he would have killed it at the first gas station.
blowero, your post is factually correct - I know mechanics refer to the low oil indicator as the “idiot light”, or at least, I’d heard it before. I also know new cars use oil when they’re being broken in (especially diesels, actually), but normal oil consumption should be reached after about 7,000 miles or so. I’m guessing SolGrundy’s car has done more than that. Also, I’m aware that the oil indicator light means “Your oil is dangerously low”, not “Your oil is rather old”. I think SG may have been a tad hyperbolic when she said the light came on “at every street corner”, indicating her frustration with a car that burns oil almost as fast as it does fuel.
Incidently, I’m no stranger to regularly topping off oil myself - I ride a Yamaha. Fellow Yammie owners will know what I mean.
Regarding CITROEN: I’ve always liked this car…they really made a comfortable car…pity they gave up on the US market! Anyway, does CITROEN still use their famous hydropneumatic suspension? You could raise and lower the car at the touch of a button! One of my Dutch friends told me the hydraulic fluid was quite expensive though…and if you developed a leak, you had expensive problems. Do they still use that weird “rotating dial” speedometer?
Lastly…a lot of cars in Holland run on compressed natural gas…is this cheaper than diesel? I understand that these cars run so clean that they never need oil changes! Can you still buy the Russian Fiats (Lada) in Holland?
Heh! Déjà-vu! I just told mangeorge about the hydropneumatic suspension in another thread.
Long story short: the Citroën C5 still has it. From what I hear from “Citronists” who drive the older models, the cost problem associated with this system is vastly exaggerated. A hydro sphere costs €40 or somesuch, and the fluid isn’t all that expensive, either. Back in the day, Citroëns had covered rear wheels, so that jacked up the labour costs for repairs a bit. But truthfully, the systems are quite reliable (ever since the first DS series, they decided NOT to lead the suspension pipes under the car’s floor unprotected :eek: ), and I’m told a set on a modern Cit will last you at least 200,000 kilometers. That’s more than can be said for the average shock absorber.
No rotating dials anymore, alas… I believe the last model that had that was the first series of the BX, in the early 1980s.
LPG (liquid petrol gas) is a popular fuel in Holland, mainly because our country has large gas reserves. Cars running on LPG are incredibly environmentally friendly. Most modern installations produce almost pure C02 as exhaust waste. It’s relatively cheap, but has its down sides: If you don’t have the latest evolution in LPG installations, your road tax is higher than for petrol, meaning the break-even point is quite high (usually 35,000+ km per year, depending on the weight of the car). The latest incarnation of LPG systems are called G3-class, and are road tax free. Downsides: fuel consumption is higher, so you have to stop for gas more often. Your car needs an extra fuel tank, as it will always need regular petrol to start (the engine switches to LPG in a few seconds). This costs a lot of boot space, or your spare wheel (the so-called “donut tank”, replacing the spare wheel under the car. Also, certain parking garages and for example the train through the Channel Tunnel ban LPG cars because they are presumed an explosion risk - which is a load of bollocks, I personally think. But anyway. Lastly, LPG doesn’t work with all cars. Renaults and BMW’s are two brands that come to mind when thinking of ultimate LPG disasters. But a lot of uncomplicated 4-cylinder engines (and indeed old uncomplicated American V8’s!) will run just fine on LPG.
Oh: LPG cars need oil changes just as frequently as their petrol counterparts, seeing as the car always runs on petrol to start with - and then switches over.
Lada still sells cars in Holland, but they are no longer based on the Fiat 124.
There’s one near where I live, and that’s the ONLY modern Lada I’ve ever seen in Holland since the model was introduced some 5 years ago. I bet there’s less than 100 of them in the country. The old ones are almost gone, too - back to the former East Block, often. And they’re quite sought after as entry-level amateur rallye cars, what with their rear-wheel drive and easy mechanics.
Any other questions?
I’ve always been interested in the old DAF belt-drive CVT. I know that Van Dorn invented this system…is this the same system used today (by AUDI, GM, FORD)? Or have the original DAF patents run out? I happened to test drive a HONDA CIVIC equipped with the CVT…it was a weird experiece…it felyt like driving a manual tranmission car with a worn-out, badly slipping clutch!
How faris DELFT from Amsterdam? Is it accesiblevia train?
Houd Mittag to you,did I get that right?
Poor overlyverbose, she thinks this is still about Volkwagens!
The CVT (continous variable transmission) is made by a company called VDT (Van Doorne’s Transmissie), and it’s still the same thing that was introduced in DAFs in the 1950’s. Of course, it has evolved a lot: I know that today, it is used by Fiat, Nissan, and Audi, for example. One problem is its limited tolerance for torque: I believe Audi has the most powerful CVT in the A6, with about 300 BHP. The belts won’t take much more at this stage. Don’t know if there are any GM cars with CVT.
Delft is about a 1 hour train ride from Amsterdam - you might have to change trains at The Hague, though.
I think you meant “Goedemiddag”, but it was close enough, phonetically.
Citroen’s hydraulic fluid (L.H.M.) is very cheap because it is a simple mineral oil. I don’t know about the newer Citroens, but they say that DS’s hydaulic system is rather simple and extremely robust. And no problems so far with my DS!
The “rotating” speedometer is really cool. And the single spoke steering wheel
Glad to oblige. And I wouldn’t say that it was a bad looking car - when you see nothing but carbon-copy Hondas, Toyotas and SUVs, your eyes slake over anything that looks different. I thought it had pretty clean lines, and yes the seats were a pleasant surprise. (Good thing I never followed through on the C3 - it would probably be sitting on a Pier right now).
Yeah, I meant compared to European cars. Agreed, it’s a hell of a lot nicer than most vehicles crowding American streets.
But then, perhaps I’m biased.
Could one feasibly import a car into the US? Is it the same as over here, where if it’s not officially imported, you need to get it road-certified yourself, meaning much dough and frustration?
(Oh, and I just bought a new set of 220W Pioneer speakers for the Cit. It may look boring, but it’ll sound kick-ass. :D)