So my 145 could be for sale thanks to this...
...hang on a minute...
...that's better and that's also how you should clean your vehicle before driving anywhere. :devil:
Nice looking, reasonably tidy HGT not in yellow, red/faded pink or blue for rarity sake.
Familiar territory. It's a Bravo HLX engine with VFD written on it.
VFD is Variable Frequency Drive, or in English fly by wire throttle body. More about that later as if I mention it now it will involve swearing.
Time for more usual suspects.
Cloudy headlight plastic with no side light bulbs. I guess it had chav spec leds like innit and they were kept.
Knackered engine mount so those (now) 78,000 miles have probably been tough or it was broken by whoever did the belt change six months ago.
Dirty, rusty, pitted rear brake discs after a two hundred and something mile drive home? Calipers need reconditioning then.
Finally...
...and for comedy sake a factory sub box...
...with a three inch woofer? Glad I listened to Classic FM on the way back from Brighton (via Kent for a mate) my ears would be bleeding from the bass from that monster if I had one of my Hardcore CD's with me.
So the good.
The engine is perky and the car is easily as fast as my Bravo was when she was stripped out.
The bad.
The fly by wire throttle is garbage. What were they thinking? There's an over rev' blip every change up and a noticeable delay no matter what you do with the pedal. It's as if they are using "Internet Explorer 2.0" to run the bloody thing. The ABS is horrid and useless. In the dry it's fine but if you're braking normally in adverse conditions and have full control all of a sudden the ABS kicks in and you are literally not braking at all.
The surprising.
Every single Mk2 Punto I have ever driven has had the same problem. The electronic power steering. At best it's total crap, at worst it is the single most dangerous thing ever put on any car; ever. I have driven all the Mk2 Punto's now and can honestly say the HGT is the best of the bunch. With the others the power steering is like an on/off switch. When negotiating a bend the steering kicks in making the wheel light, due to being under load it moves more than you need it to so instead of a smooth round line you end up taking a tetracontagon one. This is true of most electronic power steering vehicles I have driven including the last generation Porsche 911 so it's not just a Punto thing.
With the HGT I don't know if it's the extra weight of the engine, the wider tyres or bigger brakes increasing rotating mass at the hubs but the steering was pretty okay. A little skippy now and then but nowhere near a bad or dangerous as other vehicles.
