Another Dealer Quits

[bugsymike]

Folk think that remote means being in the middle of nowhere but we’re only four miles from Skipton and keighley, they stopped the buses on top lane 10yr ago and, unless you get up (which the missus has to do) at 6am, you have no chance of parking at the train station, one hasn’t got a car park and the other has 15 parking spaces, the surrounding area only has residents permit parking

The trouble is laws are made by people who are withing the Westminster "bubble" and would probably have a heart attack living in the real World on low income trying to make ends meet.
Living in big cities often transport is subsidised and freely available so going without cars or changing to EVs is less of an imposition. Also charging points are more likely to be found in busy areas for economic reasons.

 

[StevenRB45]

Now...this isn't vaguely Fiat related.

But the cheap electric cars..they are coming. C3 was the First..and will be here first, then comes the new Panda also sounds like Vauxhall will have a cheap electric car. Moving away from the current German and Tesla thinking of "needs more range so fit a massive battery, oops it's 55 grand now"

This would appear to slot in below but may actually be city car sized rather than large supermini.

Renault Twingo to return in 2026 as sub-£17,000 EV | Autocar

Electric Twingo replacement will be designed and manufactured in Europe and serve as brand's entry-level EV

www.autocar.co.uk

Personally I'm an absolute mercenary when it comes to car brands, if it does the job and the price is right and it doesn't look crap then that'll do..but I suspect from the distance between the back door and boot lid the boot will be sub 200 litres.

Small cars you mainly use for short trips make far more sense environmentally as BEVs than trying to force a BEV to rival a diesel at least with current battery tech.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Personally I'm an absolute mercenary when it comes to car brands, if it does the job and the price is right and it doesn't look crap then that'll do..but I suspect from the distance between the back door and boot lid the boot will be sub 200 litres.

There are a lot of people who seem to think that the car they choose some how reflects who they are as a person and takes great pride in their chosen "tribe"

They can get quite het up about someone passing any comment on their car who they feel is from a different tribe.

There are then the proper car people who can enjoy any car for what it is, even something objectively terrible can be a great fun car.

I just enjoy posting something on this post and then watching it take off over and over again with the same stuff being dredged up each time. opinions based on old anti EV nonsense that has been churned around for years.

Like you I accept that cars have a best use case, and there are situations where an EV makes more sense than an ICE car, Equally there are scenarios where a diesel or petrol may make better sense.

 

[SB1500]

Now...this isn't vaguely Fiat related.

But the cheap electric cars..they are coming. C3 was the First..and will be here first, then comes the new Panda also sounds like Vauxhall will have a cheap electric car. Moving away from the current German and Tesla thinking of "needs more range so fit a massive battery, oops it's 55 grand now"

This would appear to slot in below but may actually be city car sized rather than large supermini.

Renault Twingo to return in 2026 as sub-£17,000 EV | Autocar

Electric Twingo replacement will be designed and manufactured in Europe and serve as brand's entry-level EV

www.autocar.co.uk

Personally I'm an absolute mercenary when it comes to car brands, if it does the job and the price is right and it doesn't look crap then that'll do..but I suspect from the distance between the back door and boot lid the boot will be sub 200 litres.

Small cars you mainly use for short trips make far more sense environmentally as BEVs than trying to force a BEV to rival a diesel at least with current battery tech.

That’ll be new-C3/Panda/Corsa prime competition.

There’s a phrase the Fiat CEO used about the upcoming Panda, something like “Chinese EVs will fear it”. I like that attitude. European car makers are confident against the wave that’s already hitting our shores. I like that they’re aware of what’s about to happen, and what is imminently to come will be designed to compete and hopefully obliterate them…. Bring it on.

Hell… if I had to, I’d drive a VW up over any of their crap just to spite ‘em. For me, that’s saying something

 

[porta]

That’ll be new-C3/Panda/Corsa prime competition.

There’s a phrase the Fiat CEO used about the upcoming Panda, something like “Chinese EVs will fear it”. I like that attitude. European car makers are confident against the wave that’s already hitting our shores. I like that they’re aware of what’s about to happen, and what is imminently to come will be designed to compete and hopefully obliterate them…. Bring it on.

Hell… if I had to, I’d drive a VW up over any of their crap just to spite ‘em. For me, that’s saying something

I think that’s a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t have a VAG product personally…especially considering there’s ‘premium brands’ EVs on Chinese platforms, a fact I pointed out to the neighbour wehn he took the **** out of my Panda (he thought they were French) so I told him his nice new Volvo is Chinese

 

[SB1500]

I think that’s a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t have a VAG product personally…especially considering there’s ‘premium brands’ EVs on Chinese platforms, a fact I pointed out to the neighbour wehn he took the **** out of my Panda (he thought they were French) so I told him his nice new Volvo is Chinese

VAG was always the last thing I’d have too, and I wouldn’t like it, but between that and the Chinese crap.. Definitely an easy choice. I don’t buy that they can build something premium or luxury to save their lives any more than Hyundai / Kia can… in the showroom maybe. On the road, it’s a cruel joke for owners abandoned by basic warranty claim refusals and issues that the main brands probably conquered in the 80s/90s…

A relative of mine bought a Xiaomi laptop years ago… it was something like £600 - had the same i5 processor as my MacBook Pro at the time - and a metal build, glossy screen, backlit keys - all the bells and whistles. At an absolute steal of a price. Initially we were impressed. Seemed to work okay (despite coming with an unlicensed Windows install….). A year later, the charger fell apart, taped together. Can’t be used without the battery plugged in. Hinge loose and wobbly. Annoying high pitched whine from the fan. Just goes to show, unless you have the research and design facilities to back these things up, they’ll fall flat in the real world. I have no faith that their EVs at any price will be any better quality.

And sure.. “oh but your iPhone is made there!” Yep. To a design from America. Using machine tooling designed in and maintained by Americans. Under American quality control standards. Sure. Go buy an iPhone screen on AliExpress for peanuts. See how that holds up (note: it doesn’t). Poor screen colour, brightness, fidgety fragile ribbon cables, dead pixels, barely any sensitivity to touch. They can copy all they like. Or at least… try to. They haven’t a clue.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

So for those who still think that electric cars are a "flash in the pan" or something that is only happening because the government is forcing them to do so.

Stellantis CEO recently stated that the entire company is switching to electric vehicles across the whole world, including in the USA where there is no law telling them they can't make petrol cars.
They are actually turning their most powerful Dodge trucks and muscle cars into EVS.

The CEO Carlos Tavares is executing the "Dare Forward 2030 plan", and the company's strategy is to be carbon net zero by 2038.

They have just announced a mass buyout of workers in the USA, offering them early retirement to clear out the old staff and cut overheads while they switch to electric only vehicles

 

[portland_bill]

I had an interesting day today, with two EVs.
AM, a Mercedes EQA250+. The guy commutes 32 miles each way most days, and has to recharge twice a week. But using it for longer journeys, is a real pain. He's had it 3 months, and has already decided that when this lease ends, he'll go hybrid. It is the size of a house, weighs about the same, but inside and driving it, a very nice place to be. But realy, just a Mercedes, pushed along by electricity.
PM, a VW ID.3. This guy travels medium distances, usually around 100-150 miles/day, so has to recharge most days. No charge points at any of his employer locations, but lives close to a BP charge point, so works for him. He's due an upgrade to a BMW iX1, but it is bigger, and has a reduced range, so will cause problems, often needing charging during the round trip, so he's resisting the 'upgrade'.

As said above, EVs work best for short local commutes. We need more Citroen Ami type vehicles, or perhaps the upcoming Panda. Not huge behemoths. Would one Tesla battery make two, or three Pandas?

The biggest downside for me, is that whatever EV size or range, the battery will degrade. As the range reduces, the car becomes only suitable for local travel. Once a new battery is required, the cost is too much, so the car is scrap. So much waste at short lives. My Panda is nearly 18 years old, still with the same range as when new. I doubt many EVs will get that old.

 

[StevenRB45]

As said above, EVs work best for short local commutes. We need more Citroen Ami type vehicles, or perhaps the upcoming Panda. Not huge behemoths. Would one Tesla battery make two, or three Pandas?

The biggest downside for me, is that whatever EV size or range, the battery will degrade. As the range reduces, the car becomes only suitable for local travel. Once a new battery is required, the cost is too much, so the car is scrap. So much waste at short lives. My Panda is nearly 18 years old, still with the same range as when new. I doubt many EVs will get that old.

The short answer to the first question is no, because all signs point to the Panda using LFP batteries which Tesla doesn't in most cars.


LFP batteries have some disadvantages, first they are not hugely energy dense, second they are heavier and third they do not fast charge well at low temperature.

So why are they using them? Well first things first they only use lithium and iron, there's no nickel or cobalt in them so environment impact of mining is much smaller and the basic materials are cheaper. 2nd and this may answer point 2 they last 2 to 4 times as long as the EV batteries we've seen so far and finally. If punctured they don't produce oxygen and can't cause a self sustaining fire..

So basically that boxes off most objections if all these are true..

 

[vexorg]

VAG was always the last thing I’d have too, and I wouldn’t like it

Much as I dont like the new audis, I always still feel a bit of love for them since I loved them and had them in the 80's. The coupe and quattros then were something special.

Our hybrid juke is getting about 50-60mpg on average. I worked out before that motorway charging of an EV is about 60mpg equivalent, better if you can get special deals from home.

The cost of electricity needs to come down to make it all more viable long term, and there's no reason to keep the cost so high with renewables piling energy in. I just wonder how long it will take ofgem to realise that. In scotland, public charging was free, now being phased out, that made a difference to the early owners of effectively free running costs.

 

[SB1500]

Much as I dont like the new audis, I always still feel a bit of love for them since I loved them and had them in the 80's. The coupe and quattros then were something special.

Our hybrid juke is getting about 50-60mpg on average. I worked out before that motorway charging of an EV is about 60mpg equivalent, better if you can get special deals from home.

The cost of electricity needs to come down to make it all more viable long term, and there's no reason to keep the cost so high with renewables piling energy in. I just wonder how long it will take ofgem to realise that. In scotland, public charging was free, now being phased out, that made a difference to the early owners of effectively free running costs.

For some reason I had it in my head that Audi was independent until much later than the 60s…

A small sample of people around me seem to recall when they were kids in the 70s and 80s, the only time you saw an Audi was when somebody pretty wealthy or powerful was around - they weren’t common. Today, they’re ten a penny. Same with BMW and Mercedes. Though you’ll rarely see the more exclusive BMWs and very rarely see the high end Mercedes models here. One guy beside my friends house, a doctor, has an actual like bubble tent thing where he has an AMG GT. I’ll never be able to afford something like that - but I always admire and appreciate that there’s people out there like that guy - quite likely saving lives - who can enjoy stuff like that. Well played to them.

Not really a fan of watered down uses of luxury brand marques. Because of VAG, I’d argue we now have normal cars, then ‘premium’ (wannabe luxury), then ‘luxury’. I’d call most of the Audi / BMW ranges premium. High end models luxury / performance. I’d squarely call Mercedes luxury. It’s a step ahead of the other two. Made me open my eyes when I watched reviews of Rolls Royce / Bentley’s and they were treating Mercedes / Maybach as the try too hard brand that falls short!

 

[PuntoHowTo]

As said above, EVs work best for short local commutes. We need more Citroen Ami type vehicles, or perhaps the upcoming Panda. Not huge behemoths. Would one Tesla battery make two, or three Pandas?

My understanding is they can't make enough Amis, They sell out as soon as they go on sale, and they do limited relases to existing customers rather than the general population.

The Topolino is due out early next year and I can see the same happening with that car, they have already said there will be an early release sold only to selected customers.

The Panda will go the way of the Punto, what started as a small car will get bigger and bigger and be replaced by something much smaller in this case the Ami/Topolino, I suspect will replace the Panda at the bottom of the line up and be the ultra small car that people wanting a small car for running around cities, will buy. It's perfect for a lot of places in Italy and the small battery and lack of fast charging will not place such huge demands on the electric grid.

That being said there is always going to be a demand for bigger cars with a much bigger range so the Teslas and it seems midrange cars like the id3, Fiat 600 etc, bigger cars capable of doing more than 28 mph, are all going to settle in to a 200 - 300 mile range which is still more than enough for the majority of people.

Modern battery designs also last a lot better than they did only a few years ago.

Tesla had an 8 year battery warranty and so many manufacturers are following this, so while the car may have a 3 or 5 year warranty the battery (even on fiat's) is 8 years. Plenty enough time for the first, second and possibly a 3rd owner to make the most of. If the battery had degraded too much by its 7th year you could get a whole new battery on warranty, which could in theory last you another 7-8 years, so electric cars living to 15 ish years is perfectly acceptable and around the average life expectancy of most cars anyway. At that age, rust, and general wear and tear tends to take its toll.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Much as I dont like the new audis, I always still feel a bit of love for them since I loved them and had them in the 80's. The coupe and quattros then were something special.

Some people have to belong to a Tribe. In the car world that tends to be one manufacturer or another. "I own .... car because that's how I identify in society" and those sorts of people will come up with all sorts of justifications as to why their chosen "tribe(car)" is better than all others.

Personally I'm an absolute mercenary when it comes to car brands, if it does the job and the price is right and it doesn't look crap then that'll do.

I subscribe mainly to this. I am happy to drive or be seen in anything as long as I am having fun then what the badge on the car is, doesn't matter.

You can have your reasons for not wanting to spend your hard earned money on one thing or another, but of someone chucked me the keys to any car to have a drive in, then I'm going to take that opportunity You never know when you might be surprised by something.

People who are very narrow minded and who will irrationally hate something just because of the badge that is on the front only cut themselves off from the possibility of new experiences.

The Juke is a bit of a marmite car, mainly because of its looks, But then when you're driving it you spend all of your time looking at the inside and not the outside, the outside is still stylish and the inside is a nice place to be.

Plenty of Audi's look good, the insides are very nice. So those who irrationally hate them often find themselves searching for that tiny one off story or piece of hearsay about a bad car they once heard of, to write off the whole brand.

Rarely have I ever met someone who hates a specific brand because they actually owned one and it was so bad they vowed never to buy another.

Generally people who hate on a particular car or brand do so to enforce their own personal beliefs and to cement their position in their chosen tribe. "I hate that car and therefore this is the right car for me"

 

[vexorg]

Rarely have I ever met someone who hates a specific brand because they actually owned one and it was so bad they vowed never to buy another.

Me and peugeot - the 405 Mi16 4x4 was a car that put me off them for life. For about a year and a half, every month something would go wrong with it that used up my spare money. I bought it when it was only 3 years old, you'd expect a but more reliability at that age.

 

[SB1500]

Me and peugeot - the 405 Mi16 4x4 was a car that put me off them for life. For about a year and a half, every month something would go wrong with it that used up my spare money. I bought it when it was only 3 years old, you'd expect a but more reliability at that age.

My experience with the DS3 exactly. Also at 3 years old it was having new issues all the time. Silly little things that although didn’t affect it running, you just didn’t want to settle on for such a new car. Couldn’t enjoy it for what it was because it felt like waiting for the next thing to fail

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Me and Peugeot - the 405 Mi16 4x4 was a car that put me off them for life. For about a year and a half, every month something would go wrong with it that used up my spare money. I bought it when it was only 3 years old, you'd expect a but more reliability at that age.

As they stopped selling the 405 in the UK in the mid 90s, I can guess your car would now be anything up to 25-30 years old.

Are you saying that all modern Peugeots are the same and that if you were to buy one you would have all the same problems again?

Because lets be honest here, any car from that period, was generally a bit crap as this was the time that cars went from something that was all mechanical to something with a load of very dodgy electronics when electronic components where not good and everything was still being designed on paper and with slide rules.

The 406 was a brilliant car that did many millions of miles all over the world and was a go to car of choice for taxi drivers. The simple diesel engine was very strong as were the rest of the mechanics.

Literally every car from the late 80s early 90s was pretty awful. equivalents to the Mi16 4x4 were the Sierra XR4x4 or the Cavalier GSI 2000 4x4, all highly technical cars for the era and not exactly the sort of car everyone was running around in, nor representative of the company as a whole. When things did go wrong which was inevitable of any car of that era the more expensive and unique the car the bigger the bill.

My experience with the DS3 exactly. Also at 3 years old it was having new issues all the time. Silly little things that although didn’t affect it running, you just didn’t want to settle on for such a new car. Couldn’t enjoy it for what it was because it felt like waiting for the next thing to fail

I'm not sure niggling over paint blemishes on wheels of a car you owned for a year, counts as things going wrong all the time. Conversely it seems every car you have you seem to find fault with the paint, so the Citroen was not unique in that respect.

 

[vexorg]

As they stopped selling the 405 in the UK in the mid 90s, I can guess your car would now be anything up to 25-30 years old.

Are you saying that all modern Peugeots are the same and that if you were to buy one you would have all the same problems again?

Would be over 33 years old now (H31BJS - oddly I can remember the reg of every car, that one stuck more due to hatred), but that's not the point, just my view of peugeot was so damaged by that car it put me off them for life (and in my head citroen is a different company before you mention my DS4 )

We're not taking minor things, exhaust downpipe broke, oh 4x4, that'll be 4x the price of the non-4x4. Climate control module. Timing belt at 3 and a half years! Siezed brake calipers. Flooded footwells. Electric window switch modules. Randomly not starting for 5 minutes, then starts as if nothing was every wrong (always happened away from home). And final straw was propshaft coupling bearings that were going to be £680 + vat + fitting, which was a lot in 1994. The list was endless.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

and in my head citroen is a different company before you mention my DS4

but Peugeot acquired Citron in the 1970s so even back then, they were the same company, and now Citroen are much more so the same as Peugeot, with the same platforms, engines etc. Back in the 80s and 90s they were still different cars on their own platforms for the most part.

It sort of proves my point that often the hatred of one car brand over another is more an emotional thing than logical.


My brother bought a brand new Ford escort in 1995 from a highly reguarded and reputable dealer, When I say brand new, it was 2 months old with virtually no miles on the clock, I forget the exact figure but was pre-registered. That car had no end of issues, he had it for a few years and it culminated with the gearbox lunching its own internals. some investigation.

I won't say exactly how he found out, but it turned out the car had been in a fairly massive accident, it was never claimed for just patched back together by the dealership and looked brand new again. The thing it the engine exhaust, gearbox, suspension had all been through a lot of high stresses in the accident and that's the reason why everything kept failing. If it had not been for the very specific connections he had, that no normal person on the street would have access to, he would not have known the reason for all these problems. He was later able to claim the full value of the car back from the dealer who sold it to him several years earlier.

The "Friday afternoon" car which people joke about is a very real thing, but I think often it can be put down to the unknown history of the car.

In your case a powerful (for the time) Peugeot 4wd, in the era of the rally car, how many times did that car get treated like it was on a rally stage, find a ditch or just get thrashed to hell before you got it?

Anyway largely all irrelevant as you did buy another PSA car, no matter how you justify it in your mind lol

 

[bugsymike]

My best Peugeot's were the 504 pick ups and Family Estates in diesel, downhill with the 505 estates etc.
The 504s were rugged and often featured in African documentaries.
I did have a 604 V6 with carbs , comfortable and went well for the time but thirsty.

 

[vexorg]

Anyway largely all irrelevant as you did buy another PSA car, no matter how you justify it in your mind lol

The citroen was purely on the deal, a friend (ex-friend now) was given his dad's nearly new car for free as he could no longer drive. So he sold the citroen at a dirt cheap price as it was all free money. I was pleasantly surprised as it was really fast and brakes that scared you. I've had more than my money's worth out of it.

And the 405 did have the rally homologation plate on the slam panel.