Thread: Puzzled

If you do need to use the space saving spare where do you put the full size wheel if there is no room for it?
What happens if the rest of the vehicle is full with passengers and luggage?

I have a full size spare, the only trouble is I need to empty all my tools and fastners out of the back of the car to get to it and that is only to check the pressure. Will probably be quicker to get the spare out of wife's car which is the same as mine.

The CRV wasn't really designed as a proper tug and even the X-trail is quite limited in that respect.

They're soft roaders. Perfect in the north of the northern hemisphere were snow and ice on the roads make 4WD a help.

My Forester is not a bad tug but it too feels a bit sluggish with a camper trailer on the back weighing about 800kg.

As for what offroad means, that's such a woolly term .... off sealed road? off formed gravel road? off formed dirt road? or on 4WD track?

My point Ern is that the Crv is more likely to carry heavier weights than the Accord Euro. It is also more likely to be fitted with a towbar and used to tow things. It is a heavier vehicle to begin with. For all this it has a less potent motor. Crazy!

Arthur, the two engines don't seem to have been designed at the same time and the Euro benefits from improved efficiency in later designs.

Apart from that, you can always squeeze more out of a donk at the cost of life ... and Honda vehicles have always gone down that route compared with Subaru or Toyota. You don't see many old Hondas on the road. You see plenty of Camrys with 300k km or more on the clock.

Just an afterthought ....

it isn't the peak numbers that count for anyone but a racer. It's the power curve.

How do the Euro and CRV compare at the revs they normally cover?

I've got mates with 600cc sports bikes that have amazing peak power. But to get it they're stirring the gearbox constantly and revving the carp out of the engine.

The VW Tiguan and the Nissan X-Trail both have space saving spares. Bloody ridiculous in a country this size!

Don't really know about the decisions that the powers that be make about the engines in cars, but did you know that the new HOLDEN CRUSE is sold without a spare, jack and wheel brace? In lew of them they give you a can of fzzzt in case of a flat.
In case you really want a spare, you can buy one as an optional extra. Same with the jack and wheel brace. Hmm, I wonder if there is somewhere to put them, or is that an optional extra too?

And this is from an AUSTRALIAN CAR MAKER

Robert

The new LPG models Commodore and Falcon are reputed to be the same. Can of pzzt can seal a hole up to 10mm and blow the tyre up at the same time.

This is so the spare wheel well can be used for a donut LPG tank. Both these new models will be LPG only.

As for towing, maybe I am old fashioned but I wouldn't tow a camper trailer or caravan with anything but a 6 cylinder car.

Friends of ours have a Nissan Xtrail and tow a camper trailer with it, they are actually getting worse fuel economy (and performance) with the Xtrail than they did with the 6 cylinder Falcon they traded in on the Xtrail.

We have a Jayco Penguin camper trailer and tow it with our Commodore on LPG and get good performance and excellent cost per km. We did a test trip with a diesel Mondeo and the cost per km was far higher than with the Commodore on LPG, performance was about on a par.

When not towing the LPG Commodore is far cheaper to run than the diesel Mondeo.

As for the missing bits, well, could just be penny pinching, but when was the last time you got a flat on urban sealed roads or country freeways?

My last two flats were with the Forrester (a) on a 4by track and (b) on a formed dirt road in the mountains. Both sidewall punctures. Now run light truck AT tyres and drop the pressure about 30% .... no dramas at all.

Fred, the X-trail is not that good a tug. It has a pretty limited tow capacity and some users (not saying your friends) exceed this without knowing.

The Forrester has done many thousands of k's now on blacktop and formed dirt roads towing a CT and on the blacktop the consumption increases about 12% and on corrugated rubbish like the Oodnadatta Tk it can go up to double that. To be expected on the latter since there's so much slowing down and accelerating back, given washouts and ruts.

Meantime, highway cycle without a CT is about 9l per 100km. And constant 4WDs always use more juice. No, it's not that brilliant but I can consistently pass Commodores and the like up at the snow (while they're fitting their chains!) so I'm happy to pay the price.

Yes Ern, I have been on the track of power and torque curves but other things get in the way too often.

I asked the question of why the AccordV6 was not put in both the CRv and the Odessy. The answer was "Torque steer problems." To that I say PHOOEY. In my opinion this is blatant nonsense. If a company like honda can't work that out then they should not be making cars.

Arthur, you're sounding dyspeptic.

The CRV does most of what you want it to.

Is there any one vehicle that will tick all our boxes?

Been doing more research. and found some interesting opinions and "facts".

So many people say no to a vehicle simply on looks!! Bit astounding to me.

No vehicle will tick all my boxes. I have accepted that for a long time/

Australia is a small market so the car companies tend to satisfy overseas markets first and we become the poor relations.

Many vehicles are grossly overpriced IMHO, and that of many others. This includes the experts.

A number of high end vehicles have horrendous depreciation rates in their first year or two.

There seems to be a tendency among European manufactures to build a basic vehicle and then you have to purchase a pack of options to get a reasonable result. The Koreans are now building good to very good vehicles and seem to be winning hands down in the value stakes.

Anyone wishing to buy a new vehicle might be wll advised to wait for the arrival of the new Sky Activ range of engines from Mazda, or the arrival of automatic gearboxes in the likes of the Subaru Forrester and Outback. Other brands need to tidy up their supension and handling problems to better suit Australian conditions

Umm, we have 4 manufacturers though granted many of their models are made in Thailand or France or Korea or wherever.

Among those and in the case of some other models, there is often local testing and suspension mods to suit our conditions.

Toyota has been a successful exporter of vehicles to other countries and Holden had a fair run with the Monaro in the US.

In terms of pricing, that needs to be judged eg. in terms of how many weeks of an average wage would be needed to purchase a similar vehicle in various countries.

I know suspension testing and tuning is done here but the results are not always satisfactory, despite the effort. The diesel Forrester, for instnce has benn roundly critcised for its suspension tuning. It has also copped brickbats for the lack of an automatic to suitably match the engine.

The Kluger is said to steer and handle like a barge.

The list goes on.

Your point about vehicle cost is pertinent BUT there seems to be some outlandishly priced vehicles on the marrket, considering what you get for what you pay. This is not just my opinion.

Maybe you are correct Ern. I am perhaps just anther GOM>