GTAm

Spot on. I would like to add that in normal road driving the 0-100km/h times can be ridiculously superfluous. I think many people use this measure because it makes a nice simple number and is easily marketable to the gullible consumers out there. More important are the "in gear times". 30-50mph, 50-70mph which are more "real world" on real roads. Years ago auto magazines such as Autocar and Motor used to have such details but now I can't see them in current road tests. I've driven many cars with relatively high 0-100 times but they has such torque in the mid rev range that so called high bhp cars with low 0-100 times won't know which way the car went on a demanding road.

That's right. There is quite a power deficit between a 1.5L Mazda 3 and a 1.5 ES Civic. However for me the Mazda was better in handling and ride quality. Many people in Sri Lanka don't consider good ride quality important for a car's performance. But on roads that are not carpeted that power deficit vanishes if you have a car with a very good ride. We experienced this (many years ago) between a ES Civic Vtec (I was a passenger) and a 1.8 8v 406. On the smooth straight roads the Peugeot could not match the Honda but was always within sights. The moment we left the carpeted road onto a rough stretch the 406 overtook us and vanished out of sight. We had to slow right down to stop our teeth clicking. It was a bit embarrassing to have them wait for us at the hotel However these days most of the roads are looking good I must say.

The oil filter looks cool in red

No idea Mr. W I was talking about FBK. It's the fast selling popular brands that attract the counterfeiters for obvious reasons. And not just brake pads. Just about every part. Apart from counterfeiting now there are loads y Chinese brands which are of poor quality. One of my pals who imports German and French parts was complaining the other day about Audi A6 suspension parts from China at 1/3rd the price of his ones from Europe and how many people were buying those. They don't last long - sometimes not even 1/3rd the period of genuine stuff but people are attracted to the low price.

Try to find a carb specialist who knows what they are doing. Sadly I cannot recommend anyone who does it on a commercial scale. As it is a Merc you can order any part brand new from the agents (At an huge price for sure). If you can isolate the exact part inside the carb that is faulty you might be able to order just that, which might not be that big a cost. As mentioned Dayaratne's son isn't very keen on older cars. I once took my SEC there with a "miss" thought to be from the mechanical fuel injection system, and he suggested a diesel conversion! Naturally that was my last visit. The other option is if you have friends or contacts in the middle east, where these cars still run daily, you might be able to locate new old stock carbs. We got a brand new fuel distributor for the SEC this way. And it wasn't expensive. Good luck.

There are lots of counterfeit parts out there.

This is nothing new. Toyota's reputation for reliability, re-sale value and most of the time (I've heard that the 141 isn't great[?]) fuel economy see that it succeeds. This is because most consumers' priorities are these things and Toyota has acted accordingly in their product development and marketing. It's the unadventurous safe bet and these buyers would fall in among the most risk averse people around. Things like driving pleasure and good looks are either unimportant to these buyers or don't hit their radar at all. In behavioral studies marketers segment consumer groups into Trend Setters, Early adopters, Followers and Lagards. The Corolla buyers will most definitely fall into the latter two categories. This is where the volumes are and it's like a pyramid, holding more numbers at the base. Toyota have understood this perfectly. Added to this there is not many ways for consumers to get knowledgeable on cars in SL. I mean there are no Sinhalese publications and if you don't know English the internet is more or less out of bounds. That said there are highly educated, English conversant so called high income group people who also seem attracted to the prospect of owning such cars. One good example is a guy I know. He owns several rare classic cars, so he's quite a knowledgeable guy. However his grasp on what makes a car nice to drive is at the opposite end of what someone like me would value. When the Axio first hit the showrooms he went for a test drive and it was love at first steer. And he immediately bought two! One for him and one for his parents. He was so over the moon with it that every I time we met in a crowd he would go on and on parsing the bloody thing to a point where I began to doubt if I was too prejudiced (I had driven a 141 and I'll reserve my comments in case I upset anyone here ) He even went on to say that the Axio offered everything that the C-180 offered . At 30km/h which maybe his average and mind switched off maybe that point holds. Then I drove one. Again I'll reserve my comments in case I tread on anyone's pride and joy. But you get my drift..... Let's just say the difference between that and say a Mazda 3 is quite vast.

Thanks guys. He's an artist I tell you!

Oh that's Giuleitta money.

First Visit to Senor Scalietti, I liked what I saw. The floor and valences are taking shape!

Congrats Madmax. You're tempting many of us to migrate

That might be a good decision not to go the whole hog with engine capacity. I'm thinking that our roads are so narrow and accommodate so many animals, that many less experienced riders with high powered bikes might not be a great idea for safety all at once.

@Crosswind do you know the current price of the 1.6L Focus? Post duty hike?

I've heard that a bill has been passed in parliament allowing big bikes as it was requested by the two young princes. However it has not been gazetted as yet according to my source. Btw saw a Ducati 999 on Horton Place two Sundays ago.

Hi Don came across this today. You'll find it quite depressing let me warn you. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/08/mitsubishi-pins-its-hopes-on-a-mirage/#more-455086 Looks like Mitsu is relying on Nissan for new products. Which means eventually Renault Nissan might swallow them. That looks like a reworked Micra/March which is mediocre already. It shows how desperately they need volume and lack development funds. Look at last month's sales figures in the US, Audi being a premium brand sold almost 3 times Mitsu's volumes. http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120801/RETAIL01/120809998/1448/u-s-sales-rise-9-toyota-honda-vw-offset-declines-at-gm-ford

@razordj There could be several reasons imo. Check shock mounts too, they could be broken or worn and As VVTi and Don, say alloys and the King pin angle, Also I assume you bought a good brand of tyres and within their expiry date? Some Chinese ones are known to have defects. That reminds me I once had an alignment problem with a Mazda we purchased un-reg which took over 6 months to sort out (several places including the vendor many times and finally they referred us to Car Mutts at Ratmalana who managed to sort it out eventually. It was a damaged and "repaired in Japan" lower arm. You could see no defect at all looking at it from under. When it was finally taken off, on the top side there was a "X" marked by a permanent marker in pink. very close inspection showed evidence of repair. We replaced it with a used arm and it was fine. We informed the vendor before the 6 month expiration of the warranty and they assured us (alas not in writing) that they would honor the warranty claim. When we went back with the bill from Car Mutts just a couple of weeks after 6 months they told us to F-off.

A bit boring for me. Something needs to be done to the track to make overtaking a bit easier. Make it wider in places and have a longer straight. Anyway we have a 4 week suffering until Spa

Mitsu and PSA could and should have worked better. Perhaps they did not want to get too close to each other beyond those few tie ups. PSA is weak in Asia and absent in the US completely where Mitsu has some presence. Mitsu is weak in diesel engine tech which is absolutely essential in Europe. Mitsu's Galant is completely outdated and they could have easily shared the 508's platform and save millions of development costs.They could have and should have made it work better. But I guess they did not have their minds open enough for farsighted enough. The Japanese are vehemently against foreigner's buying their companies or even entering the domestic market. On the other hand Peugeot is essentially a family run business that seems to lack the will to become a global player. Now both are in precarious positions. Peugeot may be in a slightly better position with the GM tie up whose Opel/Vauxhall is another loss making unit. They maybe able to pool resources for future development. But given GM's record with tie ups I'm not expecting much. The French govt. might give Pug a lifeline to avoid unpopular plant closures and Mitsu's parent company might keep funding coming for a while. But for how long in today's disastrous world economy is the question.

Fully agree Don. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The worst is yet to come. I won't go into details of my thoughts in this thread. We will need to start a new one to discuss this topic.

Yep. Saab was a gem. GM themselves knew that it had a sky high image that other manufactures would kill for. They could have turned it into a viable German alternative where the smart money was spent. But the scale of GM's mismanagement of their whole group meant that they had not enough will and time to focus on Saab. Their last attempt was to use the "Premium Platform" that underpinned the Alfa 159/Brera/Spider. It was supposed to be used by Saab, Opel and other GM marques. But GM pulled out due to lack of funds and because the premium platform became too expensive and heavy. Then they fell out with Fiat who took them to court and GM had to pay $2bn. Then soon GM arrived at chapter 11 bankruptcy. And Saab was unloaded to Victor Muller which was a total non-starter and must have been some money washing exercise for him. Saab was well and truly dead. Only a large European manufacturer could have revived it imho. The Chinese ownership isn't promising at all. Geely "seems" to be doing slightly better with Volvo at least for now, having cars developed in Europe which is essential to preserve their European identity. Or else it will become another MG Rover. They will produce in China for Asia and are looking for manufacturing capacity in the US. VW own Porsche now. It was a complex deal where Porsche tried to buy VW initially and ended up under them finally. Mitsubishi's Nedcar plant was recently sold to a bus manufacturer in Holland (for One Euro!!!) who will use it as a subcontract plant for a variant of BMW's Mini. They have a partnership with PSA but now with GM taking 10% of PSA and the turmoil they are faced with things might get complicated. So the outlook is quite bleak. Usually for two companies to get into partnerships there has to be mutual benefits. The thing is Mitsu have nothing to offer at all, which is the sad result of years of poor management. Funny enough, I think Sri Lanka is one of the only markets they have a sizable market share in and that says a lot.

While I agree that penalizing Hamilton would have been quite harsh, I think Hamilton could have chosen a better place to pass Vettel given his much better tyres, the same way Maldo could have on Ham in the previous race. You could argue that he did what he did to help his team-mate, but I doubt he is capable of that kind of thinking. At least he's never showed it before, unless the team gave him a signal. The joke is that he calls Vettel immature. That's like the Sunday Observer saying that the Sunday Leader is a highly biased newspaper. Vettel can argue about avoiding collision but I'd say rules are rules. All in all another great race that showed Nando's talent. I really thought if it was a dry race that RdBul will snatch it. But Fernando did just enough. German fans were a bit subdued when he took the chequered flag I thought

Thanks Nzer. His retirement was very short lived. He was a big fan of the present govt. and thought after end of the war he can chill out and enjoy life with his school van service and income from his grown up sons. Looks like his calculations were very optimistic. Whenever I talk to him now he's bashing the govt.

Exciting stuff Master Don! From the looks of that engine top it looks like there is such a thing as buried treasure!!

A bit more inspiration for me

Yes the French have dug themselves into a large hole and will need a rescue package. The EU Korea FTA has also worked against European manufacturers because the Korean market is essentially close to foreign brands, just like Japan. Fiat have been a lot smarter and froze all new model launches except the Lancia Ypsilon, Fiat Pand and the 500L. Because of this they are sitting on a large some of cash that they'll use to up their stake in Chrysler ( right now 61.8% soon it should go upto 80%). Then they can use Chrysler's cash flow (Net profit set to exceed $3bn this year), to relaunch a string of new models most of which are fully or partially developed. Mazda definitely have the reliability card on their side. However to maintain the value for money aspect they need to bring their costs down and cannot do it with the high Yen. You are absolutely right that the trick is to maintain their distinctive identity and cultural differences. Destroying this is one of many mistakes that GM made with Saab - What a shame. To a lesser extent VW is also doing this with Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti. God help Ducati now. However Fiat has so far managed to find the perfect balance between Turin and Detroit with with all the Chrysler brands. Chrysler group is the biggest market share gainer in the US right now, and have been showing sales increases for something like 27 months. People love the revised 300/Dodge Charger and the revitalized Jeep range. Even the much hated Sebring has found massive sales increases after it was turned into the 200 under Fiat. They seem to understand the cultural differences perfectly unlike previous custodians of Chrysler - Daimler Benz, who milked it dry and left it to die. So hopefully the Mazda tie up will not mess up the two different cultures and identities. There is also talk of Fiat and Suzuki who is hurridly trying to push through divorce papers from VW (who own 20% of them) after a very unhappy short marriage. Fiat already supplies the diesel engines for Suzuki and well as letting them make some under license. Suzuki is alive only because of their strength in India. Whoever gets Suzuki gets market leadership in that country. Mitsubishi's situation is probably the worst. They have nothing to offer anyone. In the end to save Japanese pride, it might be pushed under Toyota's umbrella just like Subaru. The worse options for these three Japanese manufacturers will be Chinese ownership. They happily take all three given the opportunity I'm certain.