Sifaan

You're evading the point. Above would possibly have been valid excuse, except 1. this wheel cover thing is supposed to be a "feature" to increase economy; didn't google turn up info about it? 2. When Mani wrote you could have gone and taken a look at them and checked (or at lease googled) before you wrote

isn't it "all fart but no shit" ?

I was at Kleen Park recently and a Prius came in (to get some carpets done) and I went over to take a look; I'll admit I also didn't notice it had wheel covers - the brake disc and caliper was visible so I also assumed it was just the alloy wheel. Admittedly I was paying for attention to the "killer" gear knob and the dashboard than the wheels though. However, if I had a Prius, (and assuming "I look at Prius wheels every day") and I saw pics of an accident where wheel covers are visible, I would at least think "damn! those wheel covers look exactly like what's on my wheels" rather than say

In addition to your other faults, do you also now suffer from short term memory loss??? The only reason OP wrote was because you said So the point was about brand new indian cars having so much trouble even during the warranty period; not about 10-20 year old jap cars needing work done at garages.

rofl trying to visualize this

how did it manage to have the post on top of it? looks like it had wheel covers over the alloys and two have come off actually the dash/steering look to be in the right place for the prius except for steering wheel moving downwards (compared to the frame, which seems to have retained shape except for windscreen caving in). However it looks like the driver seat has been pushed forward (very short driver or moved after accident?)

I was at a Creativity/Innovation session by Frederik Haren last year; and he said he was at the Launch event for the Nano. He said the car was being bashed in the press (not sure if he meant Indian press or European press) for not being "safe", but his take on it was that the Nano was not about building a safer car, but about building a safer alternative to motorcycles (and I guess tuk tuks), which was what the lower income people could afford. I don't know how the price positioning of Nano in India is, compared to motorcycles and tuk tuks; but if was at a price where a person could stretch their motorbike budget and buy it, then it would be a good thing Of course, at nearly a million bucks that argument is anyway not applicable in Sri Lanka

a wet and dry vacuum cleaner perhaps?

it was never duty free, but there was a discount for people who had paid more than X amount as taxes for last 5 years. that scheme is discontinued. anyone who got the permit can still get the vehicle, but new permits are not being issued.

having the seatbelt may hinder evacuation in some cases, and it certainly is an issue; however, not having worn a seatbelt in an accident that was so serious that the seatbelt couldn't be removed quickly would mean you were dead anyway.

DPMC stopped doing Ford several years ago; since recently it's handled by Softlogic - I guess Crosswind can post the contact details for it.

how do you know that? is there a forum somewhere with thousands of users waxing lyrical about their maruti? isn't it exactly because of bad experiences like this that indian cars have a bad rep. for build quality? sheesh, I hope the rest of central bank uses more reliable methods for information gathering.

Do you mean pitstop? although they are owned by A*W I didn't know they did warranty repairs; and whether they are geared to analyze this kind of issue.

Adding to what VVTi said, even if the price difference inside and outside is not much, there is also an option of using a different (cheaper) oil. However, unless you know that the car has been maintained well by the last owner, you should get a more comprehensive service done (check/replace air filters, fuel filters, brake pads, etc + check/replace/top up transmission fluid, brake fluid etc.)

I thought he was going to park up there and wondered how he would get down

hmm.. tastes differ, I guess... I think I wouldn't have a problem with the lack of noise (hard to say for sure without first-hand experience of an EV) certainly grid electricity production needs to increase, even without EVs on the road; however, considering how inefficient ICE engines are at converting chemical energy in fuel to kinetic energy, together with the rise in oil prices, the money we save as a country on our oil imports could be channelled towards more electricity generation - e.g. coal power, natural gas, wind, etc.

well spotted on the subject of replacing the top tank; there are few places who offer to fabricate the top using aluminium, but from checking around I heard that it's not a good idea because aluminium can't be worked well, unlike, say brass. Having seen what kind of top tank can be got for 6-7k I tend to agree. unfortunately you can't fix a brass top tank to a aluminium core radiator, so if it is available getting a replacement plastic top tank would be the best.

at first I thought you were trying to start a car that had run out of fuel and stalled. but if the car was stalled since yesterday, it certainly would've been faster to go buy some petrol than to muck around here for a day! (I also thought of the possibility that you wanted to drain the tank for some work; but the "other car" didn't match that idea) so; considering that you still seem to be actively interested in this project... are you trying to steal someone's petrol or something??

not sure if I'm a diehard, but I am drooling about the roadster in the case of the roadster, it's an AC Induction motor (afaik "brushless" term is used in relation to DC motors) anytime something moves there will be wear, but in this case it's only at the bearings which are supposedly made from some fancy ceramics; even with other consumer car level electric motors I think wear is likely to be much less of an issue than wear in a ICE.

Wife has butter-fingers so got a Defy; bit smaller screen and not a top end processor (800MHz) but still snappy; gorilla glass display and waterproof etc. no qwerty, but IMHO swype is faster than fiddling with little qwerty buttons the imates were poorly built but HTC has come a long way since they started selling under the HTC brand

i guess depends on the car; in my case, optically there is a difference (driver side outer 20% or so has different curvature to "see" into the blind spot) and also electronics (passenger mirror has different settings for reversing - but I guess this difference is in one of the ECUs and not in the mirror itself) are you trying to replace a mirror on a rare car?

not sure what is not practical about the tesla, except the price. but anyway I thought we were talking about the future ("the day Subaru produces a Hybrid B6"; btw seems they had a concept of a hybrid B5) the different inherent characteristics of electric motors compared to ICE; which is exactly why the Tesla can go upto it's speed-limited 200kmph on a single-speed gearbox, while managing 0-60 in 3.7s also, some hybrid implementations (not Toyota) allow you to select AWD (ICE to front, motor to rear; maybe also the other way around) when you need it (other times it selects FWD/RWD/AWD automatically) Sri Lanka's current hybrid craze is driven by fuel economy and tax cuts; but that's not a fault of the technology. chill dude; I don't care about hybrid econoboxes like prius and insight one way or another; however I am interested in electric propulsion and what it means for the future of transport. IMHO eventually all but the cheapest cars will feature some kind of electric motor on board (with or without the ICE); some of them will be econoboxes, some will be performance cars. e.g. the car in the link by jerryda is a hybrid sports car, and has a (marginally) faster 0-60 time for hybrid version than for petrol.

if you want to stay in your little "hybrid=econobox" well, fine... OTOH, if you would like to explore what an electric motor can do for performance, start with the tesla roadster. 0-60 mph in < 4s, and that with a single-speed transmission.

If Subaru made a hybrid, it would not be an econobox like the Prius, so I don't understand why you would not like it. the torque characteristics of an electric motor are much better for a car than petrol/diesel engines; just that it needs to be something bigger than an "assist motor".