Car brand loyalty? was: Is it time to leave Lenovo?

[FryPpy]

a Citroen DS or CX would've made it without breaking a sweat but you can't have one of those as a daily driver up here...

Interesting... once upon a time, many years ago... i have touched XM... i didn't have a ride it even as a passenger But now some times (when i thinking about that moment) i want to try... Yes Hydropneumatic (or even hydractive) suspension is said is something unusual in everyday driving... and servicing it... unusual too.

BMW and rugged don't go together

May be you don't see this BMW - but it is a part of history - Isetta. Originally non BMW design... When i first meet this (at local the oldtimer show) I was totally confused I don't want to make any jokes to this small car... but it is funny.
Other story - when a friend of mine have changed his audi to used bmw 5er (but newer than audi) after 3 days he was very impressed that he find a rusty spot on body

There is no totally bad or totally good ones. To understand good and bad sides of cars (car brands / families) they must be ridden and changed. We can try and evaluate different notebooks and ThinkPads. Even collect them... But evaluating and collecting cars is very expensive and needs bigger store;)

[ajkula66]

Interesting... once upon a time, many years ago... i have touched XM... i didn't have a ride it even as a passenger But now some times (when i thinking about that moment) i want to try... Yes Hydropneumatic (or even hydractive) suspension is said is something unusual in everyday driving... and servicing it... unusual too.

D-series Citroens were my daily drivers for well over a decade. A CX Turbo Diesel Familiale (station wagon/estate) saved the lives or my passengers as well as my own in an absolutely horrendous snow storm in Austrian Alps which claimed the lives of our three friends in a BMW 528i, amongst many others...

Don't touch a 1st generation XM with a 30-foot pole. The later ones are OK.

Be prepared to do your own upkeep and repairs, or go bankrupt. Seriously

May be you don't see this BMW - but it is a part of history - Isetta. Originally non BMW design... When i first meet this (at local the oldtimer show) I was totally confused I don't want to make any jokes to this small car... but it is funny.

Isetta was a common sight when I was a child. You wanna see weird stuff? Google "Goggomobil"...produced by (West) Germany's GLAS factory which was swallowed by BMW in the late 60's...the entire "micro car" concept is actually tremendously interesting, but was never my cup of tea.

[killer]

Talk of the Isetta makes me laugh. I looked at buying one as a rebuild project in 1979 for under £30 but the thing was so rotten that I passed on the chance.

3 wheeled cars were a way of avoiding vehicle excise duty in the UK because they were classed for tax as motorcycles. We had the Morgan, Reliant Robin, the Isetta, and a Messerschmitt. Most had two wheels at the front, except the Reliant Robin which had two wheels at the back and one at the front.

The amazing thing about the Reliant was that it had a very efficient engine from a tiny and lightweight unit. It was used in Formula 750 cars, and after a fair bit of tuning, they produced amazing power to weight ratios.

Warning: never drive a BMW in snow. They are lethal. Rear wheel drive, and low-profile tyres, are a disaster waiting to happen.

Front wheel drive or 4x4 is the answer. When I had a Jeep Cherokee with all terrain tyres, diff lock and low ratio it would go up or down any slope in snow. I never had to use chains in the deepest snow in the Alps. A great machine that would pass anything but a fuel station. Ah, that was the downside.

[ajkula66]

That car looks like an East-block variant (Zastava ?) of the good old FIAT 600.

Almost completely correct.

"Zastava" it is, but 750 - not 600 - since the latter sported "suicide doors"...

[Norway Pad]

Warning: never drive a BMW in snow. They are lethal. Rear wheel drive, and low-profile tyres, are a disaster waiting to happen.

Or they can be very fun. I have used BMWs as my daily drivers for the last 12 years, through Norwegian winters and all. And we're not talking SUV, but lowered 3 and 5-series. For the most along good main roads, but still. Honestly never had any problems, except one time that the snow was so deep that it ripped off the plastic shield under the engine. But it has to be mentioned that I like to switch off the ASC and have some sideways fun. So I'm used to handling a car that has a potential for not always going straight forward.

MOD addition: ASC: http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/tech ... ntrol.html

Not your obvious choice of winter car, you might say: http://instagram.com/p/yKRYB8CP3r/

[FryPpy]

You wanna see weird stuff? Google "Goggomobil"... ...the entire "micro car" concept is actually tremendously interesting, but was never my cup of tea.

I haven't seen this before, but i don't find any wired in this cars... If i take off my glasses i can say that Goggomobil Transporter van is a normal VW Transporter T1 Moreover microcar concept had (and have) many fans all around the world. For example BMC's Mini is produced till now days as a mini cooper. And Mini Metro (or Mini Shortie) was smaller then Goggomobil. Smart is other micro car of present days. Many car brands have compact cars in their line up, but compacts are not micros.

About exterior - yes Goggomobil is not the beauty, but find a picture of Goggomobil Dart - it is lovely thing 2 stroke engines is economical choice for this small car. And it can have even preselector gearbox.

The first thing that came to my head when i first met Izetta - was fridge (old kitchen refrigerator) (it was not white, but...). The door that opens to the front and chromed opening handle... and 3 wheels...

I don't want even to seat in this car - i want my legs to drive normal cars with normal hoods and engines under it. I afraid of cars with small hoods

Reliant Robin

Once upon a time i have seen Top Gear about RR. I have LOL not about RR but about Jeremy that have turned over 10 times or more... If you want some fun - see this VIDEO WARNING.

PS
And once more for fun from Russia - PIC WARNING

[ajkula66]

PS
And once more for fun from Russia - PIC WARNING

We can laugh about Russian cars all we want BUT:

a) Niva is still the best compact SUV I've ever driven. And a lot of my friends made some interesting mods to theirs, making them even better.

b) One has to shiver at the sight of an old ZIL/ZIS...these things were nothing short of amazing.

[TTY]

...a Citroen DS or CX would've made it without breaking a sweat

Long ago, i learnt to drive a car in a Citroën DS Break. One of the early models, which had two single headlights...

[ajkula66]

Long ago, i learnt to drive a car in a Citroën DS Break. One of the early models, which had two single headlights...

I envy you tremendously.

Nothing beats a "frog-eyed" (pre-October 1967) D-series Citroen in my book. Absolutely, positively, nothing.

[tarvoke]

oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh DO NOT get George started on Déesse.
do.
not.

and yes:

LADA.
LADA.
LADA.
LADA.

my own personal poison is 60s volvo. think RWD won't work in deep snow? mm-hm. learn to drive better

[DaKKS]

I'm almost militaristicly loyal to Saab and Rover. Odd combination, I know.

Saab, I've always had a Saab, even if it wasn't my daily driver. And I fell in love with Rover when Sarah and I took a road/roundtrip to Manchester (4600 kilometers) in her Rover P6. It was an experience, lemme tell you. Letting that finely tuned V8 loose on the german motorways is a joy. Its no porsche sure, but the germans were pretty surprised to get passed by that old brit.

Course, the darned MET took my licence that week too. So that sucked until I got a new one... Still, great trip.

[killer]

@DaKKS: Your mention of the Rover P6 brought back memories. The V8 it used was based on a Buick engine. Rover remodelled the engine, used aluminium instead of cast iron, and completely changed the firing sequence. As a result the engine produced a huge amount of power from a fairly light unit.
The engine was used in a number of vehicles including the Land Rover Discovery V8, Range Rover V8, and MGRV8 (a car that I once owned).

[ajkula66]

The engine was used in a number of vehicles including the Land Rover Discovery V8, Range Rover V8, and MGRV8 (a car that I once owned).

Including a Rover SD1 that I once owned...that thing was fast. Scary fast.

[DaKKS]

The engine was used in a number of vehicles including the Land Rover Discovery V8, Range Rover V8, and MGRV8 (a car that I once owned).

Including a Rover SD1 that I once owned...that thing was fast. Scary fast.

Yes, and plagued by more electrical gremlins than french cars. I have one. Love it, but its a [censored] to own sometimes.

[ajkula66]

Yes, and plagued by more electrical gremlins than french cars. I have one. Love it, but its a *****Expletives removed by Moderator***** to own sometimes.

Honestly, apart from my DS 21 IE which caught fire - at a filling station no less - and another late-model DS 21 that used to eat starters for breakfast I haven't had much trouble with electrical issues on the french cars. With british ones, though...duh.

[DaKKS]

Yes, and plagued by more electrical gremlins than french cars. I have one. Love it, but its a *****Expletives removed by Moderator***** to own sometimes.

Honestly, apart from my DS 21 IE which caught fire - at a filling station no less - and another late-model DS 21 that used to eat starters for breakfast I haven't had much trouble with electrical issues on the french cars. With british ones, though...duh.

You need to own a Citroen XM. Seriously. God help me I loved that car, but Jesus Christ on a bicycle there weren't two days in a row where everything worked properly. And it was practically mint with like 55k miles on the clock. It was probably even worse than my SD1. At least the Rover never failed mechanically. It could do some pretty messed up things, but if was always drivable. Even if it didn't have lights, or instruments or unnecessary crap like that.

Ever hear of the first version of the Citroen C3? I knew a guy who bought one of the fist ones ever mass produced. There was a design flaw, that whenever it rained, the water would run doww the wind shield, into the engine compartment and drip down over the fuse box, that at the time didn't have a lid. Which made the car absolutely refuse to start and blow fuses every time it rained. I love the French.

[ajkula66]

You need to own a Citroen XM. Seriously.

No I don't. Seriously.

I've driven several of them and while they are very pleasant vehicles in most respects, I was not impressed.

While I did own several Citroens from the PSA era, my real interest in the brand begins and ends with D-series. CX is just passable. Barely.

Yes, Ami 6 Break was my first car and I treasure memories of it. Would I want one nowadays, even dead mint? Heck, no. The same applies to 2CV6, GS, Visa, BX...all of which I've owned at some point in the game, but would run away from them nowadays.

I do like the new Jags, though. Guess I haven't learned anything, really...

[killer]

I do like the new Jags, though. Guess I haven't learned anything, really...

Dear George,

We have had a Jaguar XF since 2010. What an amazing car. We have driven across France and Spain to northern Portugal and back, to the south of France and back at least a couple of times. It is the most comfortable car for long journeys. The thing that separates it from luxury American cars is that it goes round bends and corners with no difficulty.
Since the Tata Steel Corporation of India bought Jaguar from Ford they have allowed Jaguar to reinvent itself. The cars are now what they should have been since its beginnings.

No more cutting corners, no more poor components, just high quality at last. Enzo Ferrari was jealous of the E-Type He would be even more jealous of the new F-Type.

OK, I had to have a new battery in our XF after 4.5 years. It cost more than the battery for a Mini but it is a 6 cylinder diesel engine so it needs a huge battery. It cost just over GBP 100. Nothing tragic there.

[TuuS]

I prefer american built cars, specifically the performance models. I had a beautiful 1994 mustang cobra convertible and I'd dare anyone to compare resale values with me. It cost $26k new, only 1000 made (Indy pace car) and when it was stolen in 2009 there was only one for sale on the entire planet asking a firm $28k. Any other car would be worth 1/10th the purchase price, not higher than the purchase price after 15 years of use.

Most well kept corvettes are good investments too, but if you get the rarest models their values soar. a mint 1967 corvette with the L88 engine option would sell for upwards of half a million dollars. If I was to buy a car today I'd seriously consider the dodge challenger with over 700hp, it would compare to super cars selling for 10-20 times the price and it would hold it's value plus you could have a lot of fun at the drag strip.

Also back in 1990 I was working for one of the major Japanese car makers and they had a special on one of their most popular models for $8990 nicely equipped with automatic, power windows and locks, air cond, and some other nice options that others charged extra for including 4wd. However I priced some replacement parts just to get an idea of how costly it would be to repair. If your switch to lockout the back windows (child safety switch for power windows) went bad that was $158 plus $70-80 labor. If your transmission self destructed (which was known to happen), that was over $4500 plus a few hundred labor. The engine was only available in pieces which was over $7000 just for the bare engine. If you added up the entire care it would have been about 100 times the cost of the car. Of course all parts are overpriced but this type of highway robbery was unique to Japanese cars that were sold cheap so the real profits could come later. In comparison if you had a common chev pickup truck of the same vintage you could buy a remanufactured engine for $600 or a brand new one for $1200. Not just the engine but virtually every part is a fraction of the price, from your brake pads/rotors, fuel injectors, alternators, radiators, pretty much everything.

Of course everyone has their own opinions and I now drive a dodge caravan and a GMC sierra pickup, but I wish I still had my mustang, it never broke down and the only repairs it ever needed was brakes, tires and battery.

I'm seriously tempted to buy one of these...

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2015-d ... -info-news

Admin edit: Changed usage of ethnic slur. Although I am not offended by it (I am one by the way), others might be.

[Norway Pad]

I'm seriously tempted to buy one of these...

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2015-d ... -info-news

Wow, I'm drooling. Knowing that this amount of horsepower will probably put a $150 000 import tax on this car in Norway, on top of the price for the car itself, tells me that there is little likelihood for ever seeing one of those here. At least not before the car gets older, so one can achieve a significant age depreciation of the import tax. Late 1990's Corvette C5s are starting to get good bang for the buck prices here, even if we still talk $40-50 000. Yet another reason for me to miss the US... Would love to own one anyway - we'll see.

[DaKKS]

I'm seriously tempted to buy one of these...

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2015-d ... -info-news

Wow, I'm drooling. Knowing that this amount of horsepower will probably put a $150 000 import tax on this car in Norway, on top of the price for the car itself, tells me that there is little likelihood for ever seeing one of those here. At least not before the car gets older, so one can achieve a significant age depreciation of the import tax. Late 1990's Corvette C5s are starting to get good bang for the buck prices here, even if we still talk $40-50 000. Yet another reason for me to miss the US... Would love to own one anyway - we'll see.

This is why i love having a dual citizenship. I dont have to register my car in sweden. I can just drive it with hungarian plates, for a fraction of the cost as long as its insured, taxed and mot'd in Hungary. Import taxes? Parking tickets? Selfie stick type speeding tickets? Congestion tax? Forget it. Foreign car.

[Norway Pad]

Some guys are lucky.. Unfortunately Norway doesn't allow dual citizenship. I was once moving towards becoming an US citizen, but then I would have had to relinquish my Norwegian citizenship and loose all my earned government retirement benefits. Which could make for a potential low income retirement.. So I abandoned that idea, and I'm stuck in the country with one of the world's heaviest taxation on powerful cars.

[RealBlackStuff]

http://www.udi.no/en/word-definitions/dual-citizenship/

You will not lose your Norwegian citizenship if you have been granted a new citizenship without having asked for it, and, in such cases, you will have dual citizenship. This can happen in some countries, for example because you have married. If, on the other hand, you have applied for or clearly accepted citizenship in another country, you will normally lose your Norwegian citizenship.

Your wife is a US citizen, let her "give" you a pressie...

[Norway Pad]

RBS: Sadly that won't work, as I have to *actively apply* for the US citizenship. It won't be given to me automatically..

The rules are pretty waterproof to avoid any low-tax cars in Norway. Which is logical, of course, otherwise lots of people would have done it as there are huge amounts to save. The only option seems to be to relinquish my Norwegian citizenship, become a citizen of another country with cheaper cars, and move there for good. I tried to do that in the US, but I moved there during the worst downtime around 2008, so a job was impossible to find, and I chose to go back and have my wife move here instead.

I actually a little surprised that Sweden allows foreign licensed cars, DaKKs, if you live and work in Sweden permanently. Even if you are a citizen of Hungary. But it apparently works..

Well, enough of me wasting forum space on ranting about car taxes. We have some benefits in Norway too, so it's a give and take. But it feels d**m unfair when your hobby is fast cars.

[RealBlackStuff]

I find that life is relatively cheap in the US, compared to many European countries.
And being a "legal alien" here (having a green card) allows me to collect my pension taxfree from overseas.
Another good thing (although that widely varies from season to season) is the relatively low fuel price (currently ~$2.50 per gallon, regular).
I remember the good old days in 1968 when a gallon only cost $0.35

[Norway Pad]

The Green Card was the route I took too, but as long as I didn't get a job, it was no future. Me and my wife have discussed going back to the US when we retire, she as a citizen, me with a Green Card, but according to her the self paid health insurance will be a deal breaker. Here we get that for free, even if everything else is more expensive.

That's anyway quite some years ahead still, so things might have changed by then.

[RealBlackStuff]

You're talking about that rotten Obammer-care.
Lucky for me, I hardly ever need a doctor (last time was in 2006 when I applied for a US driving license).
And because I never worked in the US, this stupid plan does not apply to me.
I would have to get US citizenship first to get that forced upon me!
With a bit of luck hopefully the Republicans will squash this utter piece of crap-nonsense before the next election!
People who have worked for a number of years in the US (your wife may have reached the required quota already) will get free Medicare when they are 65 or older.

[Norway Pad]

I don't know too much about the details there, I leave it to my wife to keep track of the US systems. But if you get seriously ill there without health insurance, that can become a financial issue too. So health in general seems to be the deal breaker. I am not sure, but think she mentioned she wasn't eligible for Medicare.

[RealBlackStuff]

Hmmmppff...
Let's get back to cars.
The sportiest car I have driven myself was a red 1960 Chevy Corvette convertible with 4-sp manual and about 310HP.

It belonged to a friend of mine, who actually had three of those!
He let me drive it for the whole summer of 1979, as long as I helped him with an engine-overhaul for one of the others.

After many years of Mazdas, in 1989 I was lured into buying a white Chrysler GTS Shelby Turbo with 5-sp manual and FWD.

HUGE mistake! Mostly because it had a leather interior. Cold in winter, hot in summer, sliding all over the place! NEVER again!
Lucky for me I changed jobs shortly thereafter and one of my new colleagues was so interested in it, that he proposed a swap.
In a straight exchange I got his almost new anthracite metallic 1989 Toyota Camry 2.5 V6 automatic.
In July 1990 I went back to a Mazda 626 and I've been driving Mazdas ever since, until I moved to the US in 2006.

[coolcat37]

My vote goes to Citroën cars with hydropneumatic suspension.

Recent Citroën cars like the C5 II and the C6 are amazingly comfortable. Especially the C6. Whilst riding it you feel like you're gliding on air, like a type of high speed luxurious hovercraft. Also the design of the C6 is noteworthy. The interior is a real eye opener too. A nice package overall.