Car woes

Very true!

Ugh, Haynes manuals...

I was really glad when I found that the official workshop manual CDs for most Land Rovers have leaked into the wild. You get exploded diagrams as opposed to the "incomprehensible text and a grainy photo which doesn't really show much" of the Haynes efforts!

of course you may Father

I know what you mean about Haynes manuals. That said, I do have a great Haynes Manual Golf GTI t-shirt.

Contrary to what has been said about VW (Polo) above, I must say that we (my wife and I) are very satisfied with our VWs: A 1999 Golf 1.6 (hers) and a 2002 Passat 1.9 TDI (mine). None of them have required more than the normal scheduled services, and the local VW garage is very pleasant to deal with.

Before that I drove numerous Volvos (140 through 460), and was pleased with them as well.

I guess it comes down to proper maintenance

I must admit to being pretty lucky over the years with cars and have owned a few makes (hope this isn't the death knell !!)....probably the most reliable I've had was my last one, Hyundai Coupe...hopefully the VW I've swapped it for is as reliable !!

Being honest though I've always tended to stay clear of italian cars

Simon

Might I tactfully recommend getting rid of it soon then!

My 2001 A6 TDI (mechanically similar and well maintained by my local specialist) has had the following go wrong in the past 12 months:

- Seal on pollen filter housing degraded, causing a slow leak into the passenger foot well, under the carpet, breaking the central locking computer

- Front windscreen wiper spindle seized

- Exhaust pipe sheared off from the catalytic converter housing - new catalytic converter required

- The MAF sensor is on its way out (increasing fuel consumption)

Otherwise it's great. I think that once a car is out of warranty, even if it's well maintained there is still an element of luck. Personally, I'd rather spend a bit of time fixing an older car than suffer the depreciation on a new one. Then I can buy more lenses.

Sorry to hear that, Graham!

The possibility of a leak into the foot well was dealt with through a call from my local VW garage, part of preventive maintenance.

Apart from that, the consumption has not changed over the three years I've owned the car. If anything it has decreased silghtly.

But, as you say, it's down to luck when old cars are concerned (and of course a little TCL).

Saabs can be fun, when they're working properly. My dad has been running a 2006 9-3 TiD (150bhp) as a lease car for the past four years. All was well until it developed an annoying fault whereby the traction control system would go nuts and the car would default to "limp home" mode with the accelerator pedal inoperative and the engine held at 1500rpm. For obvious reasons this led to us delivering it to the Saab garage with the instruction "we don't want it back until you've found the problem and cured it". Turned out to be corroded wiring, which was eventually traced to dad finally admitting that he'd driven the thing through a flood! All in all I'm amazed it's still working really...

The ECU was absolutely stupid though. Traction control failure should not cause the car to go into limp mode, it should just flash up a warning light and disable TCS. That car will cheerfully light up tyres in 2nd gear regardless of whether TCS is on or off, so the whole system is pretty irrelevant!

The most reliable car I've ever owned was a Saab 900 hatch, about '93 - kept it for 10 years and 130,000 miles and virtually nothing needed replacing - odd brake pads, couple of bulbs, one battery, power steering belt at the end. I can't get on with the newer 9-3 body shape (like most modern saloons) as I'm fairly tall and the driving position doesn't work for me (I had a 9-3 TiD for 6 months then sold it after suffering chronic backache). I now have an '05 Megane which I like driving, but it needs regular electrical repairs - plus all four brake discs wore out before 30,000 miles. Won't be buying Renault again.

The toughest car I've had was a '59 side-valve Ford Prefect that I had as a student. I drove it into a pond once, the bonnet was under water up to the windscreen and water got into the oil, but it bump-started and got me home. Apparently it was still running 20 years later.

The driving position suits me fine - the only car which fits me better is my 1996 Discovery which has plenty of headroom. I just wish the Saab was AWD as it has far more power than it can put on the road when the turbo kicks while you're on scruffy tarmac...

The Toyota Sahara (1990 model)no trouble tyres, diesel (turbo), a delight to drive both in city and country, been driving Toyota Land Cruiser since 1975

Thay have proven to be very reliable in all this time,I cracked a head
in my first one, but it was my fault, blowing a radiator hose and not letting it cool down before putting water in.

Subaru Legacy, 5 years and no problems whatsoever. Other than it being quite fast and handling rather well it's probably the most boring car we've ever had. It's my wife's choice, not mine. I drive a ratty old Daihatsu Fourtrack, that is also boringly reliable no matter how much I neglect and abuse it.