OT ICE engined cars to be banned in Netherlands?

On Saturday, 27 August 2016 13:16:11 UTC+1, NY wrote:
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I never check mine. It would be too depressing.

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It's depressing checking the Honda's and seeing how much worse it is in reality it is than the published figures - the gap between truth and marketing hype is bigger than for any other car I've owned. It's still very good in comparison with my 1988 and 1993 Golfs - but then they were petrol rather than diesel which you expect to be better.

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How did you find those Golfs reliability wise ? The yanks find that theirs are pretty poor reliability wise but it isnt clear why that is, whether it is because they mostly don’t get ones made in Germany or what.
And why did you replace the 88 one with the 93 and why did you replace the 93 one with a non Golf ?
I loved my 73 Golf but when I had no choice but to replace it after 40+ years because I was stupid enough not to fix a known windscreen leak until it eventually rusted a hole in the floor and thru the brake line to the back which runs inside the corner of the floor inside the car, I changed to a Hyundai Getz, mainly because it was a very similar car but at about half the price new.
Mate of mine has just got rid of a 97 Polo that had a hell of a lot of very serious problems, including the automatic gearbox and some engine problem unresolved at sale time. The automatic gearbox is surprisingly complicated.
The Getz has never had any warranty problems at all apart from a weird battery fault. That was very different to the Golf which had a few, including head gasket. And quite a few other maintenance problems like distributor rotor, alternator rectifier, bonnet release cable etc, but no serious expensive mechanical problems. Manual tho.

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The 88 Golf (Mark 2) was lovely. Very plush velour seats, shit-hot acceleration when you needed it. I replaced it when it was starting to get a bit old and partly because I could then afford my first brand new car. The 93 Golf (Mark 3) was nice, but somehow didn't have the same luxurious feel to it - and maybe it wasn't a step up from the Golf 2, whereas before that I'd had much smaller Renault 5s so the Golf 2 was a big step up.
Both cars were fairly reliable. The Golf 2 had a carburettor and and automatic choke which once jammed its slow-running control in maximum idle position - embarrassingly when I was stationary in a queue on the M25 and it was difficult to inch forward as the traffic in front moved, with the engine racing at about 1500 rpm all the time. But that was soon fixed, never to re-occur.
The Golf 3 (fuel injected) had big problems with a throttle potentiometer that caused the car very occasionally to stall or dramatically lose power as I was pulling out of a side road into traffic - not fun :-( That took several trips to the VW garage to get them to investigate; to begin with it came back "no fault found". Then after it had been in for several days the third time, the garage mechanic phoned in a state of euphoria when he finally identified the cause. That was a horrendous bill for labour plus about a fiver for the new part, but luckily I could prove that the car was below the cutoff mileage for the warranty when I first reported the fault, so VW paid for the work.
The Golf 2 once flooded: I got into the car after torrential rain overnight and my feet landed in a puddle several inches deep. A drainage channel from the sill below the windscreen down into the wheel arches had blocked with leaves and the water had overflowed down the bulkhead behind the dashboard. That took many days to dry out: I had to remove the housing round the gear lever and unscrew both seats to get the carpets up, put them in mum's washing machine (especially the underfelt which smelled vile) and hang them to dry on the line. For a few days I was driving around with no carpets and only the driver's seat screwed to the floor (no point in doing the passenger seat when I'd only have to remove it again to refit the carpet). After that I've always checked in that drainage sill on all cars I've had, especially in autumn when the leaves are falling.
I found the running costs of the Golf 3 were fairly high (it only did about 32 mpg) so when I was looking to change, a friend at work suggested a diesel Peugeot 306 like his. Having tried a diesel Golf many years earlier, I was prepared for a stodgy unexciting drive, but the Pug had phenomenal kick-in-the-back acceleration which made overtaking easier. I've had another Pug 306 and now a Pug 308, all HDi (diesel) and liked them very much. 45 mpg (the first 306), 50 (the second 306) and 55 (the 308) are not bad, especially as the second 306 had done about 170,000 by the time I sold it and the 308 has already done about 150,000 and I'll keep a while yet.
One interesting thing: many of my earlier cars (including the Golfs) needed replacement clutch after maybe 60-70,000 miles. None of my Peugeots have, and it's not bad to have a car that's done over 150,000 and is still on its original clutch.
I used to change cars about every three years (that's when i sold the two Golfs and the first Pug) but since then I've kept them as long as they remain viable without repeated maintenance costs.
But none of them have had quite the luxury feel of the Golf 2.

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Yeah, likely.
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Interesting. Maybe that was the actual problem with mine, not a windscreen leak. I never had water deep on the floor, just a wet carpet that I never bothered to do anything about, just let it dry out by itself. The Golf was never garaged, lives under big trees and ended up with a massive amount of leaves and debris just under the bottom of the windscreen under the grill in the fixed part of the bonnet.
Still get that with the Getz, but it never produces any wet floor with the Getz.
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So how do you feel about the inevitable Pug quirks that you see with all frog cars ?
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Never needed one with mine and that was in 40+ years. But I don’t live in a capital city so that may be the reason for that. No idea how many miles, the odo failed after about 10 years and I never bothered to fix it.
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That has never been the reason I replaced mine, do all the maintenance myself.
The Beetle that preceded it did have a few maintenance problems, particularly a front wheel bearing that needed replacement but I only kept that for a few years, bought new. I replaced it with the Golf also bought new because I got a huge Alsatian that insisted on having its head out the window on the drivers side and used to slobber down the back of my neck in summer. With the Golf he got his own window and didn’t slobber down my neck anymore.
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The main reason I got the Golf 1 was because the very highly skilled engineer who had the VW dealership demonstrated how well the steering geometry was done by tearing along a road out of town with one wheel in the dirt and jamming on the brakes as hard as he could with no hands on the steering wheel with no effect on the direction the car was headed at all. Very impressive.

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I'm not sure I've seen more quirks or needed more maintenance with the Pugs (and the Renaults I had before the Golfs) that with the Golfs.
Most of the expense of all the cars has been routine wear-and-tear things like tyres, brake discs/pads, clutches (Renaults and Golfs), and for the Pugs, cambelts at appropriate mileage. I sold all the earlier cars before cambelt change became necessary; it's only the second 306 and the 308 which have done high enough mileages (around 120,000) to need new cambelt as preventive maintenance before it snaps and trashes the pistons/valve stems :-) Even the diesel particulate filter and cat on my 308 was to be expected at that age - the DPF should have been done at about 130,000 and no-one told me, so when I started getting the warning light at 155,000 I suppose it wasn't unusual.
The only genuinely unexpected expenses were:
- dirty/worn throttle potentiometer on Golf 3: trivial failure which took a long time for garage to diagnose (or even accept that there was a problem) and would have been very expensive if the warranty hadn't covered it
- two new "fanbelts" (actually just drives alternator and power steering) on second 306; my local garage replaced the first one and failed to spot that the reason for the failure was damaged pulley, so that belt failed about 3000 miles later (*) - and the garage denied all liability and were implacable on that, so I took my custom to other garages for all work and had fanbelt replaced by Pug garage
- clutch hydraulic actuator failed on 308, so couldn't disengage clutch to get car out of gear - embarrassing as it happened when I was lead car at traffic lights so I blocked the junction and couldn't even roll the car back out of the way
(*) I've just looked back in my records. I'd forgotten that it was such a short time. I really should have persisted with the garage because they were negligent in replacing the belt without checking the pulleys were properly aligned and the flanges weren't bent. They said that second failure had bent the flange; the Pug garage said that couldn't have happened, but local garage wouldn't accept Pug garage's report. Tossers.
Now I think about it, I should have been suspicious about their competence when it took them nearly a week to get my car running again after changing the cambelt because they had problems getting the sensor lined up with the belt so it triggered the ECU to inject the fuel at the right time.

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I did see a couple with the boss' Pug I borrowed in the late 60s, forget what they were now, at least the gearshift pattern but other stuff too.
No argument maintenance wise.
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Sure, but I ignore those unless they are worse than normal because those apply to all cars and so arent relevant when choosing a new car.
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I never bothered with my 73 golf.
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I do far fewer miles now I've been retired for quite a while now. Currently just gone past 50Km with the just 10 year old Getz.
Main thing I miss is a comprehensive set of cameras to make it easy to park in very tight spots and to catch those who run into my car when parked. Those mirrors that park flat against the car when you lock it would be handy too. No cruise control either which would also be handy. I keep telling myself that it would be stupid to spend $50K to get that and the low end Hyundais don’t have them even now. That’s why I was asking about the reliability of the european cars again, its mostly those that have that stuff.
No fancy electronic system that auto handles the smartphone etc either, but that would be easy to add.
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I've never go diesel myself tho I have always considered it even when buying the 73 Golf new because some of my mates were into them even at that time.
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I did have a complete set of belts and hoses for the Golf which I kept in the bin thing under the vent at the top of the bonnet. Never needed to use any of them in the 40+ years I still drove it until the floor rusted
Did have quite a few easy to fix things like the distributor rotor, alternator rectifier, bonnet release cable, odo etc. The last two I never bothered to fix.
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Yeah, they certainly proved that.

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I've seen three-speed gearboxes with reverse and first in one vertical plane and second and third in the next plane:
R 2
1 3
Whereas it's normal no to have reverse in a plane of its own and first and second in a plane:
R 1 3
2
I'm not sure how they implemented the safety lock with the first layout to prevent you accidentally going from first to reverse...
Nowadays (and every car I've ever seen from the 1960s onwards) it's universal to have the second layout and extensions of it for successive gears. The only variable is where reverse is: either to the left of first or else the right of top gear.
This causes momentary confusion when my wife and I switch between the Pug and the Honda: my Pug has reverse to the left of first (ie top left) and my wife's Honda has reverse to the right of sixth (ie bottom right). And mine allows you to select reverse while still travelling forwards very slowly (obviously you don't let the clutch up!!) whereas you get a nasty graunching from the Honda unless you are completely stationary. Usually I remember but occasionally when doing a three point turn or reversing into a side road when you need to do it fast, I forget...
I wonder when it became standard to use springs to bias the gear lever into the third/fourth plane. I can remember my dad's Austin Cambridge and Hillman Hunter and my mum's Morris Minor had no bias springs, so you had to consciously move the lever to the correct plane rather then relying on pushing left on a spring for 1/2, right on a spring for 5/6 (if present!) and no pressure either way for 3/4.
Dad had automatics from then on, but mum's Renault 6 in the mid 70s which had a hockey-stick lever coming out of the dashboard had a bias spring for 1/2. And all cars I've ever driven have had them.
I imagine it's one of the things (together with lack of synchromesh on first and maybe second) which would make it that bit harder for a modern driver to drive an older car from the 60s or before.

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Yeah, its rather more common to have it to the right IMO.
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Yeah, that's what I meant, its really only frog cars where that is at all common.
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Yeah, some of the frog quirks are useful, but still are quirks that can be a problem unless you never drive anything else much.
I've always driven plenty of work cars as well as my own so that’s a problem.
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I never did have any of those myself.
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Yeah, that's what I mean about frog quirks. Bizarre.
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It wouldn’t for me but I do like synchro on first and do use it quite a bit.

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Not *that* uncommon. My 88 and 93 Golfs also had reverse to the left of first, and that's where it is on the current Polo http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/assets/common/content/mlp/polo-gp/features/vwpolo%20features%201.jpg
(can't see for the Golf because all the photos in the Golf brochure are automatics or DSG). I think Vauxhall Astra and Vectra have it there too. Of the cars I've driven (mine and various loan cars when my car is in for servicing), I think having it to the right of top gear is probably *less* common nowadays - though my sample size is small!
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Agreed. It was actually very easy to use because the knob was at the same level as the steering wheel so you didn't have to move your left hand further from the wheel to change gear. It had plenty of separation between 1/2 and 3/4 plane. It was a crap linkage under the bonnet, with only a floppy rubber grommet preventing the linkage coming apart (as happened to me when I was learning to drive!).
The Honda Civic and CRV have a lever which moves like a conventional lever but comes out of the dashboard rather than the centre console - again, very nice to use. http://www.honda.co.uk/content/dam/central/cars/crv-2015/honda-cars-crv2015-design-003-16x9.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/c3.jpg
(this shows an automatic but the manual is in the same place)
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Yes to have to treat first as a special case where you can't just move the lever there like any other gear, but instead need to get the engine/road speed synchronised would drive me mad.

On Monday, 29 August 2016 11:07:16 UTC+1, NY wrote:
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Never learned to double declutch? Many cars had no synchromesh on first or second when I wuz a lad. Some vans had no synchromesh anywhere.

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Nope
You can't assume everyone has
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Fortunately, I never had to drive one
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Nor one of them
tim

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Firstly because it's not necessary with any modern car (ie any of those I've driven since I started driving in early 80s or even my parents' cars [off road] before that).
Secondly because if the car has synchromesh, you will be able to engage the gear irrespective of how badly you have mis-aligned the engine and road speeds, so you get no "yes I've got it right / no I've cocked it up" feedback. The only time it matters is when you then let up the clutch after successfully engaging the gear.
Clutchless gearchanges are a different matter - in that case you get immediate feedback as to whether you've got it right, and you increase/decrease engine revs until gear slips in. Some gearboxes (eg my Peugeot, Renault and VW ones) make it very easy; others (eg our Honda, and my dad's old Hillman Hunter) make it very difficult to get it right.
Notwithstanding how easy it is engage the gear, I always try to match the engine speed to the new gear as I'm changing and before I let the clutch up to make the gearchange as smooth as possible.
I once rode as a passenger with someone who took her foot right off the power with every gearchange, changed up/down, let the clutch up on the idling engine and then thought about applying some power. Now that was a jerky journey :-( As she was my headmistress at primary school and she was giving me a lift into town, I couldn't really say anything. Even though I didn't drive at the age of seven (!) I knew enough cars from watching my mum and dad drive and asking them about it, and from making gearboxes in Meccano, to know that when you change gear, if the wheels keep going at about the same speed then engine speed must change - very obvious if you watch the rev counter needle on a car that has a rev counter.

On Tuesday, 30 August 2016 11:44:34 UTC+1, NY wrote:
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Gears in a car gearbox are in "constant mesh". Sliding bevel gears went out in the 1920s. Gear changes are effected by dog clutches in the gear box. The synchromesh is done by little cone clutches on the dogs. Have you never taken one to bits?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_transmission#Synchronized_transmission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
�VoOH06iR0

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As it happens I've never managed to get my hands on one to take to bits, though it would be fun to have a look.
I knew all that you said. When I talk about matching engine and road speed so the gear just slips in, I realise that the relevant cogs are permanently meshed and that I'm simply unlocking one cog (for one ratio) from a shaft and then locking a different cog (for a different ratio) onto the shaft, by means of sliding collars with dog clutches, and matching spring-loaded male and female cone clutches which touch and start to bring shaft and cog to the same speed a fraction of a second before the gear lever is moved slightly further and the dog clutches start to touch and hopefully engage.
When you "crash the gears" it's the dog clutches rather then the teeth of the cogs which are grating. Also, I believe that constant-mesh gearboxes have helical teeth (at an angle to the shaft) rather than flat teeth (parallel to the shaft) so that parts of several consecutive teeth are enmeshed at the same time which spreads the mechanical load over several teeth.

On 30/08/2016 20:20, NY wrote:
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You can hear a straight cut gearbox. Reverse is often straight cut, hence the whine.
Helical cut are quieter, but given that racing boxes are often straight cut, I'm guessing they're less efficient. Don't know about stronger.

On 30/08/2016 20:28, Clive George wrote:
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I thought helical gears were slightly more efficient but the loss in efficiency was from coping with the subsequent side thrust and associated bearing loss.
Hence why Chevron invented his gear.

On 30/08/16 20:28, Clive George wrote:
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Stronger, not less efficient.

On 31/08/16 01:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
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and very noisy.
Whines more than a remoaner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmJH84FnQa8

On 30/08/2016 20:28, Clive George wrote:
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This is an interesting article. http://automotivethinker.com/transmission/straight-cut-gears-vs-helical/