[OT] Prius bashing

[Huge]

Phew. I thought one of us was going bonkers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The thing is you simply carried a screwdriver and a set of feeler gauges with you in the glove box..and a spare set of points usually. Less than

3 minutes at the roadside usually.

[John Rumm]

Well they are.... just not in a good way! ;-)

[Adrian]

That's the key, as far as I'm concerned. Don't like having techonology around that I can't understand / fix. The Merc (and the RAV4) both fall into that category.

I'm hoping that the Minor is sufficiently like my old Spridget that I can find my way round the basic servicing - and my expert friend up near Killarney has promised to help with all the other stuff...

Yes - I was thinking about that. Did the conversion to electronic on an old Lada (don't laugh - when you get a redundancy payment of £600 and they take the company car away there aren't too many options open !) - and it made a great difference to the starting / running. Didn't stop the body from rotting - - but I guess that's asking too much

'Twould certainly save the readjustment of the timing on such a regular basis...

Opinion seems divided on the Owners Club forum - seems to think that cold starting isn't that big an issue with the Moggie - and I guess that you just include a timing check with the other routine 'oiling and greasing' tasks...

Regards Adrian

[Dave Plowman (News)]

On my P6 3500 which was the last car I had with points, it was a once a week job setting the dwell angle if you wanted to keep it at peak performance. Fitted a Luminition kit and gave myself some more time for the Sunday papers...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That might be a difficult choice.

[Adrian]

I had a very similar experience with a 1.8 VW Golf. Turned out to be a blocked vent-hole in the petrol filler cap..... eventually !!

Regards Adrian

[Julian]

So, better than the Prius then? And I bet you didn't pay more for it than 2 months worth of depreciation for the P... I'm sure we live in a land of make believe reference the 'green' hype surrounding these new vehicles.

Julian

[Dave Baker]

We've had debates about this sort of thing on uk.rec.cars.maintenance a couple of times and my opinion FWIW is that much of the 'progress' in cars over say the last 25 years has been retrograde. I have no doubt that handling, ergonomics, comfort, safety has generally improved but all the added complication has added weight and cost and use of resources with no real net improvement in fuel consumption. Owner servicing and repairing is almost a thing of the past because no one understands what the hell any of the bits under the bonnet do anymore.

The average hatchback now weighs almost 50% more than its 1980 predecessor and the one thing physics tells us is you can't shift extra mass from A to B without incurring a fuel penalty. As a result the most economical cars I've owned have been old, light ones with simple carburetors. The Polo mentioned above which averaged 40 mpg although I could get 50 mpg if I wanted to drive sedately and next best was a 1983 Metro even though I modified that fairly outrageously with a 1380 engine, big valve ported head, LCB exhaust manifold and straight through system and a rally camshaft. It had 40 bhp at the wheels as standard and 84 bhp on the same rollers when I'd finished but it still averaged 35 mpg over 20,000 miles despite getting the arse thrashed off it nearly everywhere I went. My 1983 Astra GTE with a simple Bosch L injection system averaged 31 mpg and my current 2.0 Focus with 20 years of extra technology inside averages exactly 30.

I think modern engines are generally somewhat more economical per bhp but all the extra weight exactly negates that.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. We use to think MG Midgets were marvellous cars.

My wifes ex-car..Fiat Punto - out performed a Midget in *every* respect.

[Doctor Drivel]

Please eff off as you are a worthless troll.

[Doctor Drivel]

You have no idea how the Prius works. It is "simpler" than a normal car. They also drive like a dream.

[Doctor Drivel]

You are, he already is.

[Doctor Drivel]

You have been reading the Torygraph again.

[Julian]

Nah, what about the fun to be had trying to get the rear end to step out of line on wet roundabouts?

Julian.

[Adrian]

Doctor Drivel ( [e-mail]) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

if you think that

Certainly I think I was only dreaming about any connection from the steering wheel to the front wheels on the one that I drove - although the noise levels and poor ride would certainly have woken me up in short order.

[Doctor Drivel]

You stop telling yourself lies.

[Julian]

Can you help me understand how it's "simpler" please?

I knew next to nothing about the P, so looked it up here:

looks an effing complicated thing to me compared to engine-clutch-gearbox of a normal car.

Also that Atkinson cycle engine needs replacing with a Diesel.

Julian.

[Andy Hall]

Actually no. I don't buy any newspapers. It's still a non-issue, though.

[Doctor Drivel]

Do not tell porkies.

You simple people like that would be the case.