So... what car do you guys drive when not flying?

[jb747]

what brand are an a380 tyres?

Black ones....

 

[JohnM]

Black ones....

The next question will be: does the GT version have low-profile black ones...

 

[coolumbla]

what about the rims?

 

[kelvedon]

Black ones....

apparently there's a fair bit of money in retailing "black ones".

Black Circles sold to Michelin for £50m - BBC News

 

[clazman]

could we add some spinners ?

 

[N860CR]

I've just ordered a new Liberty to replace the lemon Passat. A big step up on the previous model with some very cool new features. Hopefully worth the three month wait.... My fault for wanting the beige seats

 

[Alanslegal]

I've just ordered a new Liberty to replace the lemon Passat. A big step up on the previous model with some very cool new features. Hopefully worth the three month wait.... My fault for wanting the beige seats

I assume the Liberty has EyeSight. We have that on our Forester XT and we really like the adaptive/radar cruise control feature. You set a speed and the car aims to be at that speed - so it will accelerate / brake automatically. You also set the gap/distance you want to have in front of that car and it will maintain that gap, so if the car in front slows down, so will your car (up to a stop if necessary). If the car the speeds up, your car follows until your car hits the maximum speed you set, all whilst maintaining the gap you have set.

 

[N860CR]

I assume the Liberty has EyeSight. We have that on our Forester XT and we really like the adaptive/radar cruise control feature. You set a speed and the car aims to be at that speed - so it will accelerate / brake automatically. You also set the gap/distance you want to have in front of that car and it will maintain that gap, so if the car in front slows down, so will your car (up to a stop if necessary). If the car the speeds up, your car follows until your car hits the maximum speed you set, all whilst maintaining the gap you have set.

Yeah it does. Seems generally quite good. The Passat had radar adaptive cruise that worked on the same concept but without the cameras. It was a good little feature.

The other car is the former Forester and I'll update to a new one soon. I was hoping for a diesel, but for some reason the new Forester diesel doesn't have the EyeSight stuff

 

[JohnM]

I've just ordered a new Liberty to replace the lemon Passat. A big step up on the previous model with some very cool new features. Hopefully worth the three month wait.... My fault for wanting the beige seats

I had the previous model Liberty GT and I was all set to buy the new version until it became apparent that the GT was no more with the new model.

Dang! That 2.5 intercooled turbo was insane!

Changed to an Audi A4 2.0T Quattro. It's good, and hits the same go-specs as the Liberty GT, but I kinda miss the Subie (which is now in the hands of my son).

 

[jb747]

I've just ordered a new Liberty to replace the lemon Passat.

What issues did you have with the Passat?

 

[jb747]

Changed to an Audi A4 2.0T Quattro. It's good, and hits the same go-specs as the Liberty GT, but I kinda miss the Subie (which is now in the hands of my son).

I recently hired a brand new Calais. I hadn't driven an Holden for many years, but I'd have to admit that I expected much more that I got. The Calais was just horrid in almost every way, and I was glad to hand it back.

When having my car serviced recently, I was given a new A4 2.0 Quattro for the day. It was a very pleasant car, with plenty of punch, and nice manners in the bends. It was also no fuss. In fact, it was everything the Calais wasn't.

 

[N860CR]

What issues did you have with the Passat?

Electrical bug from day 1 that VW never managed to fix.

If it was left alone for 4-5 days it would drain the battery to the point you couldn't even open the doors. Within the three year warranty period, it was towed to VW probably 10 times.

Within the last 12 months, the issue grew into something else and the car developed intermittent alternator faults. Twice it shut itself down while driving (including once in the middle of general Holmes drive) due to a perceived alternator failure (which also results in losing power steering etc etc so it was a fairly frightening experience both times).

Each time it went to VW they simply replaced the battery. Their words; "it runs again with a new battery and VW won't pay for us to look at anything else".

As soon as the warranty ran out it became "it's obviously not the battery, they don't fail this often. You can pay us to investigate".

The final straw was the last time it did its little "mid-drive shutdown". The RTA dragged it into the dealership by a tow rope, service department couldn't have cared less and simply said we'll deal with it at some point. I pickup the car a few days later, they say it's fixed, the thing shuts itself down on the drive home.

Needless to say, VW have lost a customer for life. It was a nice car otherwise, just got very sick of having it towed from Mascot whenever I was away for a few days

 

[jb747]

Interesting. Did you ever contact VW direct, or were you only dealing with the dealership? I'd have expected some legal ramifications from this sort of behaviour.

 

[N860CR]

Interesting. Did you ever contact VW direct, or were you only dealing with the dealership? I'd have expected some legal ramifications from this sort of behaviour.

Yep, dealt with VW head office at Chullora at great length. They basically said its onto the dealer to sort it out and the best they could do was "speak to Germany". The care factor was frighteningly poor.

After significant pushing, they agreed to keep fixing it outside of the warranty period, but I figured it was time to cut my losses and dump it. The thought of continuing to deal with it was too stressful. I also had no doubt VW would say "ta daa it's fixed!" And then blame something different when it happens again.

 

[mini2]

I've contacted VW directly in the past when I had an issue with Denlo, needless to say their care factor is approaching 0% to resolve the issue I had.

Can't blame them though when you have heaps of people aspire to own one of them...they will never run out of suckers to buy them lemons.

 

[N860CR]

I've contacted VW directly in the past when I had an issue with Denlo, needless to say their care factor is approaching 0% to resolve the issue I had.

Can't blame them though when you have heaps of people aspire to own one of them...they will never run out of suckers to buy them lemons.

My vehicle broker is actually now refusing to sell people VWs as they were causing too many headaches... Hopefully they'll eventually see numbers drop and work on their service a bit. I'll never try it again though.

 

[mini2]

Which is a pity, when their product works they're great. When they don't, it drains your wallet/mood.

 

[Cossie]

My sister got stung with the DSG transmission problem a while ago with her Golf. VW kept stringing her along until it was out of warranty, then basically said: "bad luck"!

My neighbour has had problems with the DSG in his Polo, like my sister, he will never buy a VW again and will bag them at every opportunity. When we traded in our 2002 Golf a couple of years ago, there was no way we were even going to consider buying another dub.

 

[Alanslegal]

It's negative experiences like the above few examples that I am trying hard to avoid a European vehicle. I use to own an Alfa (coughpiest cars out there), my brother had a BMW and my father currently drives a late model but out of warranty E class - and they all have been headaches. Once I took dad's care to MB and it ended up costing $7K for a standard oil change and a few minor electrical repairs.

I am tempted to get an S3 (and I know JB747 really enjoys his 12 month old car) but I am concerned about long term reliability. I am not a fan of replacing vehicles every few years as I know I won't drive much, it will be kept in as new condition, always garaged and only hand washed by me - so will be pretty much be brand new. Plus cars are depreciating asset etc. But I keep on hearing stories/experiences of electrical faults (warning lights come on so regularly, its like a flashing christmas tree) and they cost an arm and leg. A friend of mine had an air conditioning switch fault on his very low mileage M3 and BMW wanted $1400 to fix it. He googled M3 America and the advice there was to buy a $5 switch and DIY, that solved the problem for $1,395 less than what BMW wanted to do.

European cars are sooooooo good value if you buy it brand new in 2015 (VW less than equivalent Toyotas etc) but they make all the profit once the warranty runs out and you need a 2nd mortgage to rectify any faults or just private sell the vehicle for 25% of what you bought it for, three years later.

 

[jb747]

Perhaps I've never kept them long enough, but I've never had any issues with any of my German cars.

A acquaintance has a number of very flash machines...and his day to day runabout is a Gallardo. When its alternator failed, the dealer wanted about $8000 to replace it. As it shares the engine with an Audi, he got one from them for about $1500. But, he kept the old one, and a local electrical bloke was able to repair it for under $100.