Thursday, May 04, 2006 at 23:15
Precisely my point, so why are you looking at a USA/Japanese vehicle.
One walk around and short drive of any of the US built vehicles would be enough to scare you off them (fit and finish, reliability, general lack of use of modern technology, poor handling).
The Japanese build generally good vehicles, but are still struggling with the "international" requirements of the market, versus their own marketing needs (only got to look at some of the disinctly "Japanese" models to undestand what I mean). It's only the foreign arms of the Japanese companies that can re-engineer anything that comes out of Japan (Australia, Toyota Camry), or that make models seperate to the Japanese market (US, Nissan Armada), or gets the vehicles made according to country of destination specifications (Toyota Corolla), that makes them marketable. "Japanese market" vehicles a have a lifespan of 4-5 yrs before they are turned over due to increased tax on ownership. Why would the manufacturers make something that will last 10-15 yrs for their domestic market?
They make it to last for 6 yrs in the average vehicle usage (cf.
grey import Toyota Surf's many problems after a few years).
Europeans, (in particular the French) have a history of making vehicles that are able to take a thrashing and come back for more (Renault 2CV, Peugeot 404), mainly through their political and economic connection with a lot of the North African countries, and the rugged terrain that exists there (not unlike Australia). They generally make them easy to service, if you know what you are doing (there are of course some exceptions).
I still say, think about what you really need, rather than the "keeping up with the Jones" mentality, have a look at a few European vehicles, as a contrast if nothing else, weigh up the 5-7l/100km Tdiesel vs 11-13l/100km petrol (NOT Govt figures, but real day-to-day consumption figures). Over the 1st 100 000km it is about $9000 in fuel saved (at $1.50/l) If you do a few laps of Australia towing a small van and see several hundred thousand km you will end up on your second petrol engine, but still running in your first Tdiesel.
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