Our "own" car reviews

While I was getting my 60k mile service done at the local Honda dealership today, I got to talking with one of the salesmen about the new Civic Si's. Every time I'm there the salesmen always think it's the perfect time to buy a new car, but whatever, I didn't buy anything or even let them run my credit. I was stuck there for a few hours, so it was no skin off my back when the salesman really wanted me to drive the new generation Si.

They had several to chose from, a couple coupes and a couple sedans. This white coupe was probably the easiest to get to, so I took it for a spin.




I'm still not sold on the exterior styling. It's grown on me a little, but I still think my car is far better looking in every way.

The Good:
-It was pretty comfortable. The seats are not as heavily bolstered as my car, so it felt a bit less "sporty" when you're strapped in, but I imagine it would be better for longer journeys.
-The throttle mapping is much better on this car than the 2006 Si. On my car it's almost an on-off switch. It's nearly impossible to keep the RPM's steady in first gear in my car, but in this it was no problem. Very smooth and easy to drive.
-The steering and brakes are both still exceptional, imo.
-The interior is a bit more futuristic with all the displays in the upper instrument panel.

The Bad:
-The interior is horrible, imo. The styling and materials leave a lot to be desired. I thought my Civic's interior was boring, but at least it wasn't this bad.
-I didn't care for the steering wheel for some reason. The two top spokes have a wide flat section that bothered me and it didn't feel like a leather wrapped wheel, it felt artificial.
-The clutch is way too light. Maybe I'm just use to heavier clutches, but this was strange and bothered me way too much. Wearing my slightly heavy boots, I needed only to rest my foot on the clutch and it would slam flat to the floor.
-On the left side of the speedometer is a Vtech gauge. At first I thought that was a nice touch, but then I realized that this car might have turbo envy and was trying to compensate. What exactly is the Vtech gauge suppose to measure? How many RPM's you're at in the Vtech range? Isn't that what the tachometer is for?

Some pics taken from the internets:




Overall, just like the entire 9th gen Civic family, it's a disappointment even when compared to it's predecessor. Compared to cars like the newest Hyundai's, the new global Focus, and even the Chevrolet Cruze, it's outclassed in many ways. I feel sorry for Honda, they're still riding on the coattails of past success and their products are quickly losing ground to compitition that couldn't dream of matching Honda quality not too long ago. This was a very easy car to pass on.
 
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2013 Lexus GS350.

My first impression: The cars front end looked really unique, and sporty, unlike the previous generation's round "safe" front end. The side profile of the GS looked as though it was taken from a Hyundai Genesis. My test car was a Riviera Red with a beige interior by the way.

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Interior: Was very different from what they had in the previous years. More BMW cues, than Lexus original styling. Steering wheel had a good diameter and quality feel to it. Could have made the Lexus logo way smaller though. Quality of materials were amazing I had to say.

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Driving Experience: Something went wrong when I was test driving the car as I put on the blinker and it never turned off until a good 3 miles. But the power was just wow. Not what I expected. The loud growl from the car as you stepped on the gas with the sport mode engaged. Something I could quite get used to, but steering feel was a little numb, but I liked the moderate lightness to it compared to what I'm used to.

My big problem is that the GS doesn't have a pass through. Every other car in its segment has a foldable seat. But that's just me cuz I go snowboarding and I'm too cheap to buy a ski rack, instead I just fold the seats down and slide my board in.

But all in all, pretty good car for what it is. Steep 60k price tag though, but I'm sure you can get a CPO in a few years for those can wait.
 
It looks very good, to be honest. But at the end of the day, I'd still opt for a 5-series.
 
Lexus never caught on here, because despite the different brand name everyone simply considers it a Toyota.

To buy one over here, you must consciously decide, that you don't want a Mercedes, don't want a BMW, don't want an Audi, don't want a Jaguar but that you want an expensive Toyota. It doesn't help, that Lexus was originally created for the American market and not for the more demanding European market.

Things would maybe be different, if Lexus had any technologically or other advantage over their competitors. But neither are their cars better, nor are they particularly pretty. They also still lack a brand identity, that goes like a red line from the days of the LS400 until today.
 
Correcto.

Yes, that or your father/brother/brother-in-law/boss has a Toyota dealership and you get a hell of a discount :p Probably the biggest part of people driving around in Lexuses here, are in some way related to a Toyota dealership.

In the same way, that most drivers of Chryslers or Jeeps here are in some way related to a Chrysler dealership.
 
Things would maybe be different, if Lexus had any technologically or other advantage over their competitors. But neither are their cars better, nor are they particularly pretty. They also still lack a brand identity, that goes like a red line from the days of the LS400 until today.

The way I see it, every Lexus ever made is a copy of something German. The original LS was a W140 S class, the original IS was an E46 3 series, the RX is an X5, etc. The american market doesn't seem to care as much about brands, as evident by the way GM used the classic Pontiac LeMans nameplate on a Daewoo-built Opel Kadett E. :lol:
 
I know that most people here don't care about "boring" vans, but it's something I geek out about mostly because my work over the last few years required me to spend several hours per day behind the wheel of one. Yes, I used to be a White Van Man. There are millions of vans of this size on the roads in Europe so chances are at least a few of the drivers frequent Finalgear. :)

For the longest time the company runaround was a 1996 Toyota Hiace. It was tired, rusty, rattly and noisy. It also had zero in the way of equipment. It never gave us any problems whatsoever, but it was getting a bit worn.... not to mention rusty. I don?t think it had seen the business end of a rustproofing gun, ever.

Enter the replacement: a 2012 Renault Trafic. The trim level is "Blonde" which I think is French for "Alright, we know the model is a bit long in the tooth so here are some nice options for free". :p I had originally been looking at 3-4 year old used ones until we discovered that you can have a brand new bottom feeder model for not much more than slightly better equipped second-hand examples with 50 000 km on the clock.

My personal wish list for the replacement workhorse was pretty simple, and almost all of it came true.

- Front wheel drive for better snow traction when unloaded.
- Better driver legroom than a Volkswagen Transporter.
- Rear doors, not a hatch. Hatches just get in the way when you're loading things by forklift.
- Central locking, beacuse walking around the thing locking every door with the key gets tedious fast.
- Air conditioning, because cars without this should be banned from public roads. Even in Finland.

I would also have wanted a sliding door on the left side, but you can't have everything.

Being a pretty basic model it also has unpainted bumpers and side cladding. This is a good thing on a vehicle that's going to be used for work. Color coded plastic looks better but even the smallest of scratches show up immediately. It also has a diesel powered Webasto heater which pretty much is necessary on a modern diesel when the mercury drops below -10C or so. German cars don?t have these as standard, and it shows every winter. 50K eur VWs and Audis with cardboard taped to the front. It?s sad.


So what about the Trafic then?

Well, it's been around for the better part of a decade now, and it has two identical twins badged Opel Vivaro and Nissan Primastar, respectively. All of them are made in the same Renault factory in the UK. If you're looking at buying one, just go to all three dealers and see which one gives you the best deal.

I don't have any expectations that it will be as trouble free as the Toyota, which required nothing except oil, a timing belt and a bulb or two over the 7 years we had it. The Trafic and its siblings has a history of gearbox problems, but being a 10ish year old design one would hope that the kinks would be ironed out by now.

Of course, not everything on it is 10 years old. The engine is a recent two-litre dCi turbodiesel co-developed by Renault-Nissan, and it's mated to a six speed manual with tall enough gearing to shut the engine up at highway speeds. It develops a "meh" 90 horsepower but I can't say it needs any more, at least unladen. It pulls nicely from low revs and moves the Trafic along with seemingly zero effort up to 80kph or so. I actually haven?t had it over 80kph myself yet even.

The driver's workplace is pretty spartan compared to a passenger car, but everything has been thought out. The dashboard has a cubbyhole big enough for a wad of A4 paper. There are cupholders that double as cell phone holders on either side of the dashboard. The door pockets on both sides are big enough to fit a big drinking bottle and hold it in an upright position. The glovebox is cooled. I?ve never been a fan of dashboard mounted shifters, but this one actually works well.

The dealership demonstrator I drove earlier was equipped with GPS, in the form of a Renault Radiosat unit. It was essentially a normal head unit with a bigger display and Tomtom built in. When you turned the ignition on, you were greeted by the Renault badge followed by the Tomtom splash screen. It then threw you straight out into a normal Tomtom map view with some radio channel info and whatnot scattered across the bottom of the screen.

My first reaction was, naturally, to touch the screen to figure out how to work the Satnav, but to no avail. There was no touchscreen. Instead they had provided you with a little Tomtom badged remote control hidden in a cubbyhole. Entering addresses into it reminded me of programming a late 80's VCR. While driving.

The headunit also had Bluetooth functionality which after lots of button-pushing and even resorting reading the manual decided to respect my authorita and pair with my iPhone. I found the sound quality to be good, both for phonecalls and audio. The UI however was horrible.

Our own Trafic has the basic radio which means no bluetooth, no GPS and a smaller display. This is a good thing. It's a lot easier to use since you have the same number of buttons, but one third the features. What it does have is an analog input for hooking up your music player or cell phone of choice. The input comes in the form of two female RCA jacks in the cubbyhole on top of the dash. I went to our friendly local electronics store to acquire a short 3.5mm-to-male-RCA cable, but it turns out that such a thing doesn't exist. Anywhere. In the world. Leave it to the french to choose exactly the type of connector which there aren't any cables for. :D

The most interesting thing is, of course, how it drives. And that, it does. Really well. I haven?t even tried to compared it to more upscale offerings from VW or Mercedes since they?re in a totally different price range, but I can?t find anything to complain about. It?s pretty quiet, comfortable, has a nice combination of engine and gearbox. It moves its own weight effortlessly around town. The seating position and all round visibility is excellent for a vehicle of this type. Everything feels reasonably solid and the doors close with a satisfying thunk.

I only really have two complaints so far. The steering is a bit heavy and the feel is a bit muddy around the center, and the windshield sprayer seems to suffer from a prostate problem. Both Trafics I?ve driven had these issues so I guess it?s normal.

I gues some pictures are in order. I didn?t take any of my own because our Trafic is wearing company livery. This is its identical twin, which still is for sale on the dealer's web site. Same color, same interior, same options. Same hubcaps even.

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Sweeeet! I love vans! I want some of those cubbyholes.
 
Sweeeet! I love vans! I want some of those cubbyholes.

This. I'm a sucker for stuff like this. The van looks nice Perc, odd that there's no door armrests though. :)
 
What it does have is an analog input for hooking up your music player or cell phone of choice. The input comes in the form of two female RCA jacks in the cubbyhole on top of the dash. I went to our friendly local electronics store to acquire a short 3.5mm-to-male-RCA cable, but it turns out that such a thing doesn't exist. Anywhere. In the world. Leave it to the french to choose exactly the type of connector which there aren't any cables for. :D

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I think I have about 5 of those, from 50cm to about 10m lying around :)

I had the Opel version of this van rented when I moved a year ago. It was pretty weird to drive, since I'm used to automatics, a bit more power and a much lower driving position, but I did OK. We managed to load a pile of stuff into it that looked about 3 times larger than the van itself, and drove it 60km with no problems at all. And yes, another thing I distinctly remember is that the cupholders were positively huge :)
 
One of the greatest driving fun I ever had, was in a worn-out VW T3.

The thing about vans is, though, that after only 10,000 km they will look like, as if a bunch of social misfits have lived there for years, creating havoc. All the vans I have driven so far (including VW LT, Mercedes Transporter and Ford Transit) smelled terrible of cigarettes and made a completely wobbly and worn-out impression on me. They are indeed working horses and they smell that way.

Also an important point for me was, that none of those vans offered a satisfying seat adjustment for people of my size, which led to a very unhealthy sitting position. Still you were able to do 160 km/h in those rolling swing boats even when fully loaded -- which was rather frightening, because braking wasn't exactly their strength.

I am a strong supporter of limiting them to 120 km/h.
 
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This. I'm a sucker for stuff like this. The van looks nice Perc, odd that there's no door armrests though. :)

Could it be because the windows come down so far that the window "sill" is the armrest?
 
Yeah I think the sill is intended as armrest. Of course professional drivers should have both hands on the steering wheel... ;)

I like the effort they have put into diversifying the different models from each other.


 
If they don't ship to you, there MUST be european sources for these. You trip over them here in any Fry's or Radio Shack.

The cheapest source for this kind of cables (and adapters, and much more of the general sort) over here are music instrument stores. They usually have shelves of this stuff to sell at a good price with guitars, keyboards and other expensive things. Much cheaper than electronic stores or even Amazon.
 
This type of thing is often labled as a "mp3 player cord" or "mp3 player adaptor" because they are commonly used to connect mp3 players to mixing boards, car stereos, home stereos, etc.
 
I needed the cable to be 15cm at most and all I could find in town and on sites like dealextreme were 1.5m ones. Couldn't even find any on eBay. Figures that you'd find plenty of sources online for me, though :D

The window sill is the armrest, yes. At least for a tall person like me. There's a proper fold-down one on the right side but it's way too low for me. Other than that, the seating position is good. For example, I've driven a couple of T5 transporters and it's completely unusable for any length of time because there just isn't enough legroom. I know VW sells a replacement interior wall that allows you to to move the seat further back but is proper ergonomics in the standard version really too much to ask? :(

And AFAIK, the only thing that differentiates the Renault from the Nissan from the Opel on the inside is the airbag cover. :lol:
 
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Who wants an armrest? Van drivers will always put their arms out the window anyway, even if they were given an alternative armrest :p

I too love commercial vans, sometimes I wish I had a job that required me to drive one. I want to have various documents and tabloid newspapers on my dashboard too! I've always liked the Trafic, the quirky styling is very unique, with that hump in the driver's cabin. They're much nicer than the default Hiace everyone has in that class of van here, which is just a rectangular prism with wheels.
 
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Dunno why they need that round thing either; one arm hanging out the window with a fag in it, the other holding the phone up to their ear. :dunno: :p
 
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