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Archive for June, 2013

Popular? Mazda3 launched Internationally, So….Yes.

Mazda’s giant killer, the Mazda3, was launched in its new model guise, in London, St Petersburg, New York and Instanbul, earlier this week. Australia didn’t miss out; hosting the launch was Melbourne, ahead of the other countries.

The company’s new design philosophy was clearly on show, with the 3 gaining the bluff and upright nose of bigger sibling, the Mazda6 and has been redesigned from the ground up, adopting Mazda’s award winning “Kodo- Soul of Motion” design theme plus has been granted the full suite of SKYACTIV Technologies. Mazda3It’s said to evoke a sense of forward motion, with sharp edging leading from the front wings into the headlight cluster also sparking a sense of seeing a predatory animal. It’s a bigger car than its predecessor, being 60mm longer, 40mm wider yet sits 15mm lower. The interior has been revamped, with newly developed materials with a carbon fibre look and satin chrome finishes also. A fully integrated “Human Machine Interface”, allowing phone, sms and email access via a 7 inch touch screen is included along with a Heads Up Display.

Engine wise there’ll be two petrol engines initially, with 2.0 and 2.5 litres capacity, with 114kW and 200 Nm of torque or 138kW and 250Nm respectively. Transmissions are yet to be confirmed however, with four out of five Mazda3’s finding a private home, that hardly matters as an incentive but a price drop is sure to reignite its sales candle, with dollars expected to be sub 20K plus on roads.

Mazda3 is currently scheduled for a first quarter launch next year. http://credit-n.ru/zaymi-online-blog-single.html

Map Reading, Seat Position And Other Driving Debates

They say that one of the things that causes the most car-related debate between couples is navigation and map reading. This may have been changed by GPS systems and sat-nav. Possibly, this is one reason why navigation systems tend to come as standard features on an awful lot of new cars coming out these days – it saves marital conflict over map reading.

However, this isn’t the case in our household. And this is not because our Ford has a red-hot navigation system. It doesn’t (and I’m pretty good at reading maps).  What it doesn’t have is memory seats, and the different settings (forward & back, lumbar support and seat angle) are manually adjustable. So the thing that causes the debate is seat position.

The arguments caused by a lack of memory seats are less heated than the ones that stereotypically crop up about map reading. They are more in the nature of low-grade grumblings.

The typical argument about map reading goes something like this.

“You’re going the wrong way, dear,” she says

“No I’m not,” he says.

“You were supposed to turn right at that intersection that you drove past a minute ago.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” He keeps driving in the same direction.

“I did say so!  I told you to turn right at Queen Street ages ago.”

“I didn’t know that was Queen Street? How was I supposed to know that was Queen Street?  Do you really expect me to read every single little road sign?”

“Yes, I do. I would have been able to read it if you hadn’t been driving so fast.”

“I am not driving fast. Why didn’t you tell me that Queen Street was coming up?  You’ve got the map.”

“I’m sure I said to take the next right. There haven’t been any other roads to the right and I thought you had enough common sense to read the road signs.”

“I’m relying on you to tell you which way to turn and when to turn.  Why can’t you do a simple thing like that?”

“I did!  And you’re still going the wrong way!  Why won’t you listen? I had the map here and told you.”  She holds up the map and points to the intersection in question.

“You’re holding the bloody map upside down again! I don’t know why you do that – it drives me nuts and how you can read the thing properly like that, I don’t know.”

And so on and so on, ad nauseam.

935652-woman-reading-map-by-car

Seat position grumbles are less dramatic and usually only take place once in the journey unless one of us is in a very bad mood.

His grumble: “Who’s been fiddling around with the seat position? What have you done with it this time?”

“I moved the seat forward. You know I’ve got short legs and can’t reach the pedals if I don’t.”

“I can’t get behind the wheel properly.  Is that all you changed?”

“I put the seat back up, of course. It’s better for your back if you sit upright.”

“Well, it can’t be good for you, squished up behind the steering column like that. What if there’s an accident?”

“Um, isn’t that why they invented airbags?”

“Hmm.” He adjusts the seat tilt. “Are you sure that that’s all you changed?  I’m sure it feels different from the way I left it.”

“I didn’t touch the lumbar support.  I never touch the lumbar support.”

“Well, it feels funny, anyway.” More fiddling and fine-tuning. “Can you put your seat back? I can’t see out the side with your head in the way.”

The response from me is muttering along the lines of “Well, if you didn’t have your seat back so far, I wouldn’t be in your line of sight.” The journey then gets underway and the grumbling stops.

My grumble when I get into the driver’s seat is the reverse. “You must have arms like a ruddy gorilla.  How do you manage to reach the steering wheel properly from way back there?”

“I like to sit back and relax when I drive.  You look so uptight and tense with your nose just about over the steering wheel like Mr Magoo.”

“It’s a wonder you don’t fall asleep with the seat as far back as you have it.  And then you’ve got the cheek to grumble at the kids for kneeing you in the back. You’ve just about got your head rest up their noses.  I’m sure it’s bad for your back, sprawling like that.”

There are other great driving debates as well, though not all of them happen in my family.  Classics include:

  • Will you stop going around the corners so fast – you’ve got a steering wheel to hold onto.
  • Keep your eyes on the road rather than fooling around with the balance of the audio system.
  • Will you kids stop fooling with the electric windows?
  • Stop kicking the back of my seat.
  • Get your knees out of the back of my seat.
  • Get that dog off the leather seats or he’ll ruin them.
  • Turn that music down – it’s so loud you can’t hold a conversation.
  • Are we there yet?

Any I’ve missed? http://credit-n.ru/zaymi-nalichnymi-blog-single.html

True Road Safety: Where Is The Line Drawn?

130kmhNaturally, as part of my role as a vehicle evaluator, I’m out and about a fair bit. There’s smart road rules, there’s smart drivers (well, a couple….) and there’s just way, way, way, WAY too many bad ones. Australian governments tell us all about road safety, with the focus on all road safety deemed to be speed-centric.

I ask you: what’s truly more dangerous: travelling at 115 km/h on a freeway that is zoned 100 or 110 under sunny blue skies OR driving at late afternoon, mid winter, with cloud cover and rain with no headlights on….with your car a silver or dark colour. What’s more dangerous; driving along a straight, rural road, with clear vision, doing 80 and the road is zoned 70 OR being in a small car, changing lanes suddenly so you’re in front of a B double whilst not indicating then jumping on the brakes?

Today I was driving, in the company of a good mate, an example of Holden’s outgoing VE SS utes, the Z series with the dark grey five spoke alloys; the weather was cold but clear and traffic was moving well in all three freeway lanes. I’m in Speed Killsthe right hand side lane, zoned at 110 km/h and travelling at a tick above that…the middle and left hand lanes were reasonably full and, inexplicably, moving at under the limit. Behind me there’s a flash; thinking it’s a sun reflection off a windscreen, I ignored it. A few seconds later, another. I look and here’s an example of Australia’s Got (No Driving) Talent; bloke gesturing to me that I should move left so he can pass. Completely ignored was the fact that for he to pass me he’d be closer to 120 km/h than I PLUS there was no room at the inn a.k.a the middle lane. Eventually he sidled past, on my left, at least 130 km/h and disappeared. Twenty minutes later, with no variance in my speed by more than a couple of km/h either way, we didn’t merely catch him, we passed him. Two more times, the same thing happened.

On the way back home, earlier than this, we passed a few  Highway Patrol cars, with all but one sitting roadside, with an officer holding a radar. There was also a marked police car ahead of one with a Community Police signage….both of these changed lanes without indicating quite a few times. So while you, I and everyone else is being beaten senseless with the message “Don’t Speed”, there’s other avenues of safety being forgotten, or, possibly, exploited. Let’s not kid ourselves; safety in most states really is driven by revenue and is coated in a sickly sweet road safety sugar to make it easier for the populace to swallow. In real terms, the road toll is fairly static compared to the amount of extra drivers joining the road each year. Let’s also not overlook how many cars there are, on our roads country wide, that are equipped with ABS, airbags and so on. So our roads are becoming more cluttered, the cars we drive are far more safe yet two things stay the Mark Webbersame: we’re being told that speed kills and no one mentions these two words….”driver training”.

If speed kills, there’s an awful amount of ghosts driving cars. If speed kills, then Craig Lowndes, Mark Winterbottom, Mark Webber, etc, must be bloody lucky. What’s that you say, they’re trained drivers? Thank you sir, my point exactly. And then there’s this: http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-news/1000km-at-130kmh–and-still-alive-20130620-2ok2x.html

In Australia’s capital cities there’s plenty of driver training companies; In Sydney, for example, there’s Ian Luff’s Drive To Survive. Brissie has SDT Safe Driver Training. Victoria picks up the Australian Driver Trainers Association whilst companies such as adrenalin.com.au run advanced driver training courses at racetracks, including Perth’s Barbagallo. Says a lot, doesn’t it, that companies such as these have to work over the entrenched attitude the government says we should have whilst forgetting the simple, the basic fact that better drivers drive better…..

  http://credit-n.ru/kredity-online-blog-single.html

Holden Out On Cuts For The Long Term

Today’s (June 18, 2013) announcement from Holden has sent another collective shiver through the automotive fraternity; with the feeling from many that the request for staff (and, allegedly, not including management) to cop a pay cut to reduce costs is a prelude to Holden announcing it will, like Ford, cease local manufacturing. Holden’s chief honcho, Mike Devereux, is quoted as saying that it costs, in Australia, $3750 more to build a car, than anywhere else in the world. The cut for workers, in the two plants Holden operates (Elizabeth in South Australia and Port Melbourne, Victoria), is said to be in the order of up to $200 per week, a substantial dent. It’s in order to continue and reinforce the building base Holden has, but it is more far reaching than that. Should Holden up stumps, it effectively condemns Toyota to do the same, as one local manufacturer simply cannot sustain Australia’s part supply industries. Devereux also said that some workers aren’t being paid what they’re worth, with many at management level not receiving a pay rise for over three years.

As always, there’s two sides to every story; it’s rumoured that some Holden execs that have been with the company for less than two years are said to be on wages of over four hundred thousand dollars. That’s a fair bit of coin, considering Australia’s Prime Minister isn’t being paid much more. Having said that, if an average worker is being asked to cop a pretty decent pay cut and the subsequent adjustment to their living conditions, one would think it’s only fair that a commensurate reduction in wages and lifestyle adjustment be applied to the higher end of the ladder.

Bundled in with all of this is more human cost; around 400 workers at Elizabeth and 100 at Port Melbourne are scheduled to be made redundant, with the company hoping most will be from a voluntary basis. To add to the dilemma is the mooted reduction of automotive manufacturing support, by a half billion dollars, should the current Tony Abbott led Coalition win, as expected, the September Federal election. All politics aside, any reduction in support is a ludicrous idea; what should be scrutinised is Holden’s and the government’s business model. Coming off a loss of $152 million for 2012, it’s all well and good to look at the simplest form of saving money. Holden’s operation structure, its operating costs and just WHY it appears  that Australia’s manufacturing costs are so comparatively high would, on the face of it, bear some deeper investigating.

Some of the blame for this may, in truth, lay within General Motors and Holden; with the rise of Hyundai and Korea, plus the dominance of brands such as Mazda, is it possible that Holden hasn’t reacted quickly enough to change the cars that people once bought to be the cars that people WANT to buy? Is it a form of hubris; Australia’s own, immortalised in the jingle “Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars” felt that people would buy a Holden BECAUSE it was a Holden? Advertising a car as world quality doesn’t necessarily mean that it is world class. The Cruze, as good a car as it is, does fall short against some of its opposition such as the Mazda3 or Hyundai’s i30, for example, and the Commodore can be said to have failed to match the Mazda6 or the i40. Large car sales have fallen, too, leading to Mitsubishi and Nissan closing their doors for local manufacturing, in part. Ford’s recent decision, although not unexpected, has the potential for Holden to  mirror that. Regardless, today’s announcement is something Australia’s struggling car industry both needs…..and doesn’t.

  http://credit-n.ru/oformit-kredit-online.html